Do People Who Have Kids Deserve Special Treatment?
Controversy: Gwen Stefani Bleaches Her Son's Hair
A '50 Shades of Grey' Shortcut for Busy Moms
Latest on Baby in Washing Machine Case (VIDEO)
Are People Who Eat Organic Judgy & Mean?
A Dad's Perspective on Playdates
Bagged Salad Recall Sparks New Fears
Help Dying 4-Year-Old Fulfill His Bucket List (VIDEO)
Melissa McCarthy & Sandra Bullock's Buddy Cop Movie
Do Working Moms Have It Easy?
Your Morning Coffee Could Save Your Life
Join the Fight Against Toxic Kids' Products
8 Summery Sweet Popsicles You Can Make at Home
Guy Gets Chest Waxed on National TV (VIDEO)
14 Ways to Be a Happier Mom
A Florida mom who was forced to remain in a hospital on bed rest has just won a case for pregnant women everywhere.
Pregnant women still have the right to refuse medical treatment, a Florida court of appeals has decided.
Samantha Burton was six months pregnant with what would have been her third child when she went to the doctor complaining of complications to her pregnancy.
The doctor told her she was facing miscarriage if she didn't stay in the hospital on bed rest. When she refused, the Florida State Attorney's office secured a hospitalization order that locked her in the hospital for three days -- when she miscarried anyway.
According to the new court ruling quoted on Tampa Bay Online, "A patient's fundamental constitutional right to refuse medical intervention 'can only be overcome if the state has a compelling state interest great enough to override this constitutional right.'"
In this case, the state failed to prove locking Burton in a hospital was better for her fetus.
The fact is, women when pregnant are still human beings in and of themselves. Being locked up in a hospital is akin to being treated as a caged animal -- and why? Because she was pregnant?
If she'd simply been an adult suffering from cancer, she'd have been allowed to go home and die of her own accord.
Burton made it clear she didn't want an abortion and she sought medical treatment because she didn't want the fetus to die. She wasn't showing a wanton disregard -- anything but.
But when she disagreed with a doctor, she wasn't given the chance to make decisions about her own body.
Burton says she fought this even though her case was technically over because she didn't want other women afraid of seeking prenatal care.
Doctors aren't infallible. Ceding constitutional rights to them sets us out on a dangerous precipice.
Did you ever worry about disagreeing with your doctor?
Image via Muffet/Flickr
Emma Lives with Severe Food Allergies
How to Pack a No-Waste Lunch
Memorial Day Survival Guide
Backstage at Mamma Mia! with Irene Bunis
Comments (9)
I shall be rewritting my hospital and informing them that they WERE wrong to force something on me that I did not want. Thank this judge!
No. I had a midwife who treated me like we were partners working together to ensure that I had a healthy baby. We talked things over and I refused certain things, like a GD test, the triple screen test, vaginal exams, etc. She totally respected my right to make those decisions. It is awful when care providers forget what their role is. It is the woman's body, the woman's baby and her decision. The doctor is the hired help.
You're not in the minority which is why OBs are able to be the way they are, they're assholes. Jerks. In my mind they're right beside rapists and the like. I hate them. Of course, that's from my experiences.
To answer the question, yes. OBs are held up like gods and cannot stand being disagreed with. They think they know what is best for everyone and don't care how much damage it causes.
Jen, do a bit of research. Out of hospital births with midwives are SAFER than hospital births. Blood test results after fasting and chugging syrup isn't the ONLY way to tell if you may have GD. Why, since according to you our doctors and our healthcare system is so fabulous, does the US have the second WORST NEWBORN MORTALITY RATE in the modern world? Places like Holland, where home birth is common has a much lower death rate.
American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan, and newborn mortality is 2.5 times higher in the United States than in Finland, Iceland or Norway, Save the Children researchers found.
Only Latvia, with six deaths per 1,000 live births, has a higher death rate for newborns than the United States, which is tied near the bottom of industrialized nations with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with five deaths per 1,000 births.
"The United States has more neonatologists and neonatal intensive care beds per person than Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, but its newborn rate is higher than any of those countries," said the annual State of the World's Mothers report.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/mothers.index/
So, yeah, excuse me if I'm not going to blindly follow the advice of an O.B. My son's health was too important for me to do that. Maybe if more women started taking responsibility for their decisions instead of being good sheep and doing what they're told we wouldn't have so many dead babies.
Here' a bit more info for those interested:
The risk of infant death following planned home birth attended by a registered midwife does not differ from that of a planned hospital birth, found a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).
The study looked at 2889 home births attended by regulated midwives in British Columbia, Canada, and 4752 planned hospital births attended by the same cohort of midwives compared with 5331 physician-attended births in hospital. Women who planned a home birth had a significantly lower risk of obstetric interventions and adverse outcomes, including augmentation of labour, electronic fetal monitoring, epidural analgesia, assisted vaginal delivery, cesarean section, hemorrhage, and infection.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090831130043.htm
Jen, not every test "saves babies lives." I was informed by an OB (who I refused to see after that) that I had to take the triple screen "so I could abort if there was a problem." Now I'm pro-choice, but I had also gotten pregnant ON PURPOSE. The way he put that . . . uh uh, no way in HELL was I taking that test.
I reserve the right to disagree with a doctor and get a second opinion -- even if I AM pregnant. I'm still me and still in charge of this body.
Yes, doctors do have a lot of schooling and training in their field. But, I have a personal responsibility to know my body and know my child's body. Too many people are willing to blindly follow doctors advice-too many times I hear a mom saying that she KNEW there was more to her child's health issues that the doctor just brushed off as no big deal. It's time we take personal responsibility for our health!
In this case, I really do not blame the patient for refusing hospitalized bed rest. Why couldn't she have bed rest at home? I think keeping her locked up in the hospital would have stressed her out to the point of m/c, rather than being in a relaxed home environment.