In a message dated 1/2/99 12:00:19 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< Well, go visit an "old" cemetery and count the infant graves and then go to
a
 "new" cemetery and count the infant graves.  Need I say more?
 Perhaps we should go back to the prehistoric "good ole days" when more than
 50% of infants did not make it to one year of age.
 To paraphrase a famous quote:  Those who do not know their history are doomed
 to repeat it.
 Your study of one out of 12 is hardly proof of anything. >>

Andrew:

 It's certainly true that modern medicine saves *sick*  babies'  lives. As the
mother of a 12 month old (birthday tomorrow!) who was born last January with
persistent fetal circulation and who spent  several lifesaving weeks in the
NICU (where, by the way, he never had a single bottle until the day I put him
to breast  with nasal cannula still in at ten days of age), I am acutely aware
of how different things are for babies with health problems in 1999 as opposed
to 1889. And since you are on a l*st full of other medical professionals,  you
can be quite sure that everyone else is too. However, to doubt that the
*routine* (meaning, not medically necessary) interventions of our
technological birthing culture are iatrogenic is to ignore the research.

Check out my article on this topic at:

http://www.goodnewsnet.org/weekly/minnesto.htm

Katie-- working at her computer today with her chronically aching, epidural-
injured back aching terribly

Katie Allison Granju
Knoxville, TN