Controversial topics: Health care and preemies

Recently with the health care debate comes some pretty hot topics about how other countries run health care. How other countries aren't doing such a hot job, or how other countries are just letting babies die.

Along with this debate an article was run recently on a UK site ( I do not know if it is just a blog or a newspaper) regarding the care of a premature infant and the government allowing it to "die" by refusing to treat the infant. Most of the comments are by people in the United States OUTRAGED by this type of "medical care." Most of them claiming it is barbaric and inhuman. But it seems ( in my opinion) some of the things that were overlooked were also very KEY points to WHY they did what they did.

* First though, I do sincerely give my condolences to the mother. It is a sad sad thing either way you look at it.*

Fact number one: The baby was born at 21 weeks and 5 days into her pregnancy. Meaning this child was WELL below the "average" of Age of viability. Many different places state that age of viability is 23-24 range, giving the statistic to be around 50 percent survival. The facts given of survival around 22 weeks of age is nearly extinct because there are not many cases involving fetuses born before 23 weeks and 1 day.

Fact #2: Medics allegedly told her that they would have tried to save the baby if he had been born two days later, at 22 weeks.

The difference in ONE DAY in the womb at babies this early is HUGE. It truly is the difference between night and day. And sometimes it is the difference between life and death, disability and long term issues. So much happens in that time frame that make a child more able to be born and given a fighting chance.

Fact #3; They were following their national guidelines set forth by the government.
This is where people seem to think that it is just with nationalized health care. (NHS) when in fact it is not. 4 years ago when we were in labor with our extremely premature infant we were in a hospital that did not have a sick baby nursery let alone a level 3 NICU. We were told that they would call maternal and fetal life flight but if the baby was born 500 grams or less they would not be able to do anything. That was in the UNITED STATES. Not a nationalized health care system. We were lucky that Ty was born at 580 grams. But I know many people who did not make it to that lucky 24 weeks.

After looking at many of the links from the article given above I found MANY different things on the guidelines set forth. I don't know where to find the guidelines for the United states but I am still looking.

Some things I found interesting:

First Article:

"The guidelines were clear: no baby below 22 weeks gestation should be resuscitated.

If a child was born between 22 and 23 weeks into pregnancy it should not be standard practice to offer medical intervention, which should only be given if parents requested it, and following a through discussion about the likely outcomes, the document said."

"The latest major study on survival of premature babies shows that at 23 weeks, just 16 per cent will survive - a statistic which has barely changed in a decade.

Given such poor odds, the use of procedures like ventilation on babies of even lower gestation, who have poorly developed lungs and weak major organs, can amount to cruel "experimentation" pediatricians and ethicist say.

They also point out that of all babies born before 26 weeks, 40 per cent will have significant disabilities, such as cerebral palsy - a percentage which increases with prematurity."

Sometimes even at a later gestation I wondered what was experimentation and how well did they know the long term effects of what they were doing. Yes, I am glad they were able to save my child. The implications of long term effects were there and we knew what we could be facing. But the day to day stresses of living with and providing the best care for Tyler is VERY hard on a person ( including Tyler.)


The second article had MANY good points as well. But they were very similar to the first one. While I can't imagine the pain of losing a child I can't imagine 21 weeks and trying to save my child. I cant' imagine telling someone to NOT save my child. Knowing how hard it was to see my child at 25 weeks BARELY formed what would it be for those babies who are no where near developmentally ready to be out of the womb.

I do not think that the united states guidelines are much different from the UK. They have a higher ranking according to WHO in the health care rankings. Their care is not that far from our own. How can we realistically think that they wouldn't be providing better or similar care?

Summing it all up, I am not sure what is best. I am not really sure what I would do? I think the propaganda against others health system to make the US look in superior is NOT the best representation either.