Dear all:

As an epidemiologist, I am finding the notion that one can investigate the death of a baby in an "isolette" but not investigate the death of a baby in a hospital bed -- claiming it was the hospital bed that did it, extremely troubling.  This is what I constantly harp about that we ourselves shouldn't do and neither should a hospital. The proper comparison would be the number of deaths in the "isolette" versus the number of deaths in the "hospital bed".  In both cases the conditions should be thoroughly investigated.  I still go back to the study that showed a 36% higher attributable risk of infant death when babies did not sleep in close proximity to their parents compared to in the same room on a separate surface.  In the same bed was 16% higher and we all know that further research does show what those particular 

Furthermore, it is completely insane to ignore a huge body of work about skin-to-skin contact.  The research clearly shows higher risks if the normal condition of skin-to-skin contact is not offered.  Are the lawyers aware of this body of research?  That they could actually be endangering babies?

This approach reminds me of the DISASTROUS public health approach that was adopted when HIV first hit the scene.  Breastfeeding rates are abysmal in Africa now thanks to the entry point for the formula industry that promoted its so-called clean product that went on to increase death rates among those infants whose mothers did not have HIV, those infants whose mothers did have HIV and got it during birth, those infants who didn't have HIV but got it because they were also fed formula and the HIV was then able to be transmitted through the lining of the gut.

What are these hospital administrators thinking?  Really, this makes me so grateful that I don't work for a hospital and no one is trying to force me into saying something that runs counter to the evidence.  

Since when has SKIN killed a baby?  Don't they have epidemiologists working at that hospital?  Have they never taken even a basic science class? Talk about a perversion of faith-based medicine of the worst sort!  (As opposed to faith-based medicine of the best sort where care and love and comfort DO improve health outcomes as opposed to this which is the withdrawal of all those things!!!)

Sigh, Susan E. Burger, MHS, PhD, IBCLC

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