Strollerderby : hospital

Home Birth: A Right or a Must?

JeanneSager — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:38:00 GMT

I wasn't surprised to read Melanie Reid's assumption that home birthing moms are all sandal-wearing hippie freaks (OK, I added that last part). It's the way a lot of people look at women who decided to deliver a baby at home. That's not to say I agreed with her.

But even with her narrow description of the type of woman who decides to give birth at home, Reid's piece in the Times of London this week hit upon some pretty shocking numbers: home birthing is on the rise after decades of decline, but so too are the numbers of people pushing to make home birth THE way to give birth.

And that, I have to admit, I'm not kosher with.

Because for all the wonderful things that home birth offers, and all the reasons I think it should be available to any mother who wants to try it, the one thing I have heard from most moms who have actually given birth at home is that what empowered them to do it was knowing the hospital was just a phone call - and an ambulance ride - away should they need it.

I'm not sure if Reid has met your average home birther, to be honest. She calls the countries where home birthing rates are low as the "sensible" ones, and calls hospitals"the only intelligent, progressive, logical place to give birth." Ask your average home birthing advocate, and she will actually tell you hospitals ARE progressive, intelligent, logical places to give birth - if you need them. The truly sensible home birthers decided to make the choice based on medical assessments, which you very well might call progressive - considering back in the day there was no doctor checking for fetal distress before a woman on the prairie gave birth in her house. If the hospital becomes necessary, the sensible homebirthers say OK, and get there . . . pronto.

As our own home birthing Strollerderby writer Madeline Holler pointed out in her Babble essay on the topic, when she asked her midwife all the what ifs, the dangerous ones pointed to a trip to the hospital - no matter what:

What if the cord slips out before the baby? (We go straight to the hospital.) Bleeding? (Hospital.) Premature labor? (Hospital.)

But, as Reid explains, there's a difference between helping women to realize their dreams of a homebirth and actively advocating we all head in that direction. Wales actually put out a target of having at least ten percent of women give birth at home (this was in 2002, and their target year was 2007 - they're two years past and nowhere near it).

Why?

Because for all its advantages (and there are plenty - read Madeline's essay, she's been there, done that, and can explain them much better than a hospital birther like me), the hospital birth remains its back up because it has something a home can't have: the means to deal with complications. Midwives have modern medical training and are fantastic for your average birth, but outside of a hospital setting, if something DOES go wrong, where do they send you? You got it.

Which means pushing women to have a homebirth, rather than simply accommodating those who want to give it a go, does indeed put us back toward the dark ages. It means putting more women at risk, more babies at risk. The reason a select few women give birth at home in countries like the U.K. and the U.S. is not only because, as Reid claims "We're squeamish. We are hardwired to go to hospital and have our babies there. It's what we do. It's in our modern DNA."

It's because that's a better option for a lot of women. Not all. But a lot. Women like me who had to have pitocin adminstered because my daughter just WOULD NOT come out. Or women like my friend whose son had been improperly measured by her midwife and came out with shoulder distortion because he was just too darn big for her tiny frame. It's better for women with pre-existing conditions, babies with elevated heart rates.

Pushing for the opposite, pushing women to return to their homes, to take away their access to the modern advances of technology heightens the risks for women, gives insurance companies the excuse NOT to cover services and demeans the needs many women experience during labor and delivery. So some women can do just fine in a birthing pool at home. So some women make it through balancing on a ball in their bedroom. Not all of us can.

Very simply: it's one thing to chose a home birth. It's another to get the most out of home birth.

Image: TrueBirth

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Homebirthing Advocate's Baby Dies During Homebirth

Brett Singer — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 12:00:00 GMT

Janet Fraser is a big advocate for homebirth. She is described as "one of the principals behind the homebirth organization Joyous Birth," and goes so far as to call C-sections and episiotomies "birthrape." "I don't care if you don't like the word or the idea," she writes in an article on the site. "Survivors are angry and we are starting to talk about it."

Sadly, Ms. Fraser lost her baby during a recent homebirth. One site says that she had been in labor for "several days" at her Australian home. The Age had published an interview with Fraser a week before, in which she stated that she planned to deliver "the baby at home without an attending midwife," prompting The Australian College of Midwives to say that she "recklessly" promotes "free-birthing," which is where the mother gives birth alone, according to London's Daily Mail. (If that's not a good description of free-birthing, let me know and I'll update this article.)

The Age reports that police are investigating the newborn child's death. At press time authorities were unsure if the baby died after delivery or was stillborn; in the latter case, there is no autopsy.

It's tremendously sad when this happens of course, no matter where the birth occurs. It never occurred to my wife and I to have a homebirth, but of course millions of people do it and everything turns out fine. Medpie offers some statistics that are alarming, such as one study that found "an infant mortality rate of 2.2 per thousand for home births and 0.7 per thousand for hospital births in Sweden." They interpret these numbers as saying that "having a home birth resulted in a preventable death of the infant in one out of every 666 cases," which they call "not a reassuring number." But again, I'm not trying to say that homebirthing is automatically a bad idea. It's a choice, one that should be taken very seriously.

The real problem with Fraser's views isn't the views themselves but the way she expresses them. She's clearly angry, and may have reason to be. But as with those who are strong proponents of breastfeeding, it's better to advocate rather than attack anyone that may do things differently than you do. C-sections are sometimes medically necessary. Is that a "birthrape"? The rest of the site appears to be equally high in volume, such as this page about C-sections which makes the claim "The fact is that surgery is a suboptimal way to be born and that most surgeries are not for evidence based reasons," (emphasis not added), and advises mothers to "Put your anger where it belongs - with your surgeon." Because yelling at your doctor is an excellent way to get better healthcare.

With the obvious tragedy of what happened to Ms. Fraser's baby, it seems uncouth to really go after her with the same level of vituperativeness that she displays on the Joyous Birth site. And one sad event does not mean that every homebirth is a bad idea. But it seems fair to take a moment to suggest that the best course of action, when lives are at stake, is to take a deep cleansing breath and consider all of your options, rather than act out of anger or any sort of revolutionary zeal.

Source: medpie.com, others

Image from here

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Family Awarded Millions For Circumcision Mistake

Brett Singer — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:00:00 GMT

I know there are lots of people out there who regularly scream about how trial lawyers are destroying the world through lawsuits. And doctors are having trouble keeping up with their malpractice insurance payments. But here's a case where I think you'll agree the award isn't enough.

Four years ago, a boy had part of his penis cut off during a circumcision. The part could have been reattached if his pediatrician had acted quickly enough to do so, according to the plaintiff. A Georgia jury agreed and awarded $1.8 million to the boy and $500,000 to his mother. Their names are being kept private, but the doctors' names aren't. They are "Haiba Sonyika, the obstetrician who performed the circumcision, and Cheryl J. Kendall, the pediatrician who treated the child later." The hospital was not found to be at fault.

See, this is a big screw-up, especially the part about the pediatrician not doing enough to re-attach the, um, piece. This is assuming that the jury's verdict is accurate; I don't know the specifics of the case, so I'm going by the article I read.

I'm always curious how a jury comes up with an amount of money in cases like this. This time, the mother received $500,000 for psychotherapy, and the $1.8 million for the boy "was based on a per-day formula for the child's life expectancy."

The attorney for the plaintiffs, David J. Llewellyn, "has been representing victims of wrongful circumcision and genital injury since 1995." So calling him "some dickhead lawyer" isn't an insult. (Sorry. But sometimes they make it so easy.)

Also interesting was the defense team's strategy of loading the jury with women. Another attorney for the plaintiff, Craig T. Jones, thought this wasn't going to work. "I figured if you have one man on the jury, he can explain to the women -- if they don't know -- how important a penis is to a man's self-image." Yeah, even if they don't, I would say cutting off anything that you weren't supposed to during an operation is a bad idea.

Source: Law.com

Image: SXC

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From Playboy to Medical School: Jenny McCarthy Now a Doctor

JeanneSager — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:01:00 GMT

Love her or hate her, former Playboy Bunny and Singled Out host Jenny McCarthy is donning a white coat for her new role: doctor. Her voice for the fight to cure autism has earned McCarthy her medical degree from Harvard Med.

The announcement comes just as McCarthy's fifth book, co-authored with autism specialist Dr. Jerry Kartzinel, hits shelves. The work behind Healing and Preventing Autism and McCarthy's extensive research of the subject was subject of a face-off with science editor Jeffrey Kluger this week in TIME Magazine.

But it's that work that has earned McCarthy the attention of Harvard Med, one of the most respected institutions in America. They've decided to grant McCarthy the degree not as an honorary title but with full credentials. She will still have to pass the boards in order to actually practice medicine.

Does the Harvard Med. seal of approval change your opinions of McCarthy?

Image: Amazon

Parents Say Hospital Took Son's Organs Without Consent

JeanneSager — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:18:00 GMT

A set of distraught parents say their son should have survived surgery after a snowboarding accident, but he was suffocated by healthcare workers so they could take his organs.

Pretty heady charges, especially for a hospital - you know, the people who take an oath to "first do no harm."

Although there isn't enough information out there to tell whether the hospital is actually guilty of suffocating Gregory Jacobs, the debate over whether the hospital had rights to move in and take his organs is the one parents need to focus on. Jacobs' parents say the hospital moved in to take his organs without their consent. The hospital won't comment on pending litigation.

Should we as parents have the final say?

Parents are understandably devastated after the death of a child - and often in no positition to debate whether they want to turn their child's body over to a doctor with a knife. But after death, time is of the essence. Most organs must be harvested and used within six to seventy-two hours of death. Organs are needed from kids - for kids - because they're the right size for another child's body (think about it, you can't put a 50-year-old man's heart in the body of a sixteen-month-old - the chest is just too darn small), but a significant amount of kids still die because the pediatric population of organ donors is limited.

Our kids are our kids. I can't imagine ANYTHING as bad as losing them, but if it's already happened, I'd like to think I'd have the bigger picture in mind. If I lost my child, I could still save someone else from that same pain.

New for Mom: Spa Treatments on the Maternity Ward

JeanneSager — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:55:00 GMT

This might make even the die hard home-birthers opt for a hospital delivery. A new service is making the rounds of maternity wards in the Twin Cities to "mother" new moms with massages and spa treatments.

Launched last year by a mother of three and former TV producer, Go Home Gorgeous is an attempt to give new mothers a jump on recovery from delivery. And did me mention they do massages?

Business owner Rachel Swardson Wenham says after her giving birth to her third child, she was exhausted (sound familiar) and couldn't summon the energy to look forward to going home with a newborn to two toddlers.

"I looked at my swollen legs, my dry skin and was startled by how old my bulbous veins made my hands look. I looked terrible and felt awful. Additionally, nothing about my environment was very healing in a comforting sense. I craved hydration, soothing music, aroma, and someone to tell me it would be okay. I didn't want to just leave the hospital, I wanted to go home gorgeous."

They probably can't do much for the swollen legs. And the stretchmarks are here to stay. But who wouldn't want a little pampering after thirteen hours of contracting followed by forty-five solid minutes of pushing? The pain of childbirth isn't equal for everyone, but it leaves no one looking or feeling their best. We all share that same wan look in the first picture of mom and baby.And with an increased push to keep babies in the mother's room at all times to promote better breastfeeding, it's all exhaustion from there on out.

The way Wenham sees it, it doesn't have to be that way. Let Dad take care of the baby for a forty-five minute message. Get a facial while the pediatrician is taking a look-see at the newborn. And you never have to leave the hospital.

Services run from $45 to $139 (pretty standard spa prices - and that's when you're going to them rather than them coming to you). So would you take them up on it?

Image/Source: MSNBC

Should You Take A Risk on Orgasmic Birth? (Orgasmic Birth Video included)

Cole Gamble — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 18:00:00 GMT

The other night I caught a 20/20 (yes people still watch 20/20) on Orgasmic birth. Having read Babble, you’re probably aware of orgasmic birth. If not, here it is: orgasmic birth is pretty much what it sounds like, having orgasms during the birth process. You know, instead of pain. Just you and your partner, making out in a kiddy pool in your living room until you climax the kid right on out. Sounds fantastic, sign me up. Makes sense, the female parts the baby passes through are the same that got stimulated to make the baby in the first place. One problem though: how do you turn a process that causes the worst pain ever for 99.999999999999999% of the female population into the most sensual and pleasant?

Fairy Dust and Unicorn Wishes?

Well no, but the expert on the segment said the key to having an orgasmic birth is to completely reimagine your concept of pain. You see, apparently if we expect pain, as is the case with women when they think about birth, then pain is what you’ll get. However, if you tell yourself it won’t be painful (and stay away from that scary, unsexy hospital) your excruciating pain will magically transform into that one crazy night you spent with that Australian dude in a hot tub gobbling Quaaludes.

Here’s the problem I foresee. You’re down with orgasmic birth. You want the whole package and look forward to getting your groove on come baby time. You do the Scientology thing and erase all negativity you associate with birthing. You fill the kiddy pool, light some candles, break out the John Tesh CD and get on your hands and knees waiting for the pleasure to begin.

And then something does begin. A horrible, mind-splittingly agony. It’s like the defensive core for the Pittsburg Steelers is chopping their way out of you with machetes. Now if this, in your experience, is how orgasms normally go, congratulations. Otherwise, you’re probably screaming “FUCK! Fuckity, fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck, motherfucker, super fuck, double dutch shit fucking fuck” (I’m paraphrasing). All your meditation and good intentions failed you and now you are stuck with a horrifyingly unorgasmic birth.

This is the risk you take when you try venturing down OB road. Maybe that’s not a problem. Maybe you planned natural birth anyhow. If not, you’re probably feeling pretty damn cheated and want to take the face of every one of those smirking woman in those orgasmic birth videos and smash them into a searing cast iron skillet for tricking you into believing that shoving a thanksgiving turkey out your fun hole could be sexy.

So, considering all this, does orgasmic birth still entice you? Are you willing to take the risk that you will not become “clear” enough to transform the pain?

Catch the pro OB facts at www.orgasmicbirth.com

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Hospital Hangs on to Children's Bodies for Two Years

JeanneSager — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:40:00 GMT

It's almost the exact opposite of the stillborn baby thrown in a New Jersey hospital's trash - and just as horrifying.

When a British mother suffered her second miscarriage, she went to the hospital to see if she could arrange a funeral for little Jonah.

He had already been cremated, the hospital told her. But her first son, miscarried two years ago at twelve weeks, was still in the hospital, they said. Would she like him?

Leanne McCabe had been told baby Ty was cremated shortly after her miscarriage because of a British law that requires babies stillborn before twenty-four weeks be "disposed of" by the hospital, usually via cremation. Why she never returned for his cremains is unclear (although it IS clear she wasn't aware that his body was still lying in a mortuary two years later).

McCabe's discovery has since led to the hospital's admission that hers isn't the only stillborn baby awaiting his parents' final wishes to be carried out. Two more suffered what hospital administration dubbed a "delay."

I know it's coincidence that this story came up just over a week after the missing New Jersey baby tale. It's hardly a pandemic. But what do these stories say about how the world treats stillborn and miscarried babies? Do these hospital officials think they matter less or that the outrage would be diminished because the children never actually breathed in the real world?

Moms who suffer through miscarriage and stillbirth already suffer with the misperception that their grief should somehow be less because, well, "at least you didn't have a child and lose it." No, in many ways they didn't have a child - they had a baby who they never got to enjoy, but that doesn't diminish their feelings of love or the depth of their loss. And their children all deserve the same amount of respect in the end.

Image/Source: BBC

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JeanneSager — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:09:00 GMT

I'm still sputtering over this one. A baby is dead, and somehow his little body ended up not in the hospital's morgue but in their trash.

Now he's gone, police have called off a search for his body, and his mother is convinced the hospital is covering something up.

Kalynn Moore says when she gave birth via C-section to her little boy, Bashere Davon Moyd Jr., on Dec. 21, he was breathing and very much alive. She says doctors spent twenty minutes trying to stabilize him before a nurse wrapped him in a blanket and let her hold his dead body (the picture above was taken then, it's the only link she has to the little boy).

The hospital, however, says the baby was stillborn - as in never alive - and that she was drifting in and out of consciousness because of the anesthesia administered to perform the C-section. They initially told Moore that her son was taken to the morgue. When funeral home workers arrived at the hospital on Jan. 2 to pick up little Bashere, he was nowhere to be found. Christ Hospital says his corpse was either consumed by the flames of an incinerator or is lost amid hundreds of tons of garbage. A large portion of that garbage was shipped out via train to a Kentucky landfill.

Police stopped searching today, and closed the case, citing this not as a criminal matter but an "unfortunate incident [that] was the result of procedural deficiencies and human error."

I understand people are human, but how does a mistake of this magnitude happen? How does a baby become trash? And how can this not be considered gross malfeasance?

As mothers giving birth, we trust the hospital to take care of our children - alive and dead. The hippocratic oath calls for healthcare works to first do no harm. Misplacing a medical chart is an accident. Misplacing a baby is failure to act within the guidelines set for medical facilities, the guidelines that earned them that trust. Not only should someone be held criminally liable in this case, but the hospital should be prepared for a civil lawsuit. I hope they lose.

Via Jezebel

Image: MSNBC

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Dennis Quaid and Family Receive Settlement from Hospital

SunnyChanel — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 05:29:00 GMT

Dennis Quaid and his wife had quite a scare a little over a year ago. After their twins were born they were given a dangerous overdose of Heparin, the blood thinner that was administered to the newborns. Lucky, the twins recovered undamaged. Needless to say, the Quaids sued. They went after the maker of the Heparin blaming bottles that were poorly labeled. Although they sued the pharmaceutical company, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the hospital where the babies were born took responsibility. Yesterday, the Quaids reached a settlement with the hospital at the tune of $750,000. The hospital isn’t actually admitting wrongdoing and the Quaids can still “pursue claims for the children”.

Sadly, there are a scary amount of hospital errors in dealing with newborns and infants. One issue is the difference in quantities to give and adult vs. babies, others are just plain old mistakes, human error striking again. Most families don’t have the resources to follow up with a lawsuit in cases like this. The Quaids were lucky enough to demand some consequences, something that needed to be addressed since there were several patients there who were also given an overdose.

Do you think that the hospital settled the case due to its’ high profile nature?

Via AP - photo via Celebrity Baby Blog

The Hello Kitty Maternity Ward

SunnyChanel — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 20:15:00 GMT

Hello Kitty is everywhere, and pert near everything. Now you, yes you, can brand the birth of your child with Sanrio magic. A 30-Bed hospital in central Taiwan has created a Hello Kitty themed maternity ward, for those wanting to cute up their birth journey. The newborns are wrapped in pink and blue receiving blankies, the room décor is dolled up with cute kitties, all the linens are Hello Kitty branded, and the nurses wear official Hello Kitty uniforms.

"I wish that everyone who comes here, mothers who suffer while giving birth and children who suffer from an illness, can get medical care while seeing these kitties and bring a smile to their faces, helping forget about discomfort and recover faster," the director of the hospital told Reuters. He opened the hospital because his mom, wife and his daughter all liked the Hello Kitty character. You can check out a video about the hospital here.

Would you make any kind of special effort to deliver your baby in a themed maternity ward? And if so, what kind of theme would you want?

New Dad Forgives Guy Who Stole Camera With Birth Footage

JeanneSager — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:35:00 GMT

I'm not sure whether to say awwww or ewwww on this one.

A thief in Greenville, SC walked off with a video camera bag he found in the hallway at the local hospital. But when he saw on the news that the guy who'd forgotten the bag had used it hours before to record the birth of his second child, the thief went to police and turned himself in.

The new dad, identified by a South Carolina news station only as Darius, has opted not to press charges.

This despite Darius' need to hit up the pawn shops in the area to find and eventually buy back his wedding ring, which had been cutting into his skin when his wife was squeezing his hand during labor. The new dad had put the ring inside the camera bag, and the thief pawned it before turning the camera over to police. The camera itself was intact, and footage of the baby girl's birth and moments of the couple's son's life have been restored.

It's nice to know some people still have a little mercy, making this an "aww" moment for Darius and his family. It could be the holiday spirit. Then again, who isn't feeling benevolent when they have a little hand wrapped around theirs?

As for the thief, beyond the fact that stealing what doesn't belong to you is NEVER right, the fact that he apparently made the grab while walking with a woman and three kids (his own?) makes him that much more of a scumbucket. Who commits a crime with the kids in tow? And who doesn't know that a camera in a hospital was probably used to record some pretty intimate moments?

Would you be feeling this benevolent?

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Conjoined Twin Surgery: One Lives, One Dies

Brett Singer — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:30:00 GMT

An operation to separate the one-week-old conjoined twins, named Hope and Faith, resulted in the Hope's death. Faith is still alive, with a "50-50 chance of survival," according to published reports.

The twins were born last week to Laura Williams. At 18, she is said to be the youngest woman ever to give birth to conjoined twins in Britain.

Listen to this: "The sisters were joined from the breastbone to the top of the navel. They shared their blood circulation but had their own organs, though they were joined at the liver and intestines." Can you imagine? I can, but not easily.

The doctors who performed the separation procedure wanted to wait but "the twins' health was deteriorating," which led to the emergency surgery.

So sad. I mean, what can you say? At least one of them survived? That's good news, right? Somehow it doesn't offset the sadness of the other half of the story. The fact that the twins' names are Hope and Faith got to me even more.

Source: AFP via Google

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Baby Dropping: It's Not Just For Celebrities

Kate Tuttle — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 20:30:00 GMT

Move over, Britney and Jacko: it seems that normal people drop their babies, too. A fair number, in fact, and often in hospitals. Now a national healthcare provider wants to investigate falls involving babies, to see what can be done to prevent them. According to an article in the Portland Oregonian, folks in the Providence hospital chain in that state reported some 20 baby falls annually, but it's suspected that the number is under-reported due to embarrassment by the adults involved. In the vast majority of cases, the baby is just fine.

The article goes on to report that a study in the journal Pediatrics projected national baby-falling numbers in the 600-700 range annually, and went on to report on the specifics of the 14 accidents reported in a hospitals in Utah (all the babies were fine, though one did sustain a skull fracture):

Number of babies delivered unexpectedly, directly onto the floor: 2

Number of babies droped by delivery-room doctor: 2

Number of babies launched from hospital bassinets when hitting a bump in the floor: 2

The remaining eight falls were from the arms of a sleeping parent, typically the mother. Naturally, the hospital chain is looking into structural or policy changes that can lessen the number of baby falls, whether by providing better parent education on the need to return a child to the bassinet before they nod off themselves, or by implementing changes in bed and room design to make such (inevitable, exhausted parent) lapses less potentially harmful.

In the meantime, for those moms and dads who have accidentally let junior hit the floor: welcome to parenthood! It may be the first time you inadvertently do something dumb (but ultimately harmless) to your kid, but it certainly won't be the last.

Related (but seriously, way worse): Baby Dies During Game of Airplane

Teen Mom Turns Herself in to Safe Haven

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Just as Nebraska’s uniquely forgiving Safe Haven law is on the verge of being amended, a young mother makes a case for keeping it just the way it is. Currently, it’s legal to abandon children up to 18 years of age at a hospital. But since the law went into affect in July, so many teenagers (and zero babies) have been abandoned at hospitals that Nebraskan legislators are looking to revise the law so that it’s only applicable to infants who are three days old or younger.

But here’s an important use of the country’s only teen-inclusive safe-haven law that many hadn’t foreseen: a 16-year-old mom walked into an Omaha hospital, hoping to find a safe haven not only for her 10 month-old son, but for herself.

The young mother said that she had been physically and emotionally abused, and that her mother had kicked her out of the house. The teenager and her son are now in foster care, and her mother will most likely face prosecution.

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Photo: Huffington Post

Are Crocs and Kids A Dangerous Mix?

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:30:00 GMT

It was bound to happen eventually. All popular products must eventually meet their downfall in the form of consumer safety lawsuits. And so it is that the footwear company Crocs faces at least two suits for injuries involving their soft-soled slip-ons, children, and escalators.

Clark Meyer is suing the company for $2 million after his four-year-old son was injured on an Atlanta airport escalator while wearing Crocs. According to the suit, the boy’s foot was “severely and permanently” injured. And the parents of a three-year-old who broke three of her toes on an escalator while wearing Crocs are also suing the company.

The Crocs company has promised to insert safety labels into their shoes, but maintains that Crocs are no more likely to injure children on escalators than other types of footwear. Indeed, at least two children wearing flip flops were hurt on Atlanta Airport escalators this past summer, in addition to the Crocs injury.

It does seem to me that these injuries are not exclusively Crocs' fault. Given that there about 7,500 serious escalator-related injuries a year, that children under five are likely to be involved in these accidents, and that Crocs are very popular right now, it does seem that the Crocs company is simply a convenient, and potentially lucrative, scapegoat for a larger safety issue.

But having no personal experience with Crocs, I can't really judge the lawsuits. Do parents of Croc-toting kids find the shoes to be more dangerous than other kinds of footwear?

Photo: New York Times

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Stillborn Baby Comes Back to Life

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:50:00 GMT

I know what you’re thinking, and the answer is no: I did not learn about this story from The National Enquirer. Sensational though this headline sounds, it is factually accurate, according to numerous Israeli news sources.

In Israel, a 26-year-old pregnant woman began hemorrhaging and experiencing intense pain. Tests showed that her fetus, in its 23^rd week of gestation, was already dead. After an emergency operation to remove the fetus, doctors pronounced the 610-gram baby girl dead. She was sent to the morgue to be prepared for burial.

Five hours later, the baby’s mother asked to see her daughter’s body one last time. Picking up the tiny bundle, she immediately started screaming. Her baby was moving. The child was rushed to the intensive care unit, where she is still struggling to survive.

The baby’s father has criticized the Western Galilee Hospital for negligence, accusing them of too quickly pronouncing his premature daughter dead. But the hospital director maintains that senior doctors made no mistakes; the only way to explain how the baby spontaneously started breathing again is that it was a “medical miracle.”

He noted that this miracle may have been related to the cool temperature of the morgue, which vastly lowered the baby's oxygen consumption. There have been extremely rare cases of people who "came back to life" after it appeared that they had frozen to death. The Health Ministry will likely set up an investigating committee to look into the matter.

Photo: Channel 2

UPDATE:

Baby Never Really "Came Back to Life"

When playgrounds attack, the sequel

Brett Singer — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:29:00 GMT

Well, it's not really a sequel, but this time I have a photo to back up the story from yesterday. So, to anyone who called me "Liar Liar Pants on Fire" I very maturely say, "NYAH-NYAH! I WAS RIGHT!"

Anyway, here's the story: Anne Casson's son received second and third degree burns on his feet after running into the playground without shoes on. NY Metro quotes the mom as saying, "At first, the hospital thought he got electrocuted…When we said, no, he was on the playground, they immediately went, 'Oh, the mats.'" While three other parents are suing New York City for millions of dollars, Casson went the advocacy route, trying to arrange meetings with Parks Department officials to make them aware of the problem. According to the story, they didn't seem terribly interested.

I've dealt with people from the Parks Department a couple of times working on events, and I have to say that they are some of the oddest human beings around. I'm not sure why, and obviously this is an extremely limited sampling. But they aren't elected officials, and with no voters to worry about, they don’t have the selfish motivation to listen to their constituents. I'm not excusing them, just saying that I'm not surprised.

It's worth mentioning that running around on any outdoor surface in Manhattan without shoes seems like a phenomenally bad idea. Then again, if the hospital staff – "oh, the mats" – knew right away what the problem was, how come nobody else did? So it's insane that nobody at the Parks Department gives a crap about the fact that the temperature of the mats used in children's playgrounds are going as high as a cooked chicken. I mean, look at that photo. Horrible. Even if the kids keep their shoes on, what happens if they fall down and slap their hands onto the mat? So I'm on Casson's side here, but I'm not letting my kids take their shoes off anywhere near those mats.

According to the commenters on yesterday's post, this is either a serious problem or another case of parental whining. What would you do if this happened to your kid?

image/source: MetroNY

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Body Found in "Baby Buyer’s" Apartment

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:30:00 GMT

The story of the Pennsylvania woman who told police that she paid $1,000 for a baby has a taken a turn for the worse. Tragically, it appears that the dark suspicions of some commenters to my first story about Andrea Curry-Demus (pictured) were well founded: police have found a woman's body in Curry-Demus’ apartment. A placenta was discovered nearby.

This is not the first time that Curry-Demus has attempted to steal babies: In 1990, she stabbed a woman in a ploy to kidnap her infant. The day after the stabbing, she took a baby out of Children’s Hospital and brought the infant to her apartment. Police found the baby there the next day, unharmed. Curry-Demus pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and reckless endangerment, and was sentenced to 10 years’ probation, a sentence that, in retrospect, was far too lenient. Curry-Demus has also been found guilty of theft.

She will remain in jail unless she can post $10,000 bond and agrees to be examined by a psychiatrist.

Photo: New York Daily News

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Baby abandoned in Queens, husband had ordered Mom to have abortion

Brett Singer — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:30:00 GMT

On May 11, a 3-day-old baby girl was found abandoned on the stoop of a building in Flushing, Queens, along with a bag full of diapers and formula.

A day later, police found the mother, a 31-year-old named Hua Zheng, by using information on the hospital bracelet the baby still wore. (Oops.) They also had surveillance video footage of her leaving the hospital with the baby – on Mother's Day.

Zheng is married, and her husband reportedly told her to get an abortion because they couldn't afford to have a child. Doctors told Zheng she was too far along to have the procedure, so she, "lied to her husband and hid her pregnancy." Presumably Zheng told him she had gotten an abortion, then had the baby and left her outside. How she would be able to hide all of this, I don't know.

There are slightly conflicting reports depending on which source you read. The Daily News says that Zheng and her husband have a 2-year-old boy who had been sent to live in China because they couldn't afford to raise him here. CBS News said that the stoop was chosen at random. But Newsday tells us that Kristina Yu, the woman who found the baby on her doorstep, was the babysitter for Zheng's son. It's possible that she used to babysit the son, and then he went to live in China. In the CBS story, Yu said that she couldn't determine the baby's ethnicity: "It looked like it could be an Asian baby. It looked like it could be a mix. I'm not sure."

Once again, as in the "taxi baby" case, the Safe Haven law rears its head. Since Zheng left the baby on a stoop, she will be charged with a crime. If she had brought the girl to the hospital, she would have been able to walk away, no questions asked.

image: amny.com

Baby Delivered in Australia Toilet

Jen Chaney — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:35:00 GMT

What's with me and stories about women delivering kids in bathrooms all of a sudden? First came the incredible, true story earlier this week of a teen 's shower delivery. And now, a more harrowing tale about an Australian mom who delivered her child in a hospital toilet. (This is to say nothing of Brett's post not too long ago about the couple in Chile forced to deliver their babe in a bathroom.)

According to father Nick Patsidis, his wife said she had to use the bathroom not long after midwives at the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney broke her water. But once she got in the loo, she realized the baby was coming out. According to the family, the midwives had disappeared. Dad walked in to see his daughter's head emerging, the umbilical cord wrapped around the infant's neck and the child turning blue. Nurses stepped in and were able to save the baby girl, who is doing just fine.

Naturally, the Patsidis family is blaming the hospital for its lack of adequate staffing. Royal North Shore apparently got into similar trouble a year ago when a woman miscarried in a toilet after waiting for two hours in the ER. Hospital officials, on the other hand, maintain they did nothing wrong. All of which sounds like the makings of a messy lawsuit.

Image: Treehugger.com

Mom Mightily Furious After Babies Switched at Birth

Amy Kuras — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:02:00 GMT

Seems like terrifying maternity ward news is all the rage at the 'Derby. Every new parent, especially those of us who've given birth to a baby that looks nothing like us or our partners, had probably had this thought cross their mind: "What if I got the wrong baby and this one isn't mine at all?" Well, one mom's contending with just that. In Whittier, California, a new mom has filed a complaint with the state against Whittier Hospital Medical Center after they switched her baby with another for several hours the day after she gave birth to her son.

Maegan Donovan-Nikolic said hospital staff brought her the wrong baby and kept him in her room for several hours. The baby brought to her was Latino, while she is Caucasian, and she spent most of that time staring at the other baby, worried she didn’t recognize her own child. Hospital staff finally switched them back when she realized the baby's wristband had another name on it.

The hospital says the babies were only switched for an hour and 20 minutes, and that neither baby was breastfed or had any medical procedures performed during that time.

Donovan-Nikolic is attempting to get the hospital to release the other mother's medical records, because if she breastfed Donovan-Nikolic's baby during that time he could have been exposed to several communicable diseases including HIV. The hospital is refusing to do so, citing patient confidentiality. But her son, and likely the other mother's baby as well, will need to be tested until their fifth birthdays to ensure they were not exposed to anything.

Holy cats, people. It's a Lifetime movie in the making. Oh, wait, been done.

Weekly Check-Up: Natural Birth Like the Dutch

Kelly Mills — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:29:00 GMT

There's an interesting report on the Dutch tradition of giving birth from the perspective of a Reuters reporter. Basically, the Dutch believe birth optimally happens at home (30 percent of births happen this way, compared to a tiny fraction in the U.S.,) no pain medication is necessary, and that labor pains are part of the way the mother bonds with the baby. (If so, I ought to be practically fused to my child.) The bottom line is that birth is not seen as a medicalized process. Oh, and get this: A maternity nurse takes care of the family at home for a week and does cooking, cleaning, and infant care. Sign me up for that part!

While I've never been a convert to the notion of natural birth as essential--at least, not since the epidural became my BFF--I will freely admit that the Dutch system makes the whole thing sound kinda nice. However, it does sound like some feel that pain relief should be more readily available to moms in labor. As it stands now, there's no guarentee an anesthesiologist will be available, since it isn't seen as necessary. However, even those who want more options for women say it would be a shame to lose the Dutch perspective and practices in labor and delivery. But this is nice from an ob-gyn professor: "Giving birth at home, a unique Dutch tradition, should not be a goal in itself. What really matters is a good result of the pregnancy for mother and child." You said it.

Clean Hands: Purell Ain't Getting It Done

Madeline Holler — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:38:00 GMT

We had a nice but icky discussion last week about how healthcare professionals weren't exactly scrupulous when it comes to washing their hands between patients (and door touching, etc.) and that patients are being encouraged to ask them to wash up. And there was some talk of hidden hand santizer pumps that they might be using outside the patient's room, which made a few of us (and by "us" I mean "me") feel better and like they could go on living in denial about their doctor's dirty hands.

Well, a study out of Nebraska got down and dirty and concluded that Purell and the other alcohol-based hand santizers aren't getting it done. Even though a hospital in the study doubled its use of the sanitizing gels, the rate of infections did not decrease. These gels may clean the hands but they don't kill bacteria that cause infections. Ew.

See, the hand gunk doesn't get in all the areas on the hands where the bacteria reside.

The doctor who studied the problem pointed to many villains: Rings and fingernails that are too long and hard to clean, poor handling of catheters and treatment areas that aren't sanitized.

Is it really such a big deal? Yes.

The spread of infection-causing germs in U.S. hospitals is a huge health problem, accounting for an estimated 1.7 million infections and 99,000 deaths each year, according to the CDC. These include drug-resistant staph, urinary tract infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia, among others.

So we're back to where we were the other day in this discussion. It's up to us to bravely ask doctors and nurses and any other healthcare worker who are about to touch us to wash their hands with soap and warm water if we don't see them do it. And gloves are only sterile if they've been put on by hands that have been washed. And hand sanitizer doesn't count. Can't wait to run that one by my defensive pediatrician.