Strollerderby : paralyzed

Mom Says Hospital Fouled Childbirth - Twice

JeanneSager — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 19:15:00 GMT

What would you do if you thought your OB/GYN caused your baby irreperable harm during delivery? Would you go back?

A mom from Queens returned to the hospital where she'd delivered her first son to deliver her second - and once again, she says the doctors "yanked" on her child, causing a debilitating nerve injury that may lead to permanent paralysis.

The boys, a year apart, are both suffering from ERB's palsy. It's a condition Annemarie Dhana's lawsuit claims is caused by malpractice at childbirth.

"In both cases their shoulders became stuck after the head was delivered. In both cases excessive force was used to deliver the babies, resulting in ERB's palsy," according to a sworn affidavit, signed by Dhana.

The trouble is, during childbirth, how do you know if the doctor is using excessive force or doing what is necessary to get that baby out? Every delivery is different, and so is every doctor or midwife - and their preferred methods for delivery.

Despite repeated (Ok, obsessive) viewings of The Baby Story before delivering my daughter, I had never seen a mom being handed a towel by her doctor so she could pull and he could pull - offering her leverage. It's a practice my OB/GYN apparently uses (successfully, I might add) with a lot of moms - as other women whose children were delivered by him shared the same story. But none of us had ever heard of it before.

What jumps out at me about this case was Dhana's decision to go back to the same hospital where her lawsuit says prenatal care from her first pregnancy was lacking. Throw in the botched delivery, and I would have been running from in the other direction - especially considering she is in Queens, where it has to be easier to find another healthcare facility than it would be in rural upstate New York (where I live, and frankly got lucky considering my lack of options for obstetrical care).

Most of the commenters said as much over at the New York Daily News, where this story first appeared. But let's consider this mom's options:

If this were a case of a health insurance company forcing her to return to the same medical facility where she'd received substandard care, it's could be another example of the failings of our healthcare system in this country. In-network versus out-of-network should be set aside in favor of "good for patient" vs. "bad for patient."

If this were Dhana's own choice, however, I wonder, could she have known that the first case, the ERB's palsy in her elder son, wasn't just a fluke? Was this a case of a mom who didn't bother to do her homework on her medical choices, or more a case of a mom who simply didn't know? Her children are just a year apart, so she was struggling with a child who had a severe medical condition and a pregnancy at the same time.

Would you call this fishy or do you think this mom has a case?

Image: The Daily Mail

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Mother Blames Cervical Cancer Vaccine For Daughter's Paralysis

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 23:20:00 GMT

The cervical cancer vaccine can’t seem to untangle itself of controversy. First, abstinence groups worked overtime to block its widespread use, arguing that it would encourage premarital sex. What it actually does is prevent girls from contracting four of the strands of HPV that are responsible for the majority of cervical cancer cases in the world. Yes, HPV is an STD, but the vaccine has almost nothing to do with premarital sex. Since HPV is so easily spread, it is entirely possible that a girl could wait until marriage to have sex and then contract HPV if her husband had had as much as one sexual encounter before the marriage.

Fortunately, the abstinence argument against the vaccine has been mostly steamrolled, particularly in the U.K., where a government-funded program aims to save 400 lives a year by administering the Cervarix vaccine to 300,000 12- and 13-year-old girls. (In the U.S., the more commonly used, but very similar, vaccine is called Gardasil.)

But the program has gotten some bad—and scary—press recently, after a 12-year-old girl became paralyzed from the waist down shortly after receiving the vaccine at school. Ashleigh Cave’s mother, Cheryl, believes that the shot was implicated in her daughter’s illness, but doctors have claimed that the vaccination was unrelated to the sudden onset of Ashleigh’s dizziness and eventual loss of the use of her legs.

Although nothing I’ve read indicates that Ashleigh has been definitely diagnosed yet, it seems clear that she has Guillain-Barré syndrome, which can cause paralysis, and which has previously been linked (perhaps wrongly) with the cervical cancer vaccine.

13 girls are reported to have been diagnosed with Guillain-Barré after receiving the Gardasil vaccine in the U.S., causing some concern among parents about the safety of getting their daughters vaccinated. However, considering the total number of girls who received the vaccine and the natural incidence of the disease, 13 is within the number of people who would be expected to fall prey to Guillain-Barré just by chance. Doctors and health experts continue to assert that there is no reason to believe the cervical cancer vaccine is unsafe.

Still, it is only too easy to understand why Ashleigh’s mother harbors her doubts, considering that her daughter’s initial diagnosis was “vertigo and generalised myalgia, probably due to recent vaccinations.” I hope further investigations can set the public’s collective mind at ease.

Photo: straightfromthedoc.com

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British Parents Defend Son’s Suicide

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 20:30:00 GMT

After becoming paralyzed in a rugby training session, Daniel James repeatedly reiterated his desire for death to his friends and family. Last month, the 23-year-old Brit traveled to Switzerland, where he died at an assisted suicide clinic.

It goes without saying that Daniel’s parents, Julie and Mark James, are filled with grief. But they have stated that they respect their son’s decision. They wrote in a statement that his death, though a huge tragedy for those he left behind, was “no doubt a welcome relief from the 'prison' he felt his body had become and the day-to-day fear and loathing of his living existence.”

Helping someone take his life is illegal in Britain; prosecutors are looking into the circumstances of James’ death, but have not yet stated that they will press any charges.

Photo: MSNBC