What if it was your premature baby!

What if it was yours?

It always strikes me as disturbing how fierce arguments over the right time to let unborn babies live and the need to let premature babies die coincide at around 23 or 24 weeks.

Where termination is concerned, a 24-week old baby is considered too far developed to have its life snuffed out. At the same stage a premature baby is, apparently, too expensive to be allowed to live.

The BBC2 documentary 23 Weeks: The Price Of Life examined the arguments for leaving babies born at 23 weeks to pass away without resuscitation or medical intervention.

Behind the arguments effectively to bin life at its early stages is, of course, money.

The price of life is seemingly too high for the liking of some highly-paid NHS officials – like Dr Daphne Austin, for instance.

Doctor Austin, an adviser to local health trusts, says keeping early babies alive is only prolonging their agony.

Funds would be better spent on care for cancer sufferers or the disabled.

This concerning film did much to promote and support Dr Austin’s arguments – a bit of a worry in itself – which were anchored in cash.

She said the NHS was spending around £10m a year resuscitating babies born early and keeping them alive in incubators and on ventilators.

But despite round-the-clock care from teams of experienced doctors and nurses, just nine per cent left hospital – the rest died. And only one in 100 would grow up without some form of disability – the most common including blindness, deafness and cerebral palsy.

One in 100. Is that one baby worth the expense and effort required for a fight for life?

It most definitely is, if it’s your baby.

First published at 08:57, Saturday, 12 March 2011
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk
Anne Pickles

Premature babies battle for survival at ‘edge of life’

The NHS spends more than £10m a year on babies born at 23 weeks

Babies born prematurely in the 23rd week of pregnancy exist on the very edge of life. A few go on to become “miracle babies”, but most die. The figures are stark, only nine out of 100 will survive, and of that number most are disabled. Is it always right to keep them alive?

“I can’t really get my head round how they’ve managed to keep her alive.”

Lucy’s daughter Matilda was born four months early at Birmingham Women’s Hospital, weighing one pound one ounce.

Within 20 seconds of her birth, her tiny body was placed into a plastic bag to prevent her losing too much heat or moisture.

She was carefully transferred into an incubator and hooked up to tubes and gadgets. Cutting-edge technology has been keeping her alive for four weeks.

Had Matilda been born one week earlier at 22 weeks – she would usually have been considered a miscarriage.

One week later at 24 weeks, her chances of survival would be much higher.

Thanks to decades of improving medical science 23 weeks is now considered the “edge of viability”. It is one week less than the limit for abortion at 24 weeks. .. continue reading

By Adam Wishart

Documentary Maker, 23 Week Babies: The Price of Life

Why do other women resent me for having a fourth child?

When Lorraine told friends she was pregnant at 42, she was horrified by the sniping and jealousy it provoked. Why should only women like Posh Spice, Heidi Klum, Jules Oliver and Tana Ramsay, who have the money and lifestyle, be able to have larger families?

When I was younger, I never wanted ­children. Never fantasised about what my future family may look like as a teenager, or day-dreamed of baby names in quieter moments at work.

It’s not that I didn’t like children, but I could see how much they needed and the younger me wanted other things so much more.

Even when my little sister had a child at 27 the thought of ever having one of my own didn’t cross my mind; motherhood wasn’t the logical conclusion to my life.

Until I fell in love at 29. Then my world changed. Instead of seeing everything through a sort of selfish soft-focus I suddenly knew with complete clarity that I wanted a family.

The shift in my priorities was enormous. It was emotional and physical.

I was Editor of Cosmopolitan at the time — the job I had waited my whole career as a journalist for — but running alongside my ambition was my new and overwhelming need to start a family.

Author:  Lorraine Candy
Read the full story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1353032/Why-women-resent-having-fourth-child.html#ixzz1DRdpFSVA