Hi All,
I am sending this to both Lactnet and Lactivist, so apologies in advance if
you see this twice.  I just thought that this is an important issue and we
need all the letter writers we can get.
This is the situation:

This morning (10/23) on ABC's Good Morning America, Dr Nancy Snyderman did a
story on Epidurals and their safety.  She discussed 4 new studies, with
20,000 women, found that Epidurals were perfectly safe, wonderful and they
work beautifully.  These studies allegedly found that the rate of C-Sections
was exactly the same between 2 groups of women (one group had the Epid's and
one did not), and said that though the use of Epid's has nearly doubled in
the past several years (couldn't hear the #, Ben was making too much noise)
that the rate of C-Sections has stayed at the same rate, not going up in
conjunction with the Epid's.

There was absolutely NO mention of the possible side effects of Epid's for
the mother.  This report made it sound like Epid's were perfectly fine for
anyone and everyone and that there were no side effects at all.  At least Dr
Snyderman did say that moms should discuss getting an Epidural with their
Dr.  But, she really blew it, IMHO, when she said that she had Epid's when
she had her 2 babies and they were really great!  She talked about how
having the Epid really takes the edge off of the pain and makes giving birth
so much nicer.  There was no mention of going for it without meds at all.

The other glaring error, IMHO, was that there was NO mention of the side
effects to the baby.  They didn't even mention babies!  The only reason one
would have thought "Baby" is that they were talking about pregnant women in
labor and everyone knows that a baby must be involved.  The way the info was
given, a pregnant mother would think "Well, if an Epidural is perfectly safe
for me, and they didn't mention any possible side effects  for the baby,
then it must be safe for the baby as well."

We need to send them letters, especially from those of us who work directly
in the hospitals with mom's and babies who are suffering the side effects we
all KNOW exist, and from those of us with lots of letters after our names
(MD's IBCLC's, RN's, etc).  ABC needs to know that to give out this type of
one-sided info can be potentially very harmful.  It is nice to know that
something is getting safer, but you must present the other side for a
balance of information, especially when there is someone else involved (ie
Baby!).


Thanks to One of our great gals on Lactnet (Thank You Laurie Wheeler!) here
is the address for ABC.  Anyone have an E-Mail address for them?  I will be
busy writing my letter toady, and sending it off ASAP.  Let's hit them with
the correct info and the harm that Epidurals really can do to the babies.
Thanks all!
Jay


ABC
Ted Harbert
ABC Entertainment President
2040 Avenue of the Stars
Century City, CA 90067


Jay Simpson, CLE
Sacramento, CA
"No Miracles performed here, just a lot of love and hard work."