United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

I would be happy to send a letter to that magazine to help make them aware of the "Temporary Damage". I think that we have all been told that BPI is temporary . HA!!!! Does anyone have the address?

No! Christy don't take the blame for not knowing. It is the doctors job to know what to do and to explain the possibilities to his/her paitents...
I knew about Erb's Palsy when I was pregnant and my doctor told me when I asked him... "they had to do that to me to save my life" What a bunch of BS... then he did not show up to deliver my SD baby --- Thank God because the doctor on knew how to handel it... My daughter is 38 now! It was up to your doctor to do his job and have his skill up to par for all emergencies.
Kath

Kath they told my mom the very same thing; that they had to do it to save my life, however there was no evidence that my life was in danger! I am also still waiting for my "temperary injury" to go away! GRRR!!!!
Amy

Well,
I just sent them a letter. Let's see what happens.

claudia

Would you believe that I had to e-mail them to find out how to send a letter to the editor? There was no info in the magazine!
I just sent my letter. Here is the e-mail address for you to send yours:

abletters@americanbaby.com

Thanks, everybody!
Janet

This whole thing is so frustrating!! I think the letters are a good idea too. I would like to point out though that we might not be too quick to point fingers at the dr b/c while it might be the dr, often it's the reporter that gets the information wrong. Obviously the information is incorrect, so it'd be good to write to the editor, but we really don't know the source of the bad information so we should keep that in mind.

~Tina

I sent one too.

Lauren

Tina,

I understand what you're saying. But in this case, the doctor WAS the reporter.

My background is in newspapers, so I have no sympathy for anyone here. I don't really care if the doctor or the editor was the one who screwed up - it was irresponsible to leave the impression that the only bad result of SD is "temporary damage." So either someone wrote it wrong, or someone edited it wrong. In any case, it was wrong.

Even if this doctor had said "MOST babies will have temporary damage," I wouldn't have been so annoyed, because that's true. But the wording was such that it left the impression that all the injuries are temporary.

In my experience, the vast majority of factual errors in newspapers and magazines lie with the person who wrote it. It's not *as* common for editors to edit IN bad information. Hope that makes sense ...

Janet

I sent one too. I didn't get to read the article though, but would like to.Did I read correctly that the dr stated about one percent of births? Because all the research I fould states it occours in 3-5 of every 1000 births. It happens more than babies born with down syndrome and spinabifida. There is just not enough publications so people are not aware of this.