This is so long gone I had forgotten it.
Credé's prophylaxis with silver nitrate has been discontinued since 1986 in
Scandinavia, which was also before I had a baby here and before I became a
midwife.  It was never replaced with any other form of preventive treatment.
We treat babies who get gunky eyes, all right, and they are
disproportionately more often babies who have been cared for by staff from
the start because mother was in post-op or baby was in NICU.  First line of
treatment is normal saline rinse and (of course) expressed breast milk.  If
that doesn't do it we get a culture and start chloramphenicol eye drops.
I agree, where you have to get the birth room cleared in one hour, there
isn't time to help then and there.  We have two hours most places, some have
almost no limit.  It is starting to be more accepted to go off duty without
having weighed and measured the baby because mother and baby were
establishing breastfeeding.
I will from this moment on add 'thankfulness for the non-litiginous
Scandinavian attitude' to my ever-growing list of things to appreciate every
day.
OK?
And I hereby extend to any and all of you an invitation to come see our
system in practice.  You get yourself here and back to wherever you came
from, I will round up a place to stay and arrange site visits, given a few
weeks' advance notice.
Really!
Rachel Myr
living the good life in Kristiansand, Norway

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