Young children call 911, help their mother deliver baby

Two young children called 911 for advice on how to help their mother deliver her baby after she quickly went into labor at home.

Faith and Jabari Sanders were expecting a new sibling to join the family soon, but they didn’t expect on March 9 that they would be the ones bringing their new brother Joseph into the world.

Their mother, Alana Sanders, began having labor pains around 1:30 a.m., shortly after their father, Geoffrey, had left for work.

“She thought it was a bowel movement,” Geoffrey Sanders later told the San Francisco Chronicle. “She sat down and nothing was happening as far as that was concerned.”

Alana Sanders, 36, realized that she was going into labor. Past experience had proven that she was quick to give birth, and it soon became clear that she was going to deliver her baby at home.

She told her son Jabari, 9, to call 911 while her daughter Faith, 11, helped deliver the baby. During the 911 call, the dispatcher walked the two children through the process while paramedics were en route.

“The baby’s coming now,” Jabari told the dispatcher during the call, now released by the Alameda County Regional Communications Center.

In one push, Alana Sanders gave birth to 9 pound, 4 ounce baby Joseph while still in the bathroom. Despite the situation, Faith and Jabari remained calm as the dispatcher asked questions concerning the mother’s and baby’s condition. When told that the umbilical cord had snapped, the dispatcher advised them to tie it off with a shoelace or piece of string.

Paramedics arrived five minutes after the call began and took mother and baby to St. Rose Hospital in Hayward, California where they were both given a clean bill of health.

Geoffrey Sanders, 35, said he was proud of his children. “As a husband, you always want to be Superman in your family,” he told the Chronicle. “I wasn’t able to do that. But my kids were the superheroes this time around, and that’s fine with me.”

The 911 call can be heard on the NPR Web site.

         

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Should British women be better compensated for donating their eggs?

A debate has been sparked in Britain about whether its women should be better compensated for donating eggs to infertile couples.

Tonight the Bridge Center, one of London’s more notable fertility clinics, is offering one woman the chance to select eggs from a U.S. donor. The woman to receive this gift will be selected randomly by “raffle”.

A special arrangement between the Bridge Center in London and The Genetics and IVF Institute based out of Fairfax, Virginia in the U.S. allows the London clinic to bypass strict British fertility laws.

While The Genetics and IVF Institute compensates its U.S. donors up to 6,000 U.S. dollars, the donation of the eggs by the Bridge Institute without cost to a British recipient does not violate British law.

Currently in Britain, women can only be compensated up to 250 pounds for donating their eggs, often barely covering the cost of the fare to the clinic. Yet in the U.S., compensation can go up to 6,600 pounds.

The announcement of the Bridge Center’s “raffle” has sparked a debate in the country about whether its women should receive more for their egg donations. A shortage of egg donors, long wait times, and no anonymity has fueled the debate further.

Dr. Francoise Shenfield, a fertility and medical ethics expert at University College London, sees such an event as nothing more than a publicity stunt.

“There’s something shocking in the association of a raffle and giving away a human product,” he told the Associated Press.

“In Europe, we have the general idea that altruism is a good thing, and we don’t want to turn human body parts into a commodity.”

However, some experts believe that if more compensation was given to British donors, availability of eggs would be greater, and fewer women would feel compelled to cross borders to pay for them.

Allan Pacey, a fertility expert at the University of Sheffield, said that “250 pounds barely scratches the surface” of compensating women for travel and time spent preparing their bodies to donate.

The AP reports that in Spain, women can receive up to 800 pounds for their donation, bringing in more donors and increasing the supply of available eggs. Such measures have drawn women from other parts of Europe to travel there to solve their infertility issues.

The Sun published an interview with Susan Pires, 30, from East London today. Pires said she “had no choice but to go to Spain” to receive donor eggs.

“I faced a five-year waiting list to get donated eggs after discovering I was infertile,” Pires told The Sun. “While it was heartbreaking, I could understand why donors are few and far between. I’ve been through IVF and I know how traumatic it can be.”

“How can we expect women to go through such a process for someone else’s gain without financial compensation?”

         

Amnesty International releases report on US ‘Maternal Health Care Crisis’

A report released by Amnesty International details a variety of health care problems that US women and children face today.

The human rights group Amnesty International released its report titled “Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA” on Friday, revealing how the U.S. health care system has increasingly failed its mothers and babies.

The report highlights many facets of what many call a growing health care crisis in the country, specifically pointing to statistics that show death rates among women in pregnancy and labor have doubled in the U.S. from 6.6 per 100,000 in 1987 to 13.3 per 100,000 in 2006.

Additionally, Amnesty found that of those women who died in pregnancy and labor, it was more likely that the woman was African-American, Hispanic, or Native American. One particular study referenced in the report noted in the report found that 46 percent of deaths related to childbirth in African-American women were potentially preventable. This was compared to a 33 percent rate found among Caucasian women.

Nan Strauss, co-author of the Amnesty report, told CNN: “The thing that really struck us was that these problems hit women of color, low-income, particularly hard. But every woman who is going through pregnancy in this country is at risk.”

Dr. Elliot Main, chairman and chief of obstetrics at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, commented on the results, saying: “This has been known for a while and no one has a good handle on it. This is a national disgrace and a call to action. Both numbers are a call to action — maternal mortality and racial disparity.”

According to the report, nearly one in every five U.S. women between the ages of 15 and 44 has no medical insurance, and 51 percent of those women are considered a minority. The problem is frequently compounded by insurance companies which consider pregnancy a “pre-existing condition”, denying coverage to women who were not insured before the date of conception. Additional exclusions and high fees further put women and their families at risk.

“This country’s extraordinary record of medical advancement makes its haphazard approach to maternal care all the more scandalous and disgraceful,” said Amnesty’s executive director Larry Cox.

“Good maternal care should not be considered a luxury available only to those who can access the best hospitals and the best doctors. Women should not die in the richest country on earth from preventable complications and emergencies.”

“Mothers die not because the United States can’t provide good care, but because it lacks the political will to make sure good care is available to all women,” he added.

Amnesty has called for President Obama to take action on the matter, stating that the current health care legislation going through the approval process doesn’t sufficiently address the relevant issues.

“Reform is primarily focused on health care coverage and reducing health care costs, and even optimistic estimates predict that any proposal on the table will still leave millions without access to affordable care,” said co-author Rachel Ward.

The full report can be found on the Amnesty International Web site.

         

That’s not appendicitis; it’s a baby boy!

Hull Royal Infirmary

A British woman who thought she had appendicitis unexpectedly gave birth to a baby boy instead.

Kimberley Robinson, of Hull, England, had early in the year suffered problems with her appendix. So when she woke at 6:30 a.m. on February 1 with mild stomach pain and shortness of breathe, she feared that she was having a recurrence of appendix problems.

Robinson, 22, called her sister-in-law Deanne Norris who then rang for an ambulance, taking Robinson to Hull Royal Infirmary.

“Even as I got out of the ambulance I didn’t know what was happening, but literally as I walked into A&E I could feel something happening to me,” Robinson told the Yorkshire Post.

“I was placed on a bed in A&E and a curtain was pulled across, and when I got into that position I could see the baby’s head. I was in complete shock.”

At 10:40 a.m., in “absolute shock”, Robinson gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Mackenzie, who weighed 7 pounds, 14 ounces.

“It wasn’t really painful and it happened so quickly. As soon as I saw him fully it was an incredible feeling. All the shock disappeared and I fell in love with him automatically,” she said.

Doctors at the hospital were surprised that Robinson, separated from the baby’s father, didn’t know she was pregnant, calling such an instance “very unusual.”

“The doctors told me I had been pregnant for exactly nine months, I just can’t believe I didn’t know,” she said. “My periods had been as normal and I hadn’t had morning sickness or anything like that.”

The little bundle caught Robinson completely off guard, not having any supplies at all for the child. “Because I had no idea I was pregnant, I didn’t have any clothes for him or things such as prams and car seats,” she told the Hull Daily Mail.

“All my friends were really nice, though, and got things sorted out for me,” she added.

Now five weeks old, baby Mackenzie is reportedly in excellent health.

         

Japanese baby-like robot created to stimulate birth rate

Yotaro, a Japanese robot resembling a baby, was created with the hope that it will teach parenting skills and encourage Japanese people to have more babies.

A Japanese robotics team hopes that Yotaro, a robot that is programmed to mimic the behavior of human babies, will increase interest in having more babies.

Created in Tsukuba University’s robotics and behavioral sciences lab, “Yotaro could help young parents to learn about raising a baby,” research team member Masatada Muramoto told the AFP.

Yotaro simulates many of the functions of a real toddler including a runny nose, touch sensitivity, emotional response and actions like sneezing and sleeping. Yotaro can even cry, releasing drop of warm water from the eyes. The same water-release system is tied to the nose to simulate the symptoms of a cold.

“Yotaro is a robot with which you can experience physical contact just like with a real baby and reproduce the same feelings,” said Hiroki Kunimura, a member of the development team.

“We came up with the idea of a baby robot because we wanted to reproduce a human being’s warmth and skin color.”

“We decided on an infant that has not yet learnt to talk because the feelings generated towards a newborn will be the same for everyone, and because interaction is less complicated than if we had made it talk.”

The face of Yotaro is somewhat strange to the Westerner, replete with oversized cheeks, huge cranium and almost alien blue luminescent eyes. However, the developers don’t believe that the strange look of Yotaro will deter Japanese from using it, especially given the exposure the country’s people have had to robots in its culture.

“Japanese have always been comfortable with robots who are not seen as threats but as beings that have the potential to develop friendly relationships,” Muramoto told the AFP.

The researchers at Tsukuba hope that robots like Yotaro will increase the number of babies conceived in the country. Japan is facing issues of an increasingly old population with few babies being born to revitalize the next generation of people.

Nearly a fifth of the Japanese population is older than 65, and government estimates suggest that nearly 40 percent of the population could fall in that category by 2050. The problem is compounded by a United Nations estimate that Japan’s birth rate is a mere 8.3 births per 1000 people, well below the worldwide average of 20.3 births per 1000.

Yet Yotaro is not the only baby-sized robot intended to encourage a flagging birth rate in Japan. Last week the University of Osaka announced the M3-Neony, a baby-sized robot designed to crawl like a human baby. M3-Neony is designed to learn how to utilize its motors and sensors to push up and crawl.

You can watch a YouTube video of Yotaro in action by going here.

         

US government set to publish general warning about baby slings

The US government’s Consumer Product Safety Commission says it will publish a general warning this week about the dangers of using baby slings.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) of the United States will publish warnings this week about baby slings. The slings are popular because they allow mothers to carry their babies close to their chest while walking.

The slings are said to be responsible for a few infant suffocation deaths and numerous injuries from falling out of the sling.

During a meeting of the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association this past Tuesday, head of the CPSC Inez Tenenbaum said that the CPSC plans to issue its public warning this week on the hazards posed by baby slings.

“We know of too many deaths in these slings and we now know the hazard scenarios for very small babies,” said Tenenbaum. “So, the time has come to alert parents and caregivers.”

During her announcement, no particular sling was singled out and no information was given about the number of deaths related to baby slings.

In October 2009, Consumer Reports issued a warning on its blog about deaths related to sling usage. Consumer Reports, an independent and non-profit entity that rates products and services, said then that they were aware of at least seven deaths and 37 serious injuries over an 11-year period.

In particular, the staff mentioned the Infantino Slingrider which has been recalled once before for shoulder strap adjusters that broke. However, it wasn’t recalled for suffocation hazards.

The site mentioned how the Slingrider and other slings like it can pose a suffocation risk, saying: “That can happen for two reasons — either the baby’s face turns inward and becomes covered by the mother’s clothing or breasts, or the baby is placed in a position where the infant’s head falls so far forward that the airway is closed off.”

Rather than slings, many professionals recommend carriers that allow the baby to sit in the upright position, with the tummy of the baby facing the mother’s.

More information about the slings should appear on the CPSC Web site by the end of the week.

         

British woman discovers she’s pregnant, gives birth three hours later

A British woman who discovered she was pregnant gave birth to a healthy girl three hours later.

Belinda Waite, 21, knew that something was wrong with her body for several months, but she and the doctors couldn’t pinpoint what was ailing her.

Waite, from Bampton, Devon, said that she had been to the Tiverton and District hospitals numerous times but was told she was either suffering from irritable bowel syndrome. Forced to the hospital on Christmas Day due to swollen hands and feet, she was told she was suffering an allergy to something or possibly gout.

It wasn’t until February 6, suffering pains throughout her body, that Waite discovered the truth. The doctors at the hospital told her around 10 p.m. that she was three months pregnant.

“I was really shocked,” said Waite. “They told me to get some rest and make an appointment with the doctors the following Monday.”

Waite returned to the home of her partner, Wayne Boyles, 28, that evening. Three hours later, Waite unexpectedly went into labor, delivering a healthy 8 pound, 14 ounce girl named Louise.

“You read about these stories in magazines but you never think they happen to real people, and I certainly never thought it would happen to me,” Waite told the Telegraph.

“We hardly had time to think about it; no one believed us when we told them we suddenly had a child,” she added.

Waite said that baby Louise seems perfectly healthy, but worries that it could have been different.

“I went on rollercoasters at Alton Towers, on water slides in Spain; I probably ate all the wrong foods and was knocked down by a car,” she told the Express and Echo.

“Luckily I do not smoke, and I stopped drinking alcohol as it made me feel sick,” she added.

Despite suddenly having a child in their life, the couple is ready to move on. “It was obviously a huge shock for us all,” Waite told the Telegraph, “but you have to get on with these things — and we are all really enjoying it.”

         

International Women’s Day: a call for reduced childbirth risks

On this one hundredth International Women’s Day, a coalition of UK campaign groups is calling for global reductions in pregnancy and childbirth risks.

In conjunction with the one hundredth anniversary of International Women’s Day, a coalition of the U.K.’s Amnesty International, Mumsnet, Oxfam, Save the Children and the White Ribbon Alliance have called on world leaders to put greater emphasis on the risks currently posed to mothers and children alike.

The coalition noted that worldwide, an average of 450 women die for every 100,000 live births. The group compared this rate to the 355 female deaths per 100,000 live births in England and Wales in 1910, the year of the first International Women’s Day.

In Ghana, the rate of deaths during live birth is 560 per 100,000, and in Chad it’s as high as 1,500 per 100,000.

“There still remains a long way to go for the protection and security of pregnant women and their newborn children,” said Brigid McConville, director of White Ribbon Alliance.

The coalition is calling many of those deaths “preventable”, and it points to evidence out of Mongolia, Nepal and Rwanda to show that rates can be decreased. With increases in education about signs of pregnancy complications, trained health workers and hemorrhage prevention drugs, death rates have dropped in those countries.

The awareness campaign ties in directly to the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals, a group of eight goals that most countries have agreed must be tackled by 2015. Also tied into these goals is the desire to prevent deaths from abortion complications and to make contraception more readily available.

Amnesty International’s U.K. director Kate Allen said: “It’s not impossible to cut back on the rate of maternal deaths globally. It has clearly been possible here in the U.K.; we need to demonstrate that same level of commitment world wide.”

“The U.K. has so far shown commitment to providing adequate resources. However, this must be combined with greater political will, not only in the U.K. but globally to ensure that a pregnant woman is not denied her basic right to healthcare.”

Events are expected to continue throughout the week. Visit www.internationalwomensday.com to learn more.

         

‘Tom Thumb’, world’s smallest premature baby boy, survives

German doctors have announced that the world’s smallest premature baby boy has survived after being born 15 weeks early.

In June 2009, doctors at Germany’s University of Medicine at Gottingen were introduced with the risky case of a tiny baby boy born 15 weeks premature.

The baby, nicknamed “Tom Thumb” by the doctors, was born in the University Hospital Göttingen by Caesarean section. The mother, from Eichsfeld in Thuringia, Germany, had the emergency Caesarean after doctors confirmed that the baby’s life was at risk.

Weighing in at 9.7 ounces (275 grams) and measuring 27 centimeters long, the baby was placed in an incubator for 24 hours a day, attached to various pieces of equipment designed to monitor and sustain vital life functions. At that age, the vital organs are fragile and underdeveloped, requiring careful monitoring.

The baby spent six months in the intensive care unit until reaching a more normal weight of 8.2 pounds (slightly more than 3700 grams) in December. He then had to spend another three months in the hospital until dubbed healthy enough to taken home by the parents this week.

“The danger has passed,” a spokesman for the hospital told the Daily Mail. “He was most vulnerable when his organs were underdeveloped. Now he is the weight of a normal baby and healthy in every way.”

Doctors now believe that Tom Thumb is the smallest premature baby boy to survive such a trial. “After studying all the relevant documents we can say with some certainty that he was the smallest child in the world to survive such a premature birth last year,’ said Stefan Weller of the University of Medicine at Gottingen.

The doctors found that the previous record for a boy was held by Tyler Martin, born in 2004 in the state of New Jersey in the U.S., weighing 11 ounces (320 grams). They found three instances of smaller children being born and surviving, but all were girls.

Dr. Stephan Seeliger, a German expert on premature babies, told the Telegraph: “I spoke to the parents about the birth beforehand - whether we should go for it or not. In the end, I said: ‘Good thing we did it!’”

         

Neonatal services ‘overstretched’ forcing long-distance transfers

Scotland’s deficiencies in neonatal services force more than 1,500 newborns a year to be transferred long distances.

The U.K. baby charity Bliss released a Scottish briefing last night during a reception at the Scottish Parliament, detailing the “inappropriate” transfer of more than 1,500 newborns each year.

The group called on parliament to better fund The Scottish Neonatal Transfer Service to help cope with increasing numbers of transfers each year. Bliss also urged the government to reconsider adopting the British Association of Perinatal Medicine’s standards on nurse staffing, citing research in 2008 that showed a need for another 100 neonatal nurses in Scotland.

Bliss stated in its new report that there has been a 16 percent increase in the number of babies being transferred in the country since 2004 and estimated additional increases in demand of at least 100 transfers a year. The matter is further complicated by the fact that Scotland has the highest level of premature birth in the U.K. at 7.3 percent of all babies born before 37 weeks of gestation.

“Hundreds of babies and mothers are transferred long distances to hospitals far from their families’ homes every year, and where many babies will need to stay for several weeks or months,” the charity said in its report.

“In addition to the stress and worry that is inevitable when a baby is admitted to neonatal care, long distance transfers also pose enormous practical, emotional and financial difficulties for families.”

In an attempt to gauge the social impact of transfers on Scottish families, the charity commissioned research on women who experience in utero transfers. Bliss found that over half of the women surveyed said that they felt “socially isolated” due to the transfer. In addition, three out of every ten women reported financial difficulties associated with the transfer. The financial issues were often tied to increases in time off required by partners, transportation costs, and child care issues.

Health secretary Nicola Sturgeon yesterday told The Scotsman: “Mothers should be able to deliver their babies at their local hospital wherever possible, but because neonatal care is a very highly specialized area and because of its unpredictability, this cannot always be the case.”

“We understand that transfers can be distressing for families, but unfortunately they are sometimes necessary to ensure mothers and babies get the care they need,” she added.

Sturgeon also said that the government is looking into the creation of a national service to aid maternity units with transfers. The government has already given funding to go towards the training of an additional 20 neonatal nurse practitioners and is considering funding more training this year.

You can find the full Bliss report at their Web site. (Note: File is a PDF.)

         

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