Immediate skin-to-skin contact with unstable newborns improves survival chances • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by watersb » Fri, May 28, 2021, 1:07 AM UTC

reacharavindh wrote: post #33

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…

We got to do this, in the United States, when each of our kids were born, living in a village in desert Southwest.

We were very fortunate.

And as the area had been designated as economically distressed, there were other support policies in place, not optional, and covered by either private insurance (via my employer), or public grants (from state or federal government programs) -- 48 hours stay in hospital, a quiet, private room. It was a slow day for the hospital. And a social worker would come visit our house a few times, a few weeks later.

Posting these personal anecdotes because it might be of interest to know how different things can be, out in remote locations of the US, different cultures and history.

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

#192

Post by NateEag » Fri, May 28, 2021, 1:34 AM UTC

Fomite wrote: post #111

mensetmanusman wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. experience used to be this way, but about 100 years ago the medical industry realized they could make a lot of money off of child birth (our last bill was $40k). The hospitals released advertisements scaring women from voodoo (read: black) women/midwives helping with birth so that doctors and surgeons could take over, it worked fantastically. The doctors eventually chained women to beds and tested various ch…

There is no "U.S. experience" because of the absolute mess of our healthcare system. There are birthing centers that work very much like the process described above.

Indeed - I have to give a plug for UPMC Harrisburg in Pennsylvania.

My wife gave birth to all three of our kids there, and while it was more institutional than what's described above, they were big on skin-to-skin contact and leaving it to the parents to parent while the nurses and docs took care of medical needs. Staff was uniformly great throughout all of our births.

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

#193

Post by NateEag » Fri, May 28, 2021, 1:36 AM UTC

ezekg wrote: post #94

mensetmanusman wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. experience used to be this way, but about 100 years ago the medical industry realized they could make a lot of money off of child birth (our last bill was $40k). The hospitals released advertisements scaring women from voodoo (read: black) women/midwives helping with birth so that doctors and surgeons could take over, it worked fantastically. The doctors eventually chained women to beds and tested various ch…

Midwives are the way. My first child's prenatal and birth was < $5k, born at home.

That was about the total for each of our hospital births.

Medical experiences and costs in the US really are crazy variable.

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

#194

Post by sgtnoodle » Fri, May 28, 2021, 2:04 AM UTC

syntaxing wrote: post #46

reacharavindh wrote: post #33

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’m in the US and most hospital does the same now. They call it the golden hour where it’s just an hour of skin to skin just like you mentioned with no baby health routine until after such.

Kaiser in California is all about midwives and skin on skin contact with delayed umbilical cutting. For my daughter's birth, though, they decided it was prudent to take her to the side right away to flog her upside down with a rubber mallet!

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

#195

Post by Diesel555 » Fri, May 28, 2021, 2:15 AM UTC

Accujack wrote: post #161

mensetmanusman wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. experience used to be this way, but about 100 years ago the medical industry realized they could make a lot of money off of child birth (our last bill was $40k). The hospitals released advertisements scaring women from voodoo (read: black) women/midwives helping with birth so that doctors and surgeons could take over, it worked fantastically. The doctors eventually chained women to beds and tested various ch…

>but about 100 years ago It wasn't really an issue for the most part until laws were changed in the early 70s - by Nixon. That was when for profit health care took over here.

Person not alive in the 70s here (and not researched it), but curious why our heath care system is so bad. Could you elaborate on your point / give some sources? It seems interesting to me.

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

#196

Post by dzhiurgis » Fri, May 28, 2021, 2:17 AM UTC

pumaontheprowl wrote: post #126

reacharavindh wrote: post #33

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…

2.8 million people die during childbirth every year. It's absolutely a medical condition. And you should absolutely have a doctor there.

I'd guess the stats favour non-hospital births because they are only done when deemed safe beforehand. No midwife will let you do it outside hospital if they spotted anything wrong.

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

#197

Post by ghufran_syed » Fri, May 28, 2021, 4:03 AM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #169

whall6 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of women I know elect to have C-sections.

My understanding is that that is often because doctors fail to educate them sufficiently on the cons. The recovery from a C-section is worse, the outcomes are worse for both mother and child, future children are likely to be more difficult. There's not much reason to recommend an elect C-section in most cases (certainly not 33% of cases) except that the doctors get to bill for it.

The case linked below started off with an attempt at a normal vaginal delivery. Based on your comment, you might think it admirable that the doctors didn't consider doing a c-section and continued to try vaginal deliver for around 60 hours - but then had to do a c-section and the baby had severe brain injury.

"Specifically, the family alleged the hospital did not properly estimate the weight of the fetus, even though the ultrasound estimate was more than the average weight. The family also asserted that the hospital failed in assessing the safety of vaginal delivery, which constituted malpractice. Finally, the family claimed the hospital did not recognize the deteriorating fetal heart rate pattern, which showed decelerations and a rising baseline. The family stated that if the hospital and its staff adhered to the appropriate standard of care, the infant’s injuries could have been prevented.

Through careful monitoring, the physicians would have noted that delivery via cesarean section was viable — and, in fact, the most appropriate option. This is reinforced because despite the administration of labor-inducing drugs, delivery had not occurred after 60 hours. This timing should have concerned the physicians and care providers, and they should have re-evaluated their initial course of treatment. Absent any evidence indicating otherwise, the abnormal 60-hour labor period could easily have injured the fetus. Whether the physicians acted negligently while monitoring the fetus’ heart rate would likely have been a significant material issue in this case. However, the family presented strong evidence that the care providers were negligent based on the totality of the circumstances and obvious disregard of cause for concern."

It's easy to have opinions when you don't have responsibility for people's lives.

https://www.reliasmedia.com/articles/145690-birth-injury-lit...

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

#198

Post by pedroma » Fri, May 28, 2021, 4:50 AM UTC

acuozzo wrote: post #186

pedroma wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should I pay for other people's kids if I'm never going to have kids? The only people that should have to pay for those services are the people who actually use those services. For things that are unplanned like injuries (or even unplanned pregnancies), payment can be deferred if necessary and wages deducted straight from the paycheck to pay back for those services. Ideally, roads are that way too. People license…

> Why should I pay for other people's kids if I'm never going to have kids? Medical Debt Up => Poverty Up => Crime Up => Incarceration Up => Paying for their imprisonment instead. You're protected by prisons, so you are a user of the service provided by them and must therefore pay under your model. > Ideally, roads are that way too. How would this work for e.g. Montana with seemingly-endless lengths of highway and a…

>How would this work for e.g. Montana with seemingly-endless lengths of highway and a very low population density?

Why would they need nice roads then? Seems like a waste of money to build a bunch of expensive roads for the 5,000 people who use them. They can manage with cheap roads and dirt roads that don't need much maintenance. The Chinese rural areas manage just fine with dirt roads, and those areas have way higher population densities.

>You're protected by prisons, so you are a user of the service provided by them and must therefore pay under your model.

Why should I pay for someone's crimes? It's such a stupid system. If they are murderers they should just receive the capital punishment. And if the crime is not murder, they can be put into factories where they are able produce something of value -- farming or whatever. If their business is not profitable it should at least reduce the taxpayer burden. I know this is dreamland ideal world logic, but working closer to this certainly doesn't hurt, with the alternative being they don't do anything at all and are pure leeches. Yes, I know they make license plates but surely they can do a little more than that with such a huge prison population. This also incentivizes training them and providing them skills when they leave prison -- if training them with skills will help the prison make money, why not? The inmate also leaves the prison with job prospects with many years of experience in a trade.

>Do you believe only private schools should exist?

Private schools have higher success rate for their graduates. There are other factors that play into this, obviously. Let me ask you this first - do you think public schools are doing poor kids any good? Especially in the inner cities where many poor black families live? I think any alternative is worth looking into to bring them out of poverty. Or you can just leave them to their devices.

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

#199

Post by pmiller2 » Fri, May 28, 2021, 5:54 AM UTC

Thorentis wrote: post #177

pmiller2 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... the thought process of capitalism in some countries. FTFY.

Providing poor service and still making money isn't capitalism. That's a lack of competition. Plenty of countries have poor government run services and there's no alternative. Same deal - no competition.

Charging for things just because you can is a capitalist mindset, however.

Besides, hospitals will never be more competitive than an oligopoly in most cases, simply because only so many are built in any given geographic area, and most people can only travel so far for medical care. There are some services the “free market” simply can’t deliver efficiently.

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

#200

Post by mpercy » Fri, May 28, 2021, 7:28 AM UTC

spockz wrote: post #153

ezekg wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Midwives are the way. My first child's prenatal and birth was < $5k, born at home.

Amazing. In the Netherlands it is free. You get a midwife, hospital and medical staff when required. You get a box of goods for the first days of baby care. We get 4-6 weeks paid leave as a father and 16 as a mother. There is help in the house for about a week to take care of baby and mother and do checkups. The only thing you pay a symbolic amount of money for is some to borrow tools like bath chairs. Probably some…

Most people have good health care plans through their employer that pays for most of this stuff. I paid a few hundred dollars to the hospital when my child was born and we were there for several days. There are just a lot of people who for one reason or another do not have those benefits. It’s a very multimodal experience here unfortunately.