Stopwatch
Resuscitation of drugged newborn infants resulting from central nervous system depression is so commonplace in the United States that such a condition is no longer considered by many to be a cause for alarm. Blue hands and feet are so common among our newborn infants an hour after birth that expectant parents are told such a condition is normal.
I propose the use of a device which I feel could do more to change obstetric care in the United States than forceps or fetal monitors or anything else we have. It is a stopwatch. If we could give every couple who goes into a delivery room a stopwatch, and have the couple announce to the obstetrician during labor that they are going to time how long it takes their newly born baby to breathe and to have pink fingers and toes, I am sure they would get a better baby. -Doris Haire, The Cultural Unwarping of Childbirth: How Can It Be Accomplished?, 1977
Reprinted from Midwifery Today E-News (Vol 1 Issue 20, May 14, 1999)
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