Childbirth
Baby takes over thanksgiving…
Today we have a story about a thanksgiving miracle:
An impatient baby ruined Thanksgiving dinner for a family which then welcomed its newest member on the road to the hospital. Minyon Brister said her contractions started Thursday as she bent down to put the turkey in the oven.
“The pain just started,” she said. “And I knew it was time.”
Before she could get to Natchez Regional Hospital from her Woodville home, however, Mykayla Jalyin Gaines arrived in the back seat of her stepfather’s truck. – [Yahoo/AP]
Well, you certainly can’t accuse this kid if not having impeccable timing. I’ll bet she thought it would be funny too. And then on top of that, shes gonna get birthday presents on Thankgiving. Talk about giving thanks.
Only one thing bothers me about this article. Did they have to say she “ruined” Thanksgiving dinner?!? The baby wanted to help with the turkey. Was that so wrong?
Woman has baby in truck on Thanksgiving – [Yahoo/AP]
The folks are a trip… 4real…
A New Zealand couple is looking to call their newborn son Superman — but only because their chosen name of 4Real has been rejected by the government registry.Pat and Sheena Wheaton say they will get around the decision by the Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages by officially naming their son Superman but referring to him as 4Real, the New Zealand Herald newspaper has reported. – [Yahoo/Reuters]
OK. I have a question. Why do some parents feel the need to burden their kids with unusual names that might possibly cause them misery their entire life? Do they not think of these things?
I think there should be a name registry. It should be called “Names that will guarantee that your child will get beat up all throughout school, and mocked all throughout their adult lives.” That way when a parent intentionally picks one of these names, they should automatically get slapped with a statutory child endangerment suit… I’m just sayin’…
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a baby, 4Real! – [Yahoo/Reuters]
China’s gentler, kinder side…
China has banned crude birth control advertising slogans for it’s national one child per family policy:
China has banned crude and insensitive slogans promoting the country’s ‘one-child’ family planning policy, such as “Raise fewer babies but more piggies,” which have stoked anger in rural areas, state media said Sunday.
China’s 28-year-old family planning policy limits most urban couples to just one child and allows some families in the countryside to have a second child if their first is a girl.
Critics say that has led to forced abortions and sterilizations and a dangerously imbalanced sex ratio due to the traditional preference for male heirs, which has prompted countless families to abort female fetuses in hopes of getting boys. – [Yahoo/AP]
Now the real reason I posted this was not because of the slogans, but because of the interesting detail that it seems that many Chinese families are aborting female fetuses in order to get boys.
It seems to me that, after a few generations of aborting female fetuses, your overall population production ability would drop dramatically. Which could be a good thing to begin with, but could turn bad really, really, quickly.
And it would suck to try and find a wife if you are a guy, because your selection would be slim to none. I really hope the Chinese what they are doing…
China bans crude birth control slogans – [Yahoo/AP]
Why we need “MedMal” Caps.
Yesterday I read an interesting article about a couple who sued a doctor for failing to properly diagnose a birth defect in their firstborn son:
In what is being called a “wrongful birth” case, a jury awarded more than $21 million to a couple who claimed a doctor misdiagnosed a severe birth defect in their son, leading them to have a second child with similar problems. – [Yahoo/AP]
However the couples lawyer made a statement I found interesting.
Searcy said he would push state lawmakers to pass a bill awarding the Estradas money over the $200,000 cap.
“I believe that this case is so powerful and this tragedy was so preventable and is so poignant, that it is the kind of case that should rise above the fray and rise above party politics,” Searcy said. – [Yahoo/AP]
Out of curiosity, I decided to get the opinion of a subject matter expert, a very talented OB/GYN I have known for many, many years. The verdict? Well, the couples doc messed up. But in contrast to the opinion of the lawyer who tried the case, my subject matter expert, the Good Doctor, thought the award was on the high side. No surprise there.
Now in this particular case, the suit was well warranted. But the comment by the lawyer brought up a very important issue. The lawyers statement would seem to imply that claim caps are simply a result of “party politics”. Me personally, I think the caps are necessary, if for nothing more that the fact that people are not self regulating.
Basically, people are greedy. Most folks/juries that go into a courtroom aren’t thinking “what would be a fair award?” they are thinking “How much can I/would I want to get out of this?”. As a result, judgements/settlements seem to get higher and higher every year. And then you have the folks who sue, not because they doctor did anything wrong, but simply because they are unhappy with how things turned out. In either case, a settlement, judgement, or even just a trial, can be expensive, and the medical industry pays the price, whether they are at fault or not.
Thats not to say nobody really deserves what they get. I know there are cases, like this one, where large settlements or judgements are certainly warranted. But let’s think long term for a moment. Nobody can stay in a business that they can’t make a living on. Left to their own devices, people would run the medical industry out of business, and then there wouldn’t be any doctors left to sue. Or they would become so expensive we wouldn’t be able to afford them.
Yes, at this point that is just a hypothetical scenario, but still, with our very special brand of greed, if we had no caps, well, I could see us getting close to being foot loose and doctor free in about a decade or two…
$21 million awarded for ‘wrongful birth’ – [Yahoo/AP]
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