Re: My Baby’s Life: Who Decides?

Julie the babies shown were premature and had breathing tubes , these have to cleaned several times a day during which times the baby cannot breathe even done quickly it was terribly distressing for them.
They have never taken nor will ever take a breath on their own as their lungs are undeveloped . They are fed through stomach tubes they will never know the epleasure of eating a mouthful of food .
They cannot even cry and will never learn to speak ( the breathing tube blocks air reaching the vocal cords )
The doctors who seemed quite upset themselves say they now have the capacity to keep babies alive when they have no plan or way of treating them .What sort of life is that for a child ?

Re: My Baby’s Life: Who Decides?

Yes but I'd still not want to make that decision. Many premature babies do survive these days, a few years ago they wouldn't have.

What really is needed in most of these cases is better communication between the doctors and parents. Some dreadful things are said in very harsh ways, they don't take the parents to a point they can see its for the best they alienate them.

Re: My Baby’s Life: Who Decides?

I though the doctors in the programme were kind and gentle with the parents .They themselves say that they could not make the decision for their own child and therefore it was up to them -the medics to make these hard decisions.
It's worth watching .

Re: My Baby’s Life: Who Decides?

After I gave birth to my son I experienced some strange feelings, a sort of emptiness. It was like a bereavement, I missed being pregnant all down to hormones I guess.
I know I was very possessive of my son not helped by my husband becoming seriously ill and not expected to live when our baby was 3 weeks old.
9 months carrying a baby and a traumatic birth with nothing to show for it can be too much to endure for some.
I just know that had there been a problem with my son against all logical thought I would have wanted to keep him going at any costs .


It is the same with much loved pets, you want to hang on to them as long as possible because life without them is to painful to contemplate..

Re: My Baby’s Life: Who Decides?

Meg would it not be kinder all round to allow a tiny damaged baby who cannot even breath alone to just slip away easily after birth?
These poor little ones are put through so much trama and it's all to no avail because the Doctors cannot cue them . It's merely postponing the inevitable.

Re: My Baby’s Life: Who Decides?

I agree, it is the child who is the important one in this instance, not the parents, however hard its death will be for them.

Re: My Baby’s Life: Who Decides?

Did anyone watch last night’s episode?

There was an older child Ellie-May, who had a relapse and was back in hospital again. It was costing half a million pounds a year to care for her. Her mother was a single parent and had carers coming in throughout the day. She had been back in hospital many times in her life.

Another child Tyler, the most beautiful baby boy was born with SMA1, had no use in his muscles and had been taken to France to try out an American drug that was injected into his spine at a cost of, £100,000 per injection.
He would need this injected drug every year throughout his life and then it might be unsuccessful.
They didn’t tell us at the end of the programme how he is getting on.

One other baby girl had lots wrong and her condition deteriorated. The parents accepted she would never survive and her life support machine was switched off.
So, so sad but the parents were so brave and the unit staff were marvellous and so caring.

Re: My Baby’s Life: Who Decides?

Yes Muddy it would and we can say that sitting here as rational onlookers but as I explained in my earlier post, women who have just given birth are not always rational.

Re: My Baby’s Life: Who Decides?

No parent wants to lose their child and it must be heartbreaking for them, but I always think about animal mothers who seem to follow the rules of "survival of the fittest". The mothers will give more food to their strongest baby, in the hope that it will survive well when it has to fend for itself.
I believe that all reasonably healthy children have something to offer, but a child who will be totally dependent through it's life will not only be very expensive to care for, but the child , itself, is being forced to live a life that the rest of us would find unbearable.
I tend to think it is a bit like having a sick pet put to sleep, you love it so much that you don't want to do it, but you need to remember that it is the pet, and not you, that will suffer most by keeping them alive.

Re: My Baby’s Life: Who Decides?

I think the decision should be taken out of the hands of the parents, it should always be what is best for the child.

Similarly a vet should decide if it is cruel to keep an animal alive if it is just for the sake of the owner, and not the benefit of the animal. We once had a cat, which had a serious problem, which needed dialysis on a regular basis, CRAZY, of course we told him to put it down.