to be completely upset by this?

[passtheearplugs]

I am a long time lurker - you ladies helped cheer me up and keep me sane when i was PG with ds

But today i decided to stop lurking and ask for the MN jury opinions on this...

Reading The Sun today i noticed an aticle about a woman whose baby died (2 hours later) in her arms when born prem at 22 weeks. the hospital staff did nothing to prevent this childs death because before 24 weeks they class it as a miscarriage. So this poor woman held her baby begging hospital staff to help her still live child while they stood there and told her that her child was not classed as a living baby but just a miscarriage. So then preceeded to wait for the poor child to die.

AIBU in being terribly upset about this and thinking it is just WRONG?? And that someone should do something like a petition to at least try and get this changed? (would do so myself but do no have the slightest idea of how to do it)

YANBU. I read stories like this and feel it's terrible and wrong. But I think there is a basis in science as in they can't keep a baby of 22 weeks alive.

ok, I get that if there was absolutely nothing they could do then fine (Obviously not fine, still terribly sad but you know what i mean)

i just think its terrible that they wouldn't even try to save the poor baby when it was breathing on its own. and they fact they didn't even class it as a baby

I'm very niave when it's comes to prem babies so don't know the ins and outs but this article really disturbed me

Hmmm The Sun isn't the most relevant paper in the library of medical facts so I wouldn't particularly believe the drama of it.
But there is a common theory that at less than 22 weeks the balance of living over quality of life is not good for children born prior to 22 weeks.
Also its really specialist care for a child that is born so early and the hospital may not have had the equipment or nursing staff to help the baby survive.
An awful event for everyone though, the mother and the staff.
As for a petition I haven?t got all the facts and figures and stats of the outcomes of these children so I'm up for informed debate. Apparently about 300 children are born prior to 22 weeks so its worth debating it.

I've done some googling and the state of play is that guidelines say a baby born under 23 weeks of gestation is unlikely to treated:

'But while survival rates for those born after 24 weeks in the womb have risen significantly, the rates for those born earlier have barely changed, despite advances in medicine and technology.

Medical experts say babies born before 23 weeks are simply too under-developed to survive, and that to use aggressive treatment methods would only prolong their suffering, or inflict pain.

The guidelines were drawn up by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics after a two-year inquiry which took evidence from doctors, nurses and religious leaders.'

Not sure why religious leaders were involved with a scientific debate!

The website refered to in the article above is justice4jayden.webs.com/jaydensstory.htm

I'm sure when i was pregnant i read about a lady who gave birth to twins at 22 weeks and both survived with wedical help. Surely a single pregnancy could be the same? or is it different for twins?

earwicga I will read that info when my laptop decides to actually load other websites

*medical help, obviously

just realised that info is to do with the baby i have been talking about

The reason religious leaders were involved in this debate about the viability of preemies and the duty of care is that at present there is a cutoff of 24 weeks for abortion; it was pushed back from 28 weeks when medical advances began to result in more and more babies born at 24 weeks surviving, and more evidence becoming available that thy can feel pain. It's not entirely a scientific debate -- religious leaders and plenty of ordinary people see the denial of medical care as a moral issue/ right to life issue; as the mother in this case argued, how can they know he wouldn't have survived if they wouldn't give him the help that could have saved him? I don't think the scientific aspects of the situation gave her any comfort.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1211950/Premature-baby-left-die-doctors-mother-gives-birth-just-days-22-week-care-limit.html

Found the story from last month (sorry, don't like the mail any more than the sun) but it sums it up. Her PR got the story rerun on the back of Lily Allen's loss.

Think she was treated insensitively but having read about Amillia Taylor - she was not born at the same age - they didn't count from 2 weeks pre-conception apparently. She may have survived but still suffered from a brain hemmhorage.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amillia_Sonja_Taylor#Maternal_background

It's a bloody tough call. The cut off point is to limit suffering for the child not the mum.
The general prognosis is far from good.

The mum is young and has a gorgeous little girl but has tragically lost 5 babies... the problem being that if you have 6 months or less between pregnancies then you raise the chances of delivering pre-term (i do not know the mum's circs/background or counselling she has received but statistically that is the research). She has every right to be angry, hurt and grieving - the doctors apparently didn't even look at Jayden? but the law is designed to protect her son's rights not to suffer unneccessarily
even if to the mum he looked like he might make it.

Regarding a petition the mum has a website /facebook campaign account that the op/other mnetters could sign to. Here's the link.

justice4jayden.webs.com/jaydensstory.htm

www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=44595174482

She had 19 000 signatures on the one closed but there is another download/tshirt/cd if you wanted to make a difference.

So you are saying religious leaders were there to provide morality mathanxiety? So scientists and everyone else don't have adequate morals?

apologies - not Sept last month - the DM story dates back to sept 09 and the mum in question lost her baby 3-10-08 so has in fact been fighting for justice for two years now.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. Of course scientists and others have morals. Nobody can 'provide morality'.

The development of a code of ethics for a situation like this involves the input of interested parties from different walks of life -- unfortunately it seems nobody consulted parents who have found themselves in this horrible situation, which surely cries out for some sort of policy of kindness and gentleness to the parents and the babies, some counselling afterwards, some empathy when it comes to getting the necessary paperwork (birth and death certificates) for burial. I think all of this comes under the heading of ethics, or the duty of doctors to 'do no harm', harm meaning compounding the horror this young woman already went through.

Most churches have a stance on when life begins and whether abortion is wrong or in what circumstances it might be permissible. The Catholic Church, for instance, states that life begins at conception, and the law of the land, in trying to limit the unnecessary suffering of a baby like Jayden, acknowledges some sort of personhood attaches to him if born even though he could legally have been aborted at the same gestational age. It's a very murky area. Both the medical community and the religious communities are concerned with the ethics of any decision to treat or withhold medical intervention.

thanks sux2bu i wil be joining her campaign/s

I understand what they are saying about trying to limit the suffering. As a mother myself i know i would not want my child to come into the world to be greeted by pain.

My laptop is playing up and taking forever to load other pages. What exactly is the petition for? Are they trying to lower it again or do something else?

It must be such a horrid situation to be in. Very sorry for these women and their families

mathanxiety - I thought that about the parents not being consulted too!

The aimsof Justice4Jayden are very good:

• To have guidelines reviewed on a more regular basis and to have the Department of Health release statistics and facts actuall rather than past.
• To have guidelines which give more babies born on the borderline of viability a chance of life and each case judged on it's own merits (case by case).
• To provide a support line which is accessable by all and run by parents who have faced the same or simular situations themselves.
• To also support families through other means including an instant messaging service on this website.
• Information reguarding guidelines, protcol, the right of the families and babies involved as well as what you should be told and given if this tragidy happened to you in publications which are easily accessible.
• Birth and Death certificates given for all babies born reguardless of gestational age (Currently not always given even though this is a legal requirement.)
• Support groups in the form of coffee meetings etc across the UK run by families of pre term infants and the death of a child.

Can't believe they aren't already part of good practice anyway.

passtheearplugs - nothing different about twins than singletons. I was never told when I was pregnant with twins that if they had been born before 23 weeks that nothing would be done and a doctor wouldn't even bother to look at them. That's perhaps the most important aim above - to let people know what would happen if you give birth to live babies before 23 weeks.

passtheearplugs:

www.ipetitions.com/petition/justice4jayden/

This is the online petition - its aims are for parents to get a birth and death certificate, for the baby to be recognised as such rather than a miscarriage and the parent to have a say in treatment case for case as opposed to current viability label/deadline for all.

Similar story in Mirror today - mum had to face points 1. and 2. above.

Difficult for me to be objective as I give birth in 4 weeks but I do believe in any person being shown basic compassion, humanity
and empathy - that makes all the difference to someone's loss.

so they can't even get a birth/death certificate at the moment?!

I am definately joining and asking other friends to do so aswell

sux2bu congrats on your pegnancy all the best