Rompers

What a heartbreaking state of affairs in the world's richest country

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/paren...dex/index.html

ladygwennie

That really is heartbreaking..

britvic

With no free Contraception in the first place, no Mid Wife's popping round first week at home, no Health Visitors coming round to see if all is well with Mother & Child, hardly surprising is it

Partystar

Plus the amount of unnecessary caesareans they do too.

Rompers

From the report, the infant mortality rate was driven by disadvantaged groups and minorities. The rate amongst african americans is twice that for the population as a whole.

Bob

aye, added with shite medical insurance cover, crap maternity leave...it's all pretty sad...

Sally

No doubt social reasons, but interestingly there has been some research on vitamin D deficiency and prematurity - harder for dark skinned people to get enough vitamin D from sunlight in more northern latitudes.

cpe111

Another possible reason is that hospitals wont admit you here unless you are fairly well advanced - for example a friend of ours, 6cm dilated was told to go away and come back later. Few hospitals have facilities or the experienced staff needed to deal with problems when they arise (local community type hospitals), often resulting in transportation at a critical stage of delivery to a specialist unit. In some parts of the states this can involve very lengthy journeys, often by road becasue your 'insurance' may not cover the cost of air transport (flight for life etc.) - for example, a news artice today concerned an ambulance transferring a pregnant woman from Nebraska to Denver was involved in an accident.

I have seen several articles recently concerning the state of the US health system and how US residents had generally poorer treatment, spent more and have more mistakes in treatment than residents of coutries such as Australia, Canada, Germany and yes, even the UK.

Personally I believe that this is largely due to the fact that the US health system is generally unaccountable - the insurance company determines what its going to pay for and it is only accountable to its shareholders. You get very little choice in the matter because for most of us the choice of insurers is made by the employer - who, guess what - is only accountable to its shareholders and when it shops for insurance, best cover is unlikely to be number 1 on the list of requirements

In many places doctors are unaccountable and unchallenged - in the smaller hospitals - of which there seem to be many, the doctors do not work as part of teams. Staff who may identify errors in treatment - perhaps medications, find it difficult to challenge the doctors concerned, there is no escalation path as there would be for example in a UK hospital where you could refer to the consultant or senior consultant responsible for that team of doctors and get the situation rectified. There seems to be very little appreciation of the concept of a 'team' of caregivers in the US system.

Sometimes you will also see doctors treating patients in areas they have very little expertise and for one reason or another cannot or will not refer to a specialist - maybe the patients insurance doesnt cover it - maybe the doctor has a lucrative sideline going. Lets face it a PCP who treats 2 cancer patients a year isnt exactly going to have the experience in treatment options that a specialist has. A doctor providing terminal pain care really should be a specialist, its not quite as simple as upping the morphine. Both of these are drawn from real situations at a local hospital and are not isolated incidents.

snowbunny

True, though most of the US is far more southerly than say London.

Those of us who have fair skin and live at the same latitude as northern Africa have to watch for skin cancer!

There are a lot of reasons why African-American babies have a higher infant mortality, including being more likely to have mum be insured, have prenatal or antenatal care, a good diet.... they are much more locked out of the health care system in general so that even something like their infant immunisations are likely to be lacking. They have an average age of first birth that is significantly lower than the general population as a whole, and more children per mother than the general population. Very young mothers (eg under 18) are at higher risk of complications with birth than are women over 18. If an uninsured patient is delivering in hospital, the hospital may delay them getting a necessary c-section because that procedure is much more expensive.

The health care system is broken badly and for those without a high standard of education and a lot of money, no matter the race, it's deadly.

Sarah

A black baby would have more chance of survival born in Cuba or China than it would in the USA.
Something's gotta be done about the healthcare system

Sally

I hear you. no immediate signs that this will improve

BigDavyG

Too many people making too much money.
I hate to be so brutal, but even if you started to stack up the dead babies on the steps of the Whitehouse the people that matter still wouldn't really give a flying fiddlers - that is the sad reality.

peacelover

When I read that I was shocked, who would ever have thought it possible.

Bob

It's quite easy to believe when you see the US not giving a flying phook about what's happening in New Orleans or the millions who don't have medical insurance, never mind half decent medical cover..

snowbunny

And what is hypocritical is if they were "preborn babies" there would be a firestorm of protest from the Religious Right.

Can we start by taking care of the ones who are already here?