The kids are still not feeling well, so I'm downstairs again to watch my soap....I'd much rather record it and watch it later without commercials. Instead of channel surfing during commercials, I'm cleaning, LOL, and blogging.
One show I can't stand to watch "live" (and it's on at a bad time anyway), is Dr. Oz. Now, I do quite like him and what he's doing for health awareness, even alternative health practices. However, after what he just showed, and said, I'm not too sure anymore.
On March 11, he did a segment about incredible 911 calls. The first one really was incredible (a woman who got the call for a lung transplant, but when she got on the highway, there was a traffic jam and she risked running out of portable oxygen and the short window of time to get there). The second call irked me SO much though. And because it's a fairly routine occurance, the misimformation that was given is much more of an issue than if it had been an odd incident. What was the 911 call about?
A woman giving birth in a car. In one way, I think that's great--minimal interventions! However, the 911 operator told the dad to take his shoelace and tie off the umbilical cord (to prevent transference of the mom's blood to the baby). Gah! Gross! If that wasn't bad enough, Dr. Oz's response was unbelievable. He actually said that doing that probably saved the baby's life. What? The baby was already crying! If anything, he put their lives AT RISK!
A few points...it's becoming more common now to let the cord stop pulsing before clamping it. This allows baby to get ALL the blood possible from mommy. It's a GOOD thing. There are people who actually leave the cord attached to the placenta until after the cord naturally detaches from baby. They keep the placenta wrapped up and elevated above baby for a day or so. This is called a lotus birth. Same call it hooey, but whatever, as long as it's kept clean, it's probably not harmful.
What IS harmful is the use of a potentially dirty, grimey, floor dusting string to sever the intimate connection between baby and momma. Picture this...shoelace has invisible germs, it's cinched tight around the cord, perhaps breaking the membrane and coming in contact with blood. Where's that blood going and what is hitching a ride? Ewwwwww.
For a great read about this topic, check out the ever imformative Navel Gazing Midwife. Also check out the Unnecesarian for a post, and read the comments and then read the follow up post. Apparently it's pretty difficult to change the official protocal, they won't take info from experts that are not in the academy of 911 dispatchers. Dumb. So, if you know someone who is a 911 dispatcher and would be sympathetic to this cause, let them know their advice is outdated and unsafe and give them the links so they can pass on real info to their academy.
I'm just so surprised at Dr Oz's reaction to this, how wonderful it was, a great idea. Did he not check it out at all? Did he not even think about it for a few seconds?
(I can't seem to get spellcheck to work....hope it's all okay!)
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