Word: anesthesia
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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When doctors first ordered a CT scan for Jen Houck's six-month-old daughter in 2003, the new mom was more worried about the risks of anesthesia (used to keep children from squirming in the machine) than of radiation exposure. In 2006 and 2007, her daughter, now 5, had two additional CT scans, 6 months apart, for what doctors initially thought was a growth abnormality. They've since determined the child was perfectly healthy. "All that, just to find out her head is bigger than normal," says the 27-year-old mother of two in Boone, North Carolina...
Nowhere in your rosy article about elective caesareans do you discuss the risks of the operation: anesthesia side effects, infection, mistakes made during the operation, longer recovery, time lost from work for family members needed to support a mother who can't pick up or carry her new baby, etc. You discuss the cost of lawsuits to doctors who don't perform the operation but neglect to mention the cost to insurance companies or public funds when a caesarean is done--a cost significantly higher than for a vaginal birth with or without medication. I would expect a higher level...
...weeks ago, when she was ready to deliver her first child, Chung checked herself into the hospital on a day she had already scheduled, underwent local anesthesia, and several hours later had her baby by caesarean, without any complications. Pretty tidy way to conduct the often messy business of childbirth. Yet Chung sometimes feels defensive about her decision. "There is an admiration of women who are able to do a vaginal birth without pain medications, then breast-feed, and do everything else perfectly," she says. "So I didn't go around advertising that I had chosen to have...
...sections can certainly be attributed to women with routine pregnancies, like Chung, who make a pragmatic decision to keep their deliveries just as uneventful. Preliminary data suggest that such cases account for anywhere from 4% to 18% of the total number of caesareans. On the medical side, better anesthesia and antibiotics are making the procedure safer. Add to that the growing number of women delaying childbirth, those having twins or triplets as a result of in vitro fertilization and America's exploding obesity epidemic--all of which increase the risks of vaginal delivery. Doctors are also becoming better at picking...
...recommends that babies be breastfed within an hour of birth, because vital antibodies and protective proteins - in effect, the baby's first immunizations - are delivered through those precious early drops of milk. But, as Dr. Atwood points out, breastfeeding "is difficult to do if you are coming out of anesthesia. That's a serious issue." Some women remain groggy for hours...