"Just take a little off the top"

This week the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that a mother who was unhappy with the results of her sons circumcision cannot sue the hospital for malpractice.
Dawn and David Nelson claim that when their son was born in January 2000,a doctor removed "the most erogenous tissue" and they were not satisfied with the results.Apparently it did not "look right".
Their attorney,Zenas Baer claims they did not consent to the procedure but doctors at Unity Hospital in Fridley,Minnesota,say the Nelsons checked off a box on prenatal forms indicating they wanted a circumcision if the expected baby was male.The Nelsons already reached an undisclosed settlement in their suit against Dr.Steven Berestka for assault,battery and negligence but the suit against the hospital and its parent company was dismissed.Attorney Baer says that the Nelsons will appeal,and added that a second circumcision was performed on the child in question for "cosmetic reasons".
Apparently Zenas Baer has a thing about circumcision-his website proclaims that he "contributes substantial amounts of time to ending the barbaric practice of routine infant male circumcision worldwide, insuring genital integrity for all citizens of the world."HUH?

Hand sanitizers aren't enough in hospital settings

We all know someone who uses this hand sanitizer gel religiously-I typically only use it in cold season when I am not able to wash my hands right away but I know alot of people also keep it in their purse,car,desk drawer,etc.The problem with these gels are some people will forgo traditional hand washing altogether in favor of the quicker easier cleanup,which may be OK for most people but not good enough for hospitals.

Most hospitals now have hand sanitizer dispensers EVERYWHERE and while it is a step in the right direction,A recent study suggests they are NOT as effective as good old fashioned soap and water in preventing antibiotic resisitant hospital infections.

In a study headed by Dr.Mark Rupp of the University of Nebraska Medical Center,infection rates among patients persisted even though medical staff had doubled their use of the alcohol based sanitizing gels at Nebraska Medical Center.

Which means while you certainly cannot rub on some Purell and then perform surgery,it is still a healthy substitute for soap and water when there are no hand-washing facilities.Keep on pumping!

Gardasil ads don't tell the whole story

Recently there has been alot of controversy surrounding the HPV vaccine,which has been approved by the FDA for women ages 9 to 26 and which the CDC has suggested should be mandatory along with other childhood innoculations.The ads tell you that your daughter could be " one less" victim of cervical cancer if you get her vaccinated and its true that many types of cervical cancer are caused by HPV but they are not giving the whole story...
Human papilloma virus is a sexually transmitted disease,which means like any other STD,you are not at risk if you are abstinent or in a committed monogamous sexual relationship with an uninfected partner-PERIOD.So unless your 9 year old daughter is sexually active,she will not get HPV or the strain of cervical cancer it causes.So then why the big push to make it mandatory?Shouldn't that be the parents decision?And why are they not being more clear and concise about the issue?You would be surprised at the number of people who are oblivious to the fact that HPV is an STD.Telling parents that they can prevent their daughters from getting cervical cancer with this shot and leaving out all the facts about HOW HPV is contracted is misleading to say the least.When my daughter is a teenager and IF she decides to become sexually active despite my feelings about it,I will certainly have her innoculated-but that is my choice as a parent.I will NOT be carting her off to a doctor for a series of painful shots at the age of 9 or 10 for something that is totally unnecessary.It's wonderful that we are making strides to beat any kind of cancer,but I also think the drug companies and medical community have a responsibility to give us the whole story-not just what they think we want to hear to sell their products and/or services!

March of Dimes-70 Years and still going strong

January 3 marks the 70th anniversary of The March of Dimes organization,which initially was called the "National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis" and was formed to fight polio,also known as poliomyelitis and crippled thousands before vaccines were developed.The organization ran radio ads asking everyone to donate a dime to fight polio.They helped fund the scientific work that led to the creation of vaccines by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin,and in 1955,children throughout the US started receiving the immunizations and they were proven to be 80-90% effective in preventing the disease.Around 1958,with polio diagnoses decreasing rapidly thanks to the new vaccines,The March of Dimes shifted their focus to preventing premature births,birth defects and infant mortality.To date they have raised more than 1.7 billion toward their mission and as of 2007,their celebrity spokesman is Tv personality Tom Bergeron(Dancing with the stars,Americas Funniest Home Videos).

They have taken alot of heat from animal rights groups such as PETA,for funding medical research involving the use of animals,but along the way they have saved countless little lives.Thanks to their research,we know know that something as simple as nutritional deficiencies can cause birth defects and as a result,women are starting to get ample amounts of folic acid BEFORE becoming pregnant,which decreases the risk of neural tube defects like spina bifida.I have a special place in my heart for this organization for two reasons.First of all,I lost an uncle to post-polio syndrome when I was 11 years old.He was one of the kindest men I ever knew and he survived polio as a child only to suffer complications later in life from the disease which eventually killed him before he reached 40.Secondly,I had a high risk pregnancy with my daughter,and it was next to impossible for the doctors to pinpoint a due date,so my daughter was taken a month early to avoid complications with my diabetes.She weighed well over 7 lbs but her heart rate was erratic and she spent her first few days in NICU-and March of Dimes was instrumental in setting up NICU units in maternity wards to treat sick newborns.Its easy to say,"oh they test on animals" but how many lives have they saved over the years?Just twenty years ago,a baby born at 22-24 weeks had no chance at all to survive on its own.Today,not only are they preventing such early births but their research has benefitted those who are born so early and 22 weekers actually can make it with medical intervention and lots of prayer.

So,if you are looking for a cause to donate to that really has a positive impact on children,lets all make sure that the March of Dimes is around for another 70 years!

New Years Babies nothing new to this couple

For the second year in row,a Pennsylvania couple have been the proud parents of Gettysburg Hospitals' first new baby of the year.Kyle & Becky Armstrong welcomed their newest daughter into the world at 5:27 am on January 1,2008.Their older daughter,Kaden,was born at the same hospital last year,on January 1,2007!Is anyone else seeing a pattern emerge here?LOL.Mrs. Armstrong commented "It's strange-its all very weird",which leads me to believe they didn't plan it this way.It doesn't matter when they are conceived,I guess,babies just come when they are ready!LOL.I was supposed to have a New Years Baby myself 4 years ago but she came almost a month early.I also have a brother and a sister who share the same birthday three years apart!
Congratulations to the Armstrongs and all the other New Year Baby Mamas and Daddies.And Mrs.Armstrong,from one woman to another-unless you want a trifecta,keep that man off of you for a few months lol.

Racial disparity in ER pain treatment

A study appearing today in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that white people are more likely to receive powerful narcotic medications for pain when being treated at emergency rooms than their non-white counterparts.It revealed that some doctors show preferential treatment to white patients out of the assumption that a minority patient will abuse the more potent opioid pain meds.Ironically,while Hispanics are catching up to whites in the abuse of prescription drugs,blacks are less likely statistically to abuse prescription narcotics.The study was federally funded and data culled from ER visits to 500 hospitals for 4 weeks a year over the course of 13 years.It noted that minorities being treated at ER's for pain are more apt to be given ibuprofen,aspirin or similar nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory pain medications.

Advances in pain management protocol and policy are helping to close the gap,according to doctors involved in the study.

Anything to make a buck.....

Months ago I read an investigative report in Marie Claire magazine about the booming surrogacy industry in India and this weekend it actually made the mainstream news.Infertile couples all over the world are paying poor women in India to carry a child conceived with their sperm and egg via IVF and then implanted into the surrogate.Surrogacy is often a last resort for childless couples and invokes alot of controversy,but it is still legal in most countries to "rent a womb".Proponents point out that the women are paid on average about 5 thousand dollars to carry the baby and they are helping childless couples become parents but it is not all roses and wine...It borders on unethical exploitation and opponents fear "baby farm" operations cropping up in other poverty stricken regions of the world.
There are so many unwanted and neglected children already on this earth who need good loving homes and families for people to start outsourcing pregnancy to India like a part-time job.The thousands of dollars these people spend going to India and paying a surrogate could be better used to adopt a child in need,and providing for that childs upbringing and education.It could be donated to March of Dimes to help those little babies already here struggling to survive.Just because you aren't biologically related to an adopted child doesn't mean you cannot be a "real" family.

Multiple mayhem

Last week there was a news story about teenage quadruplets born in 1990 who paid a special visit to a newborn set of quads who were born at the same hospital as the teens and as I read the advice that the teens parents gave to the new parents,I couldn't help but think of how mainstream and commonplace multiple births are now,mostly due to medical advancements and intervention."Jon & Kate plus 8",a show about a family with a set of twins AND a set of sextuplets,is one of the highest rated programs on TLC.The McConahey septuplets just celebrated their 10th birthday and were featured on the cover of a national womens magazine.

I have mixed feelings about the issue.I certainly can understand the desire to have a child and the lengths that a woman will go to in order to do so,but it's not all warm & fuzzy....The more babies there is,the higher their chances are of being premature,which in turn leads to a host of physical and developmental disabilities.Some doctors advocate "selective reduction",in other words,aborting some of the babies early in order to give one or two of them a better chance of survival-but thats not an option for alot of expectant parents,because of religious or moral beliefs.Unfortunately,because artificial insemination procedures are SO expensive and rarely covered by insurance,multiple embryos are implanted in the hopes that at least one will "take".While it would be wiser to implant just one or two,most women can only afford it once and are determined to succeed because they might not get another opportunity.So it is a very personal and complicated issue.

It used to be that multiples were rare,and while there are still the occasional set of multiples that were conceived the "old-fashioned way",for the most part the increasing multiple births are due to modern fertility medicine.I personally do not know how I would cope if I had more than one toddler but theres families that have anywhere from 3 to 7 and somehow they manage.They used to be able to get freebies from big companies but as multiples become more common,the diapers and strollers and other goodies have dried up.At least things are easier for these tots now.Back before artificial reporduction,quads and other multiples were exploited by their parents and sideshow barkers,some even being raised in circuses and traveling oddity shows like bearded ladies!We have come a long way since then.I can only recall one or two sets of twins in my high school-now there liable to be one or two in EVERY class!