a random rant

Tanzania, 2012

 

Today’s post is a random rant in keeping with my conviction that the American health care system is headed in the wrong direction. This issue came to my attention after my daughter gave birth last month. She reminded me of this outrage:

Back in October, 2016, a couple in Utah learned that, after the birth of their baby, the hospital charged them $40 for immediate post-partum skin-to-skin contact, a practice widely believed to be beneficial to the newborn who has just been unceremoniously propelled into a hostile environment, and to the mother whose life has just changed forever and ever, amen. This is considered the standard of post-partum care, unless it is contraindicated for medical reasons…for example, newborn resuscitation.

 

www.quotemaster.org



The couple was flabbergasted at this charge. Their post went viral. It was explained to them that, nowadays, so-called “kangaroo care” is considered to be an intervention. It has its own billable code, and therefore, incurs an extra charge. It also requires supervision by an additional nurse whose salary has to be covered…for supervising a mother cradling her baby on her chest.

“I just want to lay on your chest

and listen to your heart.”

~www.beat-it2.blogspot.com~

It makes one wonder. How many mothers have dropped their babies in the delivery room? Since when did an age-old, cross-cultural, intuitive and nurturing post-partum practice become an intervention?

What is the price of maternal love?

“Nowadays people know

the price of everything

and the value of nothing.”

~Oscar Wilde~

jan