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Immediate skin-to-skin contact with unstable newborns improves survival chances

medlifestyle.news

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Re: Immediate skin-to-skin contact with unstable newborns improves survival chances

#131

Interesting to read this here. When my son was born (naturally, normal weight, fully healthy, and around expected due date), the midwife in Denmark had educated us about the Danish way of handling the birth - as soon as the baby comes out, they literally put the baby on mom’s chest, and leave us(parents, and baby) alone in the room for about an hour. Nothing needs to be done other than the baby being in care of it’s…

I just watched the Frontline episode on the Healthcare Divide where US safety-net hospitals (accept anyone hospitals of last resort) have been closing or being sold to vulture investors who buy, trim costs, and sell them at the cost of reduced care. For-profit healthcare should be like for-profit prisons: illegal.

I'm not sure about that, I live in the UK with public healthcare and optional private for-profit; I think that's fine.

Non-profit replacing the public is an interesting idea though, I've never heard that suggested before, people usually just argue about public being available or not. (And invariably quite pointlessly since neither side will budge!)

Re: Immediate skin-to-skin contact with unstable newborns improves survival chances

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What country were you in? In the US, a nurse is highly standard. If you're not getting a c-section, the usual array is: OB/GYN, plus or minus a resident or assistant, doing the delivery and doing any post-delivery laceration repairs; and a nurse who brought in instruments and is on hand to assist with repositioning the mother, getting more equipment, etc. In most places it's 1-2 nurses. If everything is expected to b…

> Thank god that idea passed Why's that? Just curious, I always find it fascinating how physicians pick a speciality!

OB is ridiculously stressful, in an antagonistic kind of way.

1. A good subset of patients have wildly unrealistic ideas about pregnancy and delivery, and when their ideas meet reality it's not always reality that wins.

1.B. You will be the target of their ire whenever their desires are not fulfilled, because patients seem to think docs are actually in charge of something at the hospital. We usually are not.

2. It's wildly litigious. Their child was perfect (in their imagination) before being born; then you got involved, and now their child is not perfect. You must have fucked something up in the delivery and ruined the perfection of their child.

3. Way too much family involvement. When you're doing surgery, you're usually dealing with a patient's attempts to understand what's going on. When you're doing OB, you're dealing with the patient, the husband, the mother, mother-in-law, etc. Each person will come up with their own distorted vision of how things should be, and when it doesn't align with reality, the doctor is an idiot who doesn't know what they're doing. (Doctors are not perfect - just people - but it seems like every single person without medical training seems better equipped to identify the proper medical course of action than a physician is.)

4. Lots and lots of on-call time. Lots of unexpected interruptions and lots of drop-everything-and-drive-to-the-hospital.

5. There used to be good money in it. There isn't now, which makes all of the above grate on one's nerves.

The results of the above really add up to demolishing the spirit of OB/GYNs. Points 1-3 really make you feel like you're persistently at war with patients, which is the worst feeling ever. I've never been on anyone's side but the patient's, and having them treat me like an enemy ruins my job, and ruins my ability to do my job.

I ultimately chose to pursue a niche thing that shares a name with an existing medical specialty, but is a distinct niche. I can't really identify it without doxing myself, so forgive me for not.

Re: Immediate skin-to-skin contact with unstable newborns improves survival chances

#133
post #115

Interesting to read this here. When my son was born (naturally, normal weight, fully healthy, and around expected due date), the midwife in Denmark had educated us about the Danish way of handling the birth - as soon as the baby comes out, they literally put the baby on mom’s chest, and leave us(parents, and baby) alone in the room for about an hour. Nothing needs to be done other than the baby being in care of it’s…

> Childbirth is handled by midwives (Jordemothers) instead of doctors. Is midwife a female-only profession or are there male midwives too?

Are you objecting to 'mother' in the Dutch as if 'wife' in the English doesn't imply the same?

Re: Immediate skin-to-skin contact with unstable newborns improves survival chances

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your response is great. Thanks for sharing information about the literature and way more context. > Otherwise, what you're actually saying is, "I'm skeptical of results that pop magazines and press releases have only surfaced to my attention once" - which is a shoddy mechanism for curating your knowledge. At the risk of nitpicking, this seems like a good principle to follow? Like, assuming skeptical means "I won't in…

Thank you. I think it's a poor mechanism because "appeared once in a pop magazine" isn't a good signal for knowledge curation regardless of whether you assign it a positive or negative weight; especially when the original comment implied (to my reading) "the topic has only surfaced once, therefore the existing knowledgebase is only one study." The existence of a single study in pop literature is a very poor predictor…

It is however a very good indicator that the pop portrayal is inaccurate though!

At least this is 'med life style news', arguably not really 'pop', by the time this hits, I don't know, 'ifl science' or whatever, Techcrunch for general science/medicine, I wouldn't count on 'with unstable' in the headline, or perhaps even the body.

Re: Immediate skin-to-skin contact with unstable newborns improves survival chances

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me where it is completely free. And I don't mean paid for via taxes.

No offense, but that's such a weird way of looking at it. Even in the US every reasonable adult would say that driving on public roads is free, right? But roads are maintained from taxes so how dare you call them free!!! It's the same thing here - other countries just pay for their citizens giving birth from taxes. The cost to you as a citizen is zero. No it's not free, someone pays for it. But I never used the word…

> every reasonable adult would say that driving on public roads is free, right?

No? I certainly don't. I'm constantly aware of how much we don't spend on roads.

Any conversation trashing the US for not having healthcare that is free-at-point-of-sale is meaningless without discussing the larger system.

What can I say, I get tired of Europeans trashing the US using singular metrics as if they're a meaningful reflection of policy.

You want to get into a more interesting conversation, let's talk about how the US citizenry is essentially subsidizing the universal healthcare that many other countries enjoy. That's not some political talking point, either, it's legitimate.

Re: Immediate skin-to-skin contact with unstable newborns improves survival chances

#138
post #133
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Childbirth is handled by midwives (Jordemothers) instead of doctors. Is midwife a female-only profession or are there male midwives too?

Are you objecting to 'mother' in the Dutch as if 'wife' in the English doesn't imply the same?

I didn't read that as objecting to anything, it looks like an honest question...

Re: Immediate skin-to-skin contact with unstable newborns improves survival chances

#139
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty common in the US as well although not the norm. I think it's kinda dumb to be honest. Just get an epidural. My wife was induced twice due to risk factors and got two epidurals. We still got to cuddle them new born. We also had to bottle feed the first week pretty heavily to stave off jaundice although they were mostly breast fed afterwards.

No, don't get an epidural. Pain has a purpose. It guides you to minimize injury. Be thankful you can feel pain. There are people with genetic defects that prevent feeling pain. These people constantly injure themselves.

They are constantly giving birth? That seems like a much more relevant medical condition. (But yes, I get your point -- it's just that it's not relevant when you're conflating burning a finger with giving birth.)

Pain definitely does have a purpose. It alerts you to things you may need to know about. Once you're alerted, its purpose is mostly lost. And many, many people living with chronic pain can tell you that sometimes the message is worse than the cause. The fact that complete absence of pain is a problem in no way supports your imperative to not get an epidural during childbirth.

I agree that getting an epidural before handling sharp objects is unwise.

Re: Immediate skin-to-skin contact with unstable newborns improves survival chances

#140
There is a lot of “woo woo” crap in the child birth industry. All the way from hardcore “all natural” proponents to traditional “hospital birth no matter what” people. Unfortunately this causes a lot of anxiety and second guessing on the part of new parents. I really didn’t appreciate the quasi-relgious or cult-like guidance we received on breast feeding our son, only to have him lose 15% of his body weight and not gain it back until we supplemented with formula.
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