Early Births Take a Toll

One thing we need to keep in mind is that premature birth can have long term consequence well-past the time spent in the NICU.  These families may have to deal with a lifetime of blindness, cerebral palsy, developmental delays and other issues.

The March of Dimes is doing amazing work to help educate families and prevent prematurity around the world.

For some simple and practical solutions that can point our families and babies toward healthier, safer beginnings, check out this video on Reducing Infant Mortality.

Screnshot from the trailer of Reducing Infant Mortality

Just saw on UnneCesarean a post about a free online film being released on July 26th: Reducing Infant Mortality and Improving the Health of Babies.  It highlights the sad fact that too many babies are dying in the U.S. around the time of birth.   As health care is debated on Capitol Hill this summer,  this film is hoping to bring light to a particularly dark corner of our health care system.

I knew that in the US,  we ranked very poorly overall, especially when compared to other developed nations (42nd in fact).  I learned watching the trailer that it is even more perilous for African American babies in the U.S. With a rate of 16 deaths per 100 births, African American babies are close to 2.5 times more likely to die around the time of birth than babies from the general population in the U.S.  This is scandalous.

Experts interviewed for the film are Obstetricians, Family Physicians, Midwives, MD’s, Doulas, and PhD’s including:  Michel Odent, Thomas Verny, Marshall Klaus, Phyllis Klaus, Marsdsen Wagner, David Chamberlain, Karen Strange, Robbie Davis-Floyd, Jennie Joseph, Sarah Buckley, Bruce Smith, Yeshi Neumann, Paul Fleiss, Maria Iorillo, Stuart Fischbein, Debra Bonaro-Pascali and Judith Prager.

Watch the trailer here:    Reducing Infant Mortality

Get Involved Here:  Reducing Infant Mortality: Take Action

Now they’ve turned their eye toward how we give birth here in the US.  What they concluded was that we overuse high-tech intervention like Electronic Fetal Monitoring and cesarean section and underuse low-tech non-invasive measures like warm baths and early skin-to-skin contact with mother and baby.

Consumer reports based its assessment on a paper published by Childbirth Connection. I have a copy of the paper, and it is an excellent evaluation of what the research shows to be best practices in maternity care. You can get a free copy of their report here.  If you don’t want to read the whole thing, you can get the summary on the Consumer Reports Page.  What’s even cooler is that they’ve designed a quiz to see how much you know about maternity care best practices.  Some of the answers go against conventional wisdom (like “once a cesarean always a cesarean”) and may surprise you.

What I love about the Childbirth Connection paper and the Consumer reports page is that they describe what research is showing to have best outcomes for mothers and babies.  And since at last check the US was 29th in the world for infant mortality, we could use all the best practices we can get.