Strollerderby : stillbirth

Grieving a Lost Pregnancy? Sorry, We'd Like a Drug Test

Miriam Axel-Lute — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:00:00 GMT

The fight over when women lose all rights when they become pregnant continues. A bill under consideration in Tennessee would mandate drug and alcohol testing for pregnant women under several conditions:

(1) No prenatal care;
(2) Late prenatal care after twenty-four (24) weeks gestation;
(3) Incomplete prenatal care;
(4) Abruptio placentae;
(5) Intrauterine fetal death;
(6) Preterm labor of no obvious cause;
(7) Intrauterine growth retardation of no obvious cause;
(8) Previously known alcohol or drug abuse; or
(9) Unexplained congenital anomalies.

Refusal of "treatment" results in referral to child protective services. Now, there are all the usual (good) arguments to made in response against mandating drug testing and rehab for pregnant women, such as: it deters them from seeking health care in the first place; it interferes with a doctor's judgment; treatment is impossible in a state where there are aren't enough beds available and nearly all the facilities don't take pregnant women or allow women to bring their children along (see Salon for details).

But as Rachel from Women's Health News points out eloquently, the list of triggers for the testing here adds a whole extra layer of ick: Preterm labor? Intrauterine death? We don't know what causes these things most of the time—are we now going to by default blame them all on the mother's behavior? Should a woman grieving a lost pregnancy not be able to drink for while for comfort without fear of being sent to rehab or losing her other kids?

And how about "incomplete prenatal care"? So now it is not up to us to choose whether we want ultrasounds or invasive tests that tell us nothing or carry a risk of miscarriage themselves?

If you care about the effects of drug and alcohol abuse on kids, for god's sake spend your energy making the treatment system actually work.

Photo by michab37.

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Doctors Call for Autopsies to Understand Stillbirth

JeanneSager — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:19:00 GMT

Thousands of pregnancies end every year in stillbirth - a baby dead in the womb sometime after the twenty-week mark or dead sometime during the birthing process.

It's heartbreaking for parents, but perhaps even harder for parents to take is the mystery. Of more than twenty-five thousand stillbirths each year, a full third are for unexplainable causes.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is calling for doctors to perform more autopsies on stillborn babies to unravel the mystery of stillbirth.

The goal is to reduce future stillbirths - or determine whether they can be prevented. The March of Dimes estimates stillbirth rates have dipped fifty percent in the last twenty years alone thanks to better technologies and healthcare practitioners' vigilance. They now know who has an increased risk of stillbirth - women thirty-five and older, women who suffer malnutrition and/or inadequate prenatal care, pregnant women who smoke and drink. They also have a host of causes for the two-thirds of stillbirths that are explainable - everything from placental defects to bacterial infection.

With the autopsies, they hope to rid the world of the other third. The question is how parents will take the suggestion from their doctor. Stillbirth is a traumatizing experience for parents, and the last thing a lot of parents want to do is turn their baby over to a scientist to cut, poke and prod.

Will parents be able to look past that and see the greater good? To see that they can make a difference for other parents in the long run?

Image: American Pregnancy Association

Did Catholic Church Push This Woman To Abort?

JeanneSager — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:28:00 GMT

The Catholic Church may well be the strongest advocates of the pro-life movement in the world, but a Canadian woman says doctors at a Catholic hospital pressured her to abort her baby.

On the face of it, the charges sound outrageous, even to someone who is pro-choice, but like most of these stories there's always a back story.

What mother Nikki Cooke refers to as a "eugenic abortion," was actually a suggested early induction of a baby carrying Trisomy 18, a a chromosomal defect that claims ninety percent of children by their first birthday. Many don't survive to even be born, which happened to the Cookes - the baby's heart stopped beating a week before Nikki was due to give birth.

The doctors had explained the slim chance that the Cookes' baby would be born alive and that there was nothing they can do. At one point, Cooke says she was told to terminate. One paragraph later, she's quoted saying they were "pressured to have an early induction." Which is it? Because inducing labor on a baby is not the same as an abortion. My daughter was induced, and she's very much alive.

Here's where some of the Cookes' claims could hold weight: Nikki says she was told IF her baby was born alive, the hospital would not resuscitate the baby. If that's true, the doctors in this case may have been legally protected, but ethically, that's absurd. How does a doctor allow a living, breathing child to go into respiratory failure and refuse to respond? Even if the child has a chromosomal difference, it's their obligation to make every attempt to keep that child breathing and the heart beating; at least until it is clear that there is simply no hope.

With Trisomy 18, there is little hope, it's true. But once a child is alive, that ten percent chance of survival is nothing to sneeze at.

The hospital, by the way, denies they would not treat a living baby. From the National Post:

"What is key for them is that labour is not induced until at least 23 weeks, when the fetus has reached viability, so if the baby is born alive everything possible could be done to save it. And if the diagnosis was wrong, the child would still have a chance."

It's also important to get back to the initial findings by the doctors - they didn't see the Cookes' baby surviving. They didn't see this baby being born alive, and they were advising a mother that it would be better to get her pregnancy over with sooner rather than continuing to carry around a baby who would not survive. Essentially, there was no hope. It comes to a point, the priest in the National Post article points out, where the safety and health (including emotional) of the mother has to come first.

According to the hospital guidelines in this case: "Medical treatment is permitted to prevent or cure a grave illness in a pregnant woman that cannot be deferred until the unborn child is viable even though the pregnancy may be endangered ... even though they will result in the foreseen but unintended death of the unborn child."

What's disturbing are the attempts by the pro-life movement to use this story as evidence that a mother is being wronged by a doctor making the determination that a fetus is not viable. It's sad for parents when this happens, but faith can't trump science. Sometimes, babies just won't make it. And it's important for parents to face that - as painful as it might be.

These are the same arguments used against women who opt for a D&C after a miscarriage, when the heart has stopped beating, and they are walking around with a non-viable fetus inside of them. They're branded murderers by some in the pro-life movement for what is, essentially, an abortive procedure - even though there is nothing there, there is no life in that tiny body.

You can't kill someone who isn't alive. You also can't call an inducement an abortion simply because the baby will not survive its chromosomal defects.

What do you think? Do you think the hospital was wrong here, or is this blown out of proportion?

Image: National Post

They Say: Doctors Have Feelings Too

Amy Kuras — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:32:00 GMT

Hmmm, maybe they are not coldblooded perpetrators of the "birth-industrial complex" after all: One in 10 obstetricians have been sufficiently impacted by the stillbirth or neonatal death of a baby they delivered that they have considered giving up their practice, and three quarters said they had profound anxiety, guilt and stress over such negative outcomes for their patients, according to a University of Michigan study of more than 800 OBs.

As somebody whose kids were both birthed via c-section, one emergency, one not, I am not a fan of the Ricki Lake-esque earthy-birthies in the first place. I've got no beef with midwives, homebirth, natural childbirth or anything else that lets someone give birth the way she wants, but I expect the same respect accorded to how I chose to give birth. I'm willing to concede the point that birth doesn't need to be medicalized, but some of us just do feel more comfortable with someone who went to school a lot longer than we did keeping an eye on things.

And aside from the smugness and belittling of other mothers for making dfferent decisions, my other major issue with the earthy-birthy crowd is this reflexive distrust of doctors. I was lucky enough to sort of stumble into a great OB and have heard some awful stories from others who weren't so lucky, but what this story reinforced is that most of them aren't unfeeling scalpel-wielders but people and professionals who want good outcomes for their patients.

Capturing Joy During Most Painful Loss

Madeline Holler — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:46:00 GMT

I don’t even know what to say about this recent LA Times piece, except that there are some damn nice people in the world.

The article is about a photographer who volunteers to take pictures of families who are about to experience what must be unimaginably painful: stillbirth or the imminent and early death of a sick child.

This photographer does all the usual portraiture and holiday photos, weddings and other occasions. That’s how she earns her living. But over the past few years has also donated her time and photostock to pregnant women or families who are bracing themselves for the sadness of this most profound loss. These families want some way to preserve their memories of the sheer joy of even the shortest lives and she gives it to them.

Since the photographer first started, and word spread, demand became so high that she had to recruit other volunteer photographers to do it too. Now, she’s formed a network of bereavement photographers in most major cities around the country.

Doctors and hospitals used to whisk stillborn babies away, thinking out-of-sight-out-of-mind. But now they realize parents need to hold the babies, whether alive or not, and families often don’t want to forget and can’t. Now it’s the nurses and doctors who let patients know about bereavement photography and even arrange for it.

Photo: LA Times

Should Stillborn Baby Photo Be Kept Out of Sight of Co-Workers?

Mike Adamick (Cry It Out!) — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:49:00 GMT

In Cubicle Land, most everyone has pictures of her family -- but what do you do when a co-worker displays a photo of her stillborn baby? Dear Abby says to stuff it away. Moron.

The story goes that "Madge" -- the office gossip and know-it-all -- keeps a photo her deceased infant "with its little eyes sewn shut" in plain view of her co-workers. And they're sick of seeing the baby. Dear Abby says the photo should be put away, and that Madge's supervisor should deal with the "problem."

I don't see the problem, however. It's a photo of a baby -- and if she wants to display it, then more power to her. It's probably not the cute, rosy-cheeked cherub we're accustomed to seeing, but how can you casually set aside a part of life?

A few months ago, I might have had a different point of view. I might have been grossed out or put off by sadness. But Daddytypes directed me to quite possibly the best -- and saddest -- parenting essay I'll ever read: David Raeburn's "Vessels." Give it a read and weigh in: Should the photo remain on the desk?

News of Oprah's Teen Pregnancy Enriches Relative

Rachael Brownell (Redsy) — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 19:24:00 GMT

In the recent issue of "O Magazine," Oprah describes the betrayal she experienced when her half-sister sold the story of her teenage pregnancy and baby's stillbirth to the Enquirer. Patricia Lloyd apparently made $19,000 from the story, which understandably left Ms. Winfrey feeling hurt and upset.

Poor Oprah. As long as People Magazine and the Enquirer and the like have an audience for the juicy details of celebrity lives, relatives and friends and nannies and landscapers will have too much money to make selling stories and pictures to withstand the temptation to tell-all.

But take heart, Oprah. Your magazine is hot on the heels of People in circulation and sales. And no one can beat the AARP Magazine's circulation, no matter how many celebrity teen pregnancy stories they buy.

Strollerderby : stillbirth

Grieving a Lost Pregnancy? Sorry, We'd Like a Drug Test

Doctors Call for Autopsies to Understand Stillbirth

Balloon Helps Pregnant Woman "Practice"

Parents Ignoring Back to Sleep Campaign

Grey's Anatomy Tackles Mother Vs. Baby Issue

Did Catholic Church Push This Woman To Abort?

Did Catholic Church Push This Woman To Abort?

Parents Ignoring Back to Sleep Campaign

The Trouble With Wanting a VBAC

Preemie to Pediatrician

Grey's Anatomy Tackles Mother Vs. Baby Issue

They Say: Doctors Have Feelings Too

Capturing Joy During Most Painful Loss

Should Stillborn Baby Photo Be Kept Out of Sight of Co-Workers?

News of Oprah's Teen Pregnancy Enriches Relative