But Stillbirths Are a Problem

15Apr/110

But Stillbirths Are a Problem

Planned Parenthood Founder Margaret Sanger:

And so, in the June 1935 edition of her flagship publication, Birth Control Review, in an article titled, "Birth Control in Russia," Sanger concluded:

Theoretically, there are no obstacles to birth control in Russia. It is accepted … on the grounds of health and human right…. [W]e could well take example from Russia, where there are no legal restrictions, no religious condemnation, and where birth control instruction is part of the regular welfare service of the government.

I could quote more, including this jaw-dropping prediction: "All the officials with whom I discussed the matter stated that as soon as the economic and social plans of Soviet Russia are realized, neither abortions nor contraception will be necessary or desired. A functioning Communistic society will assure the happiness of every child, and will assume the full responsibility for its welfare and education."

Now there, ladies and gentleman, is progressive utopianism, an absolute faith in central planners. Contrary to the Planned Parenthood founder's optimism, abortions skyrocketed to seven million annually in the USSR.

Contrast this with ABC's report on WHO on stillbirths:

At 4½ months pregnant, Heather Rotondi's baby bump barely shows through her black wrap dress. It's hard to imagine the outgoing 37-year-old New Jersey mom being anything but happy and calm, let alone depressed. But after her first pregnancy, she was depressed for months.

Dominic Francis Rotondi was delivered Feb. 28, 2006, a couple of weeks shy of his due date, a day Heather and Robert Rotondi now call his "angelversary." While other mothers left the hospital with balloons and babies, Rotondi, who'd had a perfectly normal pregnancy, had only a death certificate.

"I had a son, I am a mother, and I had nothing to show for it," says Rotondi.

Dominic's story is just one of 2.6 million, according to a special series published in the Lancet on Wednesday.

According to the series, which offers the first comprehensive look at the heavy global burden of stillbirths around the world, more than 7,300 stillbirths occur every day. The World Health Organization defines "stillbirth" as fetal death after 28 weeks of pregnancy. Ninety eight percent of stillbirths happen in low- and middle-income countries, and nearly half of them occur during childbirth, particularly among women who do not have access to basic medical services. But even in wealthy countries, one in 200 pregnancies results in a stillbirth.

Look, I'm upset whenever a child dies, and especially when the mother is so deeply emotionally distressed over the loss. But the duplicity of WHO apparently knows no bounds, because although the US complies with its standards for defining live births, WHO lets countries that do not self-report, and nowhere attempts to clarify the disparity in data collection.

Those who argue that the U.S. lags behind some other countries in infant mortality fail to take into account national differences in definitions of live birth. The U.S. complies with the World Health Organization standard, which requires registration of a live birth whenever an infant shows any sign of life outside the womb, regardless of birth weight, size or duration of gestation. Many countries restrict registration to cases in which these measures exceed certain limits, such as a birth weight of 500 to 1,000 grams, a crown-to-heel length of 25 to 35 centimeters, 22 to 28 weeks of gestation, or survival for a minimum amount of time. Since small and pre-term babies are more likely to die, standards that exclude these cases artificially decrease a country's infant mortality rate, making its health-care system seem better than it really is. Yet U.S. infant mortality rates are competitive, despite a much more broad definition of live birth.

Despite the whinging from the left, such as Ezra Klein's, studies commissioned to demonstrate the superiority of national health systems inevitably discover that national health systems are superior.

Ezra claims that a study from the Commonwealth Foundation concludes that of the seven countries under consideration, the US has the worst health care at the highest cost:

Years ago, the World Health Organization came out with a ranking of health systems that placed the US 37th. Over time, there's been a fair amount of controversy over the WHO's methodology, and so the Commonwealth Foundation began a new project to assemble a comparative international picture: They chose seven countries and conducted deep, ongoing polls of both patients and health-care providers. The surveys test experiences with the system, cost questions, efficiency, convenience, health outcomes and much more. The result is a comparison based not on an outsider’s methodology but on the experiences of patients and providers.

Here, too, the U.S. underperforms.

There is, in fact, a Commonwealth Foundation, but this is from the Commonwealth Fund, and though The Week corrects the source, they still use Ezra's piece to promote their view that the United States might have the very worst health care system in the whole wide world:

And while there's been much controversy over that ranking, it's pointless to refute the Commonwealth Fund's findings. This isn't a broadside from some outsider — the ratings come from our own patients and doctors.

Would the Commonwealth Fund shape its questions in such a manner as to ensure that the US gets the worst ranking of the seven countries under consideration? Here's the mission statement:

The Commonwealth Fund, among the first private foundations started by a woman philanthropist—Anna M. Harkness—was established in 1918 with the broad charge to enhance the common good.

The mission of The Commonwealth Fund is to promote a high performing health care system that achieves better access, improved quality, and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable, including low-income people, the uninsured, minority Americans, young children, and elderly adults.

The Fund carries out this mandate by supporting independent research on health care issues and making grants to improve health care practice and policy. An international program in health policy is designed to stimulate innovative policies and practices in the United States and other industrialized countries.

Not included among the most vulnerable are the not yet born.

I'm certain that the Board of the Fund truly believe in what they're doing, but if you read the history of the institution, founded with money derived from early investments in Standard Oil, you'll see that over time its mandate has drifted inexorably left; so much so, that I doubt Ms. Harkness would recognize what it's become.

You can get a look at their blog, here.

Despite the stormy politics of health reform, in its first year the initial set of consumer protections and coverage expansions in the Affordable Care Act was welcomed by many American families. These newly enacted reforms include allowing children under age 26 to stay on or join their parents’ health insurance plans, the establishment of state-based insurance plans for people with preexisting conditions, and the availability of tax credits for small businesses that provide coverage to their employees.

In year two, which starts today, the groundwork for further coverage expansions, as well as important quality improvement and cost-control measures, will ramp up. The results of The Commonwealth Fund’s Biennial Health Insurance Survey, released last week, show that the recession has made the need for such reforms even more urgent. Nine million working-age adults became uninsured in the last two years because of the loss of a job, two of five adults had problems with medical bills, and two of five did not get needed health care because it was too expensive, according to the survey.

I'm sure that's true, too, but tellingly, there's no mention made about the general public's unhappiness with HCR as it stands, and no mention made either of the CBO manipulation that created phantom savings in the system. It's all lollipop-eyed hooey, sprinkled with absurd qualifications, such as "If skillfully implemented."

Lady, nothing this administration does is skillfully implemented. Do you think that perhaps its policies have something to do with the persistence of the recession?

Meanwhile, on his own initiative, the Judge in the Kermit Gosnell trial has issued a gag order. He has also reduced the amount of Mrs. Gosnell's bond from $1 million to $50k, and deplored the seizure of letters between the prisoner and his spouse.

In case you missed it, Stacy slapped around a tenured Trigger, and misogynist Keith Olbermann made of himself an even bigger ass than usual.