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

#91

Post by mensetmanusman » Thu, May 27, 2021, 4:11 PM 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…

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 chemicals to ‘cure’ their pain that resulted in profound unintended consequences.

This history is still with us, and creates a lot of uncanny valley experiences. I.e. treating pregnancy like a disease.

When we gave birth during covid, I had to use an elevator to get to my wife. When the elevator door opened, a group in hazmat exited with a patient clearly dying of covid.

I was like: “are you fucking kidding me, this is still where we give birth in this country…”

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

#92

Post by drknownuffin » Thu, May 27, 2021, 4:12 PM UTC

irremediable wrote: post #86

drknownuffin wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skin-to-skin for children has been studied for a few decades, and the consensus is strongly in its favor, after a pile of studies have all pointed in the same direction. This study isn't "skin to skin care is good." This study was aimed to answer the question, as contextualized, "We have established that skin-to-skin care for healthy children is good (pile of studies); for unhealthy children that have been stabilized…

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 of whether the study was accurate or not, and a very poor predictor of whether there are other studies on the topic. So I think it a mistake to substitute "it has come to my attention once" for "it has only been studied once."

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

#93

Post by hallway_monitor » Thu, May 27, 2021, 4:15 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #91

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…

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…

We did it in the hospital too but there's nothing stopping you from using a midwife at home right?

Another thing that seems to be pushed a lot is epidurals. They expect everyone to get one and are very surprised when someone does not want it.

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

#94

Post by ezekg » Thu, May 27, 2021, 4:17 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #91

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…

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.

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

#95

Post by thorin1 » Thu, May 27, 2021, 4:17 PM 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…

It's exactly the same in Canada. It was a great experience and we were so happy that we could be with our baby 100% of the time.

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

#96

Post by gregmac » Thu, May 27, 2021, 4:18 PM UTC

prionassembly wrote: post #58

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…

> 1. Childbirth is handled by midwives (Jordemothers) instead of doctors. Doctors are brought only when medication or any treatment is necessary. This is perfectly rational in the context of publicly-funded healthcare; for many mothers (younger and in optimal health) pregnancy has little complications. On the other hand, we really benefited from high-intensity pre-natal care with frequent ultrasounds, as we were able…

I'm not sure why you're talking as if these are mutually exclusive?

I'm in Canada, where midwives are publicly funded, but still not that common (there's a waitlist and not everyone gets in). The midwives have hospital privileges, and are basically the "primary care provider" (instead of an obstetrician or family doctor). They still do ultrasounds, and if there was a concern, they can turn over care to a MD.

We actually did the birth in the hospital, and were just alone in the room with 2 midwives the entire time (no nurses / doctors involved). Our midwife did warn us that if a complication became up - especially at the end - that the room could get very busy very fast if they had to call in people, but thankfully that didn't happen.

We have a friend that had their kids at home. The midwives notify the hospital and ambulance service this is happening. They actually had to go to the hospital for one kid who had a complication, and my understanding is the ambulance was there very quickly and things were turned over to the medical team for birth, then after everything was ok, care turned back to he midwife a few hours later.

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

#97

Post by isolli » Thu, May 27, 2021, 4:26 PM UTC

moonbug wrote: post #2

Based on this, expect US hospital prices for that service to go up.

You're joking, but my wife gave birth to our first-born in the US, and she had to wait several hours until she could hold her baby because... the transportation team (whose job was to roll her bed to the elevator) was unavailable due to a change-of-shift.

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

#98

Post by wycy » Thu, May 27, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

throwkeep wrote: post #81

afavour wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and despite it being essentially a time period where the hospital leaves you alone, you still get billed for it.

Well, the bed and room itself is a limited resource of the hospital and it's one of their expenses.

It's not just your time in the bed/room, there's often a line item on your bill for skin-time. On top of that, you pay for your time in the room.

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

#99

Post by tootie » Thu, May 27, 2021, 4:39 PM 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…

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.

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

#100

Post by swman » Thu, May 27, 2021, 4:39 PM 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…

I resonate with #4. I'm in US, so healthcare is tied to employer. My first job ever paid 12/hr and I did not have health care and it was a part time job, so I'm glad I could rely on my mother's health insurance until age 26 (thanks Obama).

I got my first "real" job after spending a year trying to find a full time job after graduating college, during which I was working that 12/hr job. Even at the new job which paid 80k a year, I had to pay $30/paycheck ($60/mo) towards healthcare. Thankfully never had to use that insurance while I worked there.

Now at my current place I get HDHP (high deductible health plan) and when I messed up my leg the hospital I went to didn't even have crutches in their inventory.. got wheeled out to my car and I had to drive to a pharmacy to purchase crutches.. it was horrible, and I couldn't imagine what this situation must be like for someone without insurance.

Anyway the worst part is that I still ended up paying about $1500 out of pocket, because the 1st X-Ray was covered, but the next two were $600 each....... $40 crutches ..............