Forget it, Doctor_Why_Bother, it’s dougie_monty-town…
If you read the wiki on unethical human experimentation in the US, you’ll feel that violating informed consent is very ethically dodgy. I don’t just mean, ‘well, yeah, it was dodgy when they did it,’ I mean that those of us in the business have to take it seriously at all times.
Recently I was at a medical record documentation workshop and my hospitals attorney told us that the pain and suffering portion of a malpractice award is limited, in california, to $250k, but not for battery. So, if you consent to an appendectomy, and I show up drunk and leave my rolex inside you, pain and suffering = 250, if I try and push you to get your gallbladder out while I’m ‘in the neighborhood’, and you refuse, but I take it out anyway, the sky’s the limit.
I gotta admit, that blows my mind.
Although this claim is supremely ridiculous, I’d be lying if I said it surprised me. The human experience spans a lot of fucked-up spectrums, and you can’t choose how you feel. Although sympathy-trolling is the far more likely culprit, I’ll allow that it’s not impossible for someone to feel worse about a hospital birth than a homebirth (regardless of outcome).
Exactly. So much of this science rejecting woo about birth and babies is all about feeding the parents’ needs to feel superior to those stupid doctors and scientists who know less than parents, who apparently get a PhD in every medical-related field when they create a fetus. It’s NOTHING to do with the health of the child, it’s all about feeling morally perfect.
Can the Vitamin K be given to babies in oral form? Would that satisfy at least some of the nutters?
Never miss an opportunity to make an ass of yourself, daddy-o.
Oral isn’t as reliable. Plus the baby may throw it up.
Ah, that makes sense. It sounds like it would still be better than nothing, though.
I’m sure it’s still OMG! chemicals! I’ve never heard of a cry for a return to the oral polio vaccine (a vaccine which DID have unacceptably high risks, and the story of which is an example of how the AMA and FDA operate when a vaccine does have problems), and there is one vaccine (I think it’s HiB, but it might be rotavirus), that is oral, and I don’t see anti-vaxxers lining up for that particular one.
A lot of woo types have weird ideas about “chemicals” being bad for you, so PediaSure is unacceptable (I took some crap for buying it for my son for a long car trip, because he likes it and thinks it’s a treat, and at the time, he was really skinny, and we were supposed to be encouraging him to get extra calories), but bread and yogurt are “natural.” I remember someone once commenting that a kid at school didn’t have one food in its “natural state” (the kid did have a kind of crappy lunch, but “natural state” wasn’t the problem); a lunch the teacher would have approved of was a PB sandwich, yogurt, and fresh fruit. I don’t know about yours, but in my world, bread, PB and yogurt are not food in their natural state. And I don’t know what person would eat a bowl of wheat berries, raw milk from the teat, and raw, unsalted peanuts.
And a poisonous wild mushroom is about as natural and organic as you can get.
You started it by casting aspersions on the morals of the people of this board. That seems to be your MO: you make a rude comment, someone reacts back at you and you blame them for being rude.
That said, I find giving the child a shot without parents knowledge to be ethically dicey. Informed consent is too important to be playing fast and loose with, as emotionally satisfying as it would be to help the babies.
Right, but in those cases it’s the actual vaccine they don’t want, because vaccines have distilled evil in them or whatever. I’m guessing (although I have no real evidence so this may be BS) that many anti-vaxers are fine with giving their kids vitamin tablets, or vitamin drops. In the case of Vitamin K, it seems like - at least in some cases - the problem would be with the form of delivery: if you’re all geared up to throw fits about how no one is going to give your new baby the evil vaccine shots, and someone shows up with a needle, you may not make the distinction. But if the nurse then comes back with an eyedropper and says they want to give the baby a few drops of Vitamin K, I’m betting at least some anti-vaxers would be fine with that.
Not ideal, obviously, but again - better than nothing. Is there a reason why that backup option doesn’t even seem to be on the table? Or is it in some hospitals? (I know it shouldn’t have to be, but we’re talking about reality here, not what should be.)
Also, seven babies showing up at one hospital in eight months with VKDB…my God. I didn’t realise the risk was so high. When my kids got the shot, I assumed it was to prevent a risk of one in tens of thousands or so. I still wanted it done, but I didn’t think it was particularly important. It sounds like it was a bigger deal than I realised.
I think newborns don’t have very mature bowels, because they aren’t used to eating, and don’t absorb oral vitamins anyway, even if they don’t spit them up.
The fear is probably that if it were well known that drops were a choice, nearly all parents would want to spare their baby the pain of an injection, and choose the drops (people never think my kid will be the one will very poor absorption, or will spit up). By having the injection as the only option, a few parents refuse, but the vast majority allow it, so a greater number of babies are protected.
Shrug, in Spain you don’t need to give consent to every. Single. Thing; there’s things that are optional and things which are part of the pack. You have a baby, the baby gets every step in the protocol unless specifically contraindicated (the contraindications also being part of the protocol). Trying to refuse a procedure classified as Medically Necessary may end up getting Social Services called in.
But then, we’re all a bunch of socialists and we believe that a child’s right to live and live healthy trumps his parents’ right to make medical decisions.
Well, I agree with you there. The parents should scream bloody murder!!
Seriously? You’re equating what I said with not believing in the child’s right to live or receive adequate medical care?
I also don’t believe in doctors being deceptive. Thats a path I think is extremely dangerous. I think refusing established medical treatments warrants a visit from CPS and a detailed discussion of the parents concerns and providing education. Doctors being purposefully deceitful (which is what the actual hypothetical I was responding to was about) is not something to be taken lightly. I’m about as close to a socialist as you can get- that has nothing to do with the scenario I was discussing.
You missed the part actually directed at you. Further, there are no harmed parents- it was a hypothetical. Finally, you have no valid opinion here regarding refusing established and safe medical practices to save children’s lives that I respect, IMHO.
Here, you, or your insurance, has to pay for Every. Single. Thing. You get an itemized bill. If you don’t have insurance, the vitamin K shot comes out of your pocket, and even if you do have insurance, you may have a co-pay. I don’t know if any of the parents who refuse are actually doing it to save money, but I’d wager that it has happened. We had trouble getting someone on the phone to make sure our son’s Hep B shot was covered, and he ended up getting it at public health nursing right after we were discharged. At least, DH and I had both been vaccinated for Hep B, so the boychik’s chance of exposure was minimal.
I don’t give a damn whether you respect me or not! If I were a parent I would be furious if a doctor gave my child treatment without my knowledge or consent. Not only would I not pay for such treatment, I would sue the doctor–and maybe even press assault charges. In any case, I would turn the matter over to my lawyer.