Actor doesn't like southerners...but see my movie anyway...

[billc]

About Micro Preemies...

http://preemies.about.com/od/preemiehealthproblems/f/What-Is-A-Micro-Preemie.htm

A micro preemie is a baby born weighing less than 1 pound, 12 ounces (800 grams) or before 26 weeks gestation. Because they are born months before their due dates, micro preemies face long NICU stays. Although many extremely premature babies grow up with no long-term effects of prematurity, others face severe health problems throughout life.
Babies born after 26 weeks are called very premature,moderately preterm, or late preterm babies.
What Is the Survival Rate for Micro Preemies?

Micro preemies are very fragile, and every day that a mom spends pregnant increases her baby's chance of survival.

• Born at 22 weeks: About 10% of babies survive
• 23 weeks: 50% to 66% of babies survive
• 24 weeks: 66% to 80% of babies survive
• 25 weeks: 75% to 85% of babies survive
• 26 weeks: Over 90% of babies survive

​

And from the Houston Chronicle on the care of micro preemies...

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/a...-preemies-are-surviving-in-u-s-but-savin.html

"Sometimes I think we go too far," she says. "But I know it's easy to say, `Oh this person shouldn't go to such extremes' but I don't know how I'd feel if it were my baby. I know I don't like to see the babies suffer through invasive procedures, like getting stuck over and over for blood draws or going through numerous surgeries in which they almost die and come back over and over. The surgeons can get their egos involved, and the parents really don't know what they're in for."
The hospital is working to improve communication between parents and the neonatal team, says Artle, who is serving on the committee to carry out that goal. It worries her, she says, that NICU staff members sometimes feel parents are a burden.
"I tell my nurses, `Imagine this is your baby,"' she says.
Artle also finds herself reminding parents to remember it is their baby, and to believe in their own decisions.
"I come off sounding pessimistic," admits Fleisher, "and a lot of what we see is strikingly miraculous compared to five years ago. But there's no guarantee about how the babies turn out."

 

[Tez3]

About Micro Preemies...

http://preemies.about.com/od/preemiehealthproblems/f/What-Is-A-Micro-Preemie.htm

Is there no level you won't sink to? these are the very babies you accuse us and the Europeans of leaving to die and treating as medical waste and you have the nerve to post up this....

 

[billc]

Did you read the NHS guidelines...

from the NHS guidelines...

c. If, at delivery, the baby is clearly pre-viable, no active resuscitation will be attempted




​

 

[Sukerkin]

In this case, BillC, I have to say that maybe it is better to take a step back and take a moment to think. I have to say that in this case I agree that the mangling of context indulged in to try and make some political point undermines your position.

 

[elder999]

A little perspective, if I might.

I was born June 28, 1960. I was due Sept. 15. I was born around 27 weeks gestation. In 1960.

I'm thankful my parents had good coverage and financing, and I'm thankful that they were who they were, and weren't about to just let me die. I'm very thankful for my life, which has been mostly good, in spite of a childhood filled with ailments-a great number ofwhich were directly attributable to my early birth, and some of which are still with me.

I live with about 1/3 of a lung. Somehow, I've managed to thrive-and be happy-in spite of a childhood I wouldn't wish on anyone, what with the constant testing, near death experiences, doctors and family telling me I wasn't going to live very long, not being allowed to go outside and play, not being allowed to eat things other kids did, not being allowed to play with other kids, not being allowed into the sun, 106 degree fevers, convulsions, trips to the hospital. etc., etc., etc. I've managed to do all those things I wasn't allowed to do, and more-wonderful things, really, some that I can brag about, and some that I can never say a thing about, but it's been a good life.

And, of course, now I've reached a point in my life where I see some old guy with an oxygen bottle or generator in Walmart, and I know I'm seeing a vision of my future-maybe not my near future, but one I am inexorably closer to, day after to day-I know it when I go climbing, or sing and my niotes fall short, and with that knowledge comes the reminder that if I don't perish in a car wreck, or have a heart attack, or fall from a cliff, or sink my boat, or get shot by a jealous husband, or smashed by a toilet from outer space falling to earth, I'm likely to die slowly and painfully, drowning on dry land, in my own bed.....

....all because some doctor had the hubris to keep me alive, when maybe I should have just been allowed to die.

 

[billc]

Sukerkin, Tez came at me over the article. The author made strong comments about foriegn countries and their treatment of premature infants. Tez was offended by it and came after me. If you look at the various article I have found in casual looking around the net, I have found several and there are more, about various policies by the NHS and its officials that make what the author said less unfounded. Do all Doctors in the NHS follow the policy of the NHS, no, but the policy is the policy and there are obviously officials in the NHS who support that policy. Talk to tez about her attitude and how she approaches a discussion, and then we might move forward.

Perhaps the author of the article on the "News Room," also saw this piece on the NHS...

http://community.babycenter.com/pos...l_some_premature_babies_should_be_left_to_die

A prominent British health care official associated with the country’s socialized medicine agency NHS is set to make a disturbing admission in an upcoming documentary: she thinks premature babies born at 23 weeks gestation should be left to die. Why? Cost concerns.“If it was my child, from all the evidence and information that I know, I would not resuscitate,” Dr. Daphne Austin says in the BBC program 23 Week Babies: The Price of Life, reports London’s Daily Mail.She continues: “We are doing more harm than good by resuscitating 23-weekers. I can’t think of very many interventions that have such poor outcomes. For me the big issue is that we’re spending an awful lot of money on treatments that have very marginal benefit. I would prefer to free up that money to spend on providing support to people who have much more lifelong chronic conditions.” [Emphasis added]In even more stunning comments, Austin says that while parents should get a say, in reality they don’t speak for the baby: “There’s a lot of emphasis on the parents’ views and what they want. But somewhere in there, there needs to be an advocate for the baby.” The Assumption seems to be the baby would rather die.​

Austin isn’t the first British woman to promote killing children as the compassionate choice. As wereported in October, UK advice columnist Virginia Ironside said she would even go as far as to smother a suffering child:

And this article...

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/techno...ealth-service-failing-premature-babies-384537

First-time mum Emma Green knows all too well the effect of a shortage of specialist care for premature babies.
When she gave birth to her son Harrison nine weeks early, she experienced it first-hand.
She says: “Within two hours of being born, Harrison was being transferred to a hospital 40 miles away, which was the closest one with a ventilator.
“Our local hospital simply didn’t have the facilities to care for him.”
And after seven weeks of sitting by her tiny son’s side in hospital miles from home, day in, day out, she was only too aware that there weren’t enough nurses to cope with the needs of the most vulnerable of babies.
“The nurses were fantastic and dedicated but they simply had too much to do.
“There were many times when we needed a bit of help or extra reassurance. But the nurses were just too busy caring for the other babies in the unit and then completing the paperwork,” says Emma, who gave birth to Harrison in August 2008. He weighed just 2lb 11oz.
“They had to be spread around three wards in each unit, so it was difficult to establish an effective continuity of care.
“It was evident during the changeovers that sometimes important information about the babies just wasn’t passed on because it was all so rushed.”
Emma’s story is typical of parents’ experiences when their newborns need immediate specialist care from the moment they enter the world.
Now the special care baby charity Bliss and a group of professional organisations including the Royal College Of Nursing has launched a campaign to draw attention to this crisis in the system.
The minimum standard set out by the British Association Of Perinatal Medicine – which covers all aspects of birth – is that every baby in intensive care must have its own dedicated nurse.
In high dependency – the next level down – there should be one nurse caring for every two babies and in special care, one to every four.
But a study by Bliss showed that fewer than a third of 50 intensive care units questioned for the report had the recommended ratio.
The report also highlighted that our neonatal services, which deal with more than 45,000 pre-term babies every year, are “overstretched and understaffed”.

 

[billc]

Moving outside of Britain to another European nation and their policy toward preamature infants...

http://www.bmj.com/content/322/7299/1383.1.extract

The leading centre for the treatment of premature births in the Netherlands has decided in principle to stop the active intensive treatment of babies born before 25 weeks' gestation because of research showing poor prognosis.
Neonatologists at the University Medical Centre in Leiden argue that many babies born before 25 weeks do not survive and those who do are likely to develop serious problems in later life. Elsewhere in the Netherlands, treatment is not offered until 26 weeks, though in neighbouring countries and in the United States there are limits of 23 or even 22 weeks.

And another story from Britain...

http://www.nationalrighttolifenews....mature-surviving-twin-goes-home-with-parents/

An article in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph, ‘Premature baby survives after doctors advised abortion’, tells the story of Jacob McMahon, who became Britain’s most premature surviving twin after he was born on February 22, just 23 weeks into pregnancy, at a weight of 1lb 4oz. [Seewww.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2011/07/preemie-jacob-mcmahon-escapes-recommendation-for-abortion-now-home/]
Doctors had advised Miss Fisher to abort Jacob after his twin sister, Emie, died when she was born at 21 weeks and six days due to an infection.
But Jacob followed eight days later, twelve hours before doctors would have demanded a final decision from the family on whether to terminate the pregnancy.
The legal upper limit for abortion is 24 weeks, but Jacob is one of a growing list of babies who survived despite being born before the threshold.
Five months later he has now been deemed healthy enough to leave hospital with his parents.
The story once again raises questions about resuscitation policies for premature babies.

 

[elder999]

Moving outside of Britain to another European nation and their policy toward preamature infants...

http://www.bmj.com/content/322/7299/1383.1.extract



And another story from Britain...

http://www.nationalrighttolifenews....mature-surviving-twin-goes-home-with-parents/

See, this is the kind of thing that usually drives me nuts. Rather than even trying to address anything anyone else has to say, these posts are just a relentless copy and paste of links and content to support your position, such as it is.

In that second story, for example, much like mine, does "healthy enough to go home" mean "healthy enough to thrive?" Or "Healthy enough to be happy?" or "healthy enough to live to 3?"

Or just "healthy enough to go home and never learn to feed himself?" Maybe "healthy enough to develop cataracts?" (Actually this last is another real hazard I might be facing, due to weeks under a UV lamp, but so far so good...)

"Healthy enough to go home to die?"

Just because a baby is "viable" doesn't mean that it should live.

 

[billc]

Yes, that would have been a good discussion. tez didn't make it. She attacked the author of the article and me, I don't respond well to being attacked. My posts point out the fact that the author of the article had plenty of information available on NHS policy toward premature infants and in a quick search, the Netherlands. If she had just countered it with her articles and information, in a polite way, then we could have discussed how accurate the author was. I can see where you would be of two minds on the topic, life doesn't seem to have been easy for you in a medical sense. I think I remember that you have kids, though, surviving the ordeal allowed them to have a chance, which is a benefit, though hard won one, on your part.

 

[elder999]

Yes, that would have been a good discussion. tez didn't make it. She attacked the author of the article and me, I don't respond well to being attacked. My posts point out the fact that the author of the article had plenty of information available on NHS policy toward premature infants and in a quick search, the Netherlands. If she had just countered it with her articles and information, in a polite way, then we could have discussed how accurate the author was. I can see where you would be of two minds on the topic, life doesn't seem to have been easy for you in a medical sense. I think I remember that you have kids, though, surviving the ordeal allowed them to have a chance, which is a benefit, though hard won one, on your part.

You miss the point: my viewpoint is nuanced because of my experience. I'd never have an abortion (obviously) or be party to one, and raised my children to have one or be party to one. Beyond that, I'd never call someone who did have one, or performed them a "murderer of unborn human babies," pretty much regardless of gestation period. I'd never call someone who had a live birth at 23 or 24 weeks that they chose not to save with extraordinary medical care a "murderer of unborn human babies," nor would I call a doctor who was involved in making that decision. I'd never call someone who provided medical care to such a live birth a fool, a dreamer, a Bible-thumper or wasteful, though I might question their decision making based on the prognosis-it might just be cruel to allow a blind and crippled baby to struggle through life, but it also might not-of course, it's not my decision.

The other point you miss, of course, is that you insulted Tez and Mark's country directly: not their medical policies, which we both might question, but their nation and almost all of the European continent-whether this was done to deliberately contrast with U.S. policies (where medical care still might be withheld from an early term delivered fetus, depending upon the state it took place in) or to attempt to expose U.S. infant mortality statistics as being slanted doesn't matter: you insulted their country, and you should say you're sorry-it's always the same with your posts-being right is so much more important than how you treat people, and what you have to say is so much more important than how you say it-or what anyone else has to say-that it doesn't even seem like you're even remotely interested in a "good discussion."

In fact, it seems as though you have no idea what a "good discussion" is at all-time after time, you'll insist on being right when presented with facts that contradict your viewpoint, refuse to admit when you're wrong, and never acknowledge that it might be that you've hurt someone's feelings, or even that they have any. Your posts are the product of someone who thinks of Rush Limbaugh and Breitbart.com as valid political discourse, and that constantly shouting down the other person with a barrage of refutation is a valid debate technique.

Predictably, rather than address what I have to say, you'll likely post another COPYPASTA and quotes to demonstrate how you're right-it gets, frankly, quite tiresome, and makes genuine conservative viepoints, or even liberal Republican viewpoints, get lost in the constant din of inanities.....

 

[Tez3]

You miss the point: my viewpoint is nuanced because of my experience. I'd never have an abortion (obviously) or be party to one, and raised my children to have one or be party to one. Beyond that, I'd never call someone who did have one, or performed them a "murderer of unborn human babies," pretty much regardless of gestation period. I'd never call someone who had a live birth at 23 or 24 weeks that they chose not to save with extraordinary medical care a "murderer of unborn human babies," nor would I call a doctor who was involved in making that decision. I'd never call someone who provided medical care to such a live birth a fool, a dreamer, a Bible-thumper or wasteful, though I might question their decision making based on the prognosis-it might just be cruel to allow a blind and crippled baby to struggle through life, but it also might not-of course, it's not my decision.

The other point you miss, of course, is that you insulted Tez and Mark's country directly: not their medical policies, which we both might question, but their nation and almost all of the European continent-whether this was done to deliberately contrast with U.S. policies (where medical care still might be withheld from an early term delivered fetus, depending upon the state it took place in) or to attempt to expose U.S. infant mortality statistics as being slanted doesn't matter: you insulted their country, and you should say you're sorry-it's always the same with your posts-being right is so much more important than how you treat people, and what you have to say is so much more important than how you say it-or what anyone else has to say-that it doesn't even seem like you're even remotely interested in a "good discussion."

In fact, it seems as though you have no idea what a "good discussion" is at all-time after time, you'll insist on being right when presented with facts that contradict your viewpoint, refuse to admit when you're wrong, and never acknowledge that it might be that you've hurt someone's feelings, or even that they have any. Your posts are the product of someone who thinks of Rush Limbaugh and Breitbart.com as valid political discourse, and that constantly shouting down the other person with a barrage of refutation is a valid debate technique.

Predictably, rather than address what I have to say, you'll likely post another COPYPASTA and quotes to demonstrate how you're right-it gets, frankly, quite tiresome, and makes genuine conservative viepoints, or even liberal Republican viewpoints, get lost in the constant din of inanities.....

Thank you, I was going to reply to his post but yours is much more succint and truthful than anything I could write in my pain. I've lost two babies born too early and the medical staff were amazing, never appropriate, never giving up until there was literally nothing more to be done. I can't speak highly enough of them.
I have two wonderful healthy children ( children? ones 35 the other 27 lol!) and am grateful everyday for them. Billis off onto ignore, I really can't stand anymore, and Elder thank you again.

 

[Tez3]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KVa_KipxRw&feature=player_embedded


This baby is the niece of one of the ladies in the Military Wives Choir, we all got involved because one of the mums in my daughter's Cheer Squad is also in the Mlitary Wives Choir, it's a story of hope and love. Have some tissues handy I warn you. I don't know what the equivalant organisation for transplants is in the US but perhaps this will encourage people to sign up.


If you don't know the Military Wives choir this is them at the annual Festival of Remembrance last year, all the husbands are in the military and were in Afghanistan when the choir formed. One husband didn't make it back. They are due back in Afghan to relieve our Brigade (who go this Septemeber) in March next year.

Are we the greatest country in the world, I doubt it but by god we have some wonderful people in it.