United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

This is from the message boards on 20/20. This woman makes me sick...we should all respond to her bull****!!!

Videotaping Births 7:50AM PST, Mar 9, 2002

How sad that as I read over many responses I see angry people. Anger over a outcome that is not perfect. Anger that never resolves except that someone has to be to blame. Anger that never accepts that no one that is pregnant is guaranteed a perfect outcome. If you want a guarantee for a perfect child don't become pregnant because that expectation is not real. Doctors save infants lives every day. Do you want videos to remember the event or to make yourselves judge and jury over health professionals. Should health professionals seek your opinion before they deliver? Should they ask do you want a live baby or a baby that may possibly have BPI? What would you chose at the time?

The link to the message boards is:
http://boards.abcnews.go.com/cgi/abcnew ... cnews_2020

I already did... and yes it made me angry too.
Kath

sounds like this was written by an angry doctor (who has probably injured a good handful of children) and IS NOT GETTING IT!!!

My daughter was injured terrible. c4, c5 and c6 were torn. My husband is a doctor.

This is bull because with today's technology they can see how big the baby is. In our case they knew 5 days before he was born that his chest was 2 cm. larger than his head...When we asked if there was a chance the baby could get stuck they said no....My previous son had a broken collor bone and we told them that at EVERY visit!! It was pure neglect on their part. It is just emotional blackmail to say do you want a live baby or a baby with BPI. It shows the person's ignorance who wrote it.
T.

apparently this person has not had the pleasure of watching their baby struggle to eat a cookie, hold their bottle, etc. maybe tells you what kind of lifestyle they live. Because obviously they settle for just anything in life. Poor little person that posted that. they have no idea.

The births I choose to take part in are not medical events nor are they legal liabilities for anyone, they are spiritual events, and that is by the choice of the mother~ and the outcome is always accepted as a gift.
There may be a point of moderation between my view and the views expressed here, but ultimately I would agree with the woman about the gift of life,
...but there is no right or wrong here
things are not black and white, there is your view and my view and others' views,
It is my understanding that in the UK there is a group very active with inservices at the hospitals who educate care providers on how to manage dystocias, their rates are much lower than ours and I believe they feel as if the education has had a direct result on the lowered rate of BPIs, this seems to indicate that many dystocias can be resolved without injury,
Noone, a doctor midwife whoever, can guarantee a healthy baby, noone injures babies on purpose,
negligent maybe, but not on purpose.
blessed be, mary

obviously posted by someone who hasn't experienced our pain, let the shoe fall on the other foot and see how she feels. i separate my life into two different parts bbpi and abpi. before bpi i might have felt the same way, now things have changed and i see the world in a totally different way and i also see people in a different way. maybe that is part of the blessing of the injury is that we can open our minds and our hearts to those who have experienced circumstances which have caused hardship and make their world a little better. as we make the decision to take our fight to court we have the ability to affect change in "the standards of care" and that is a positive thing. sharlon

I am happy for you that your are at peace with your outcome, but I think the key element missing is that the doctors and midwives 'DONT VIEW BIRTH AS SPIRITUAL' to them you are another patient on their conveyer belt and they become rushed or even unavailable during the process and negligence thus occurs. MOst parents are spiritual about the miracle that is birth, but it does not mean they have to accept an outcome which could have been avoided with the proper standard of care.

i hear you on the rush rush business of birthing babies, once i was in my ob's office and the nurse came in to tell me that "he had to catch a baby and would be right back" sure enough he returned in just a few minutes