metro.co.uk/2013/01/26/police-investigat...rd-hospital-3367561/

I usually avoid msm as much as possible, but this story grabbed my attention. Not so much even the story, but people's reaction to it.

I'm just gonna put it out there - and don't fret, I've not nor will I ever likely have kids of my own - I don't see what the big deal is. I can understand there may be some concern re a possible choking hazard, but it is my understanding that children in intensive care are quite carefully monitored.

Were I a nurse that had observed a child having difficulty holding a dummy in its mouth and noticing that its poor little mush was already covered in surgical tape and tubes, I might think it might be nice if I could figure out a way to help the child hold the dummy, which it obviously finds comforting, in its mouth. I might also think that a little extra tape on top of the tape already plastered on its face wouldn'd cause any harm, particularly if the child was very distressed every time the dummy fell away from its mouth.

Perhaps I'm just missing that paternal instinct, but I really don't get why this is news. Had the baby been thrown about and received injuries from its treatment then it might be a worthwhile story, if only to highlight the issue of childcare in hospitals such as this. I don't get it is all.

No. A dummy can be soothing to a baby, but they cry to get your attention if something's wrong, and if the crying is due to hunger, pain or discomfort, they can spit the dummy out to enable them to summon your attention. I'd expect that if it can't achieve that because the dummy's taped in place, it would cause increased distress.

The article is not very specific. If the baby was only 2lb 5oz when this happened, that's tiny, and a normal dummy is relatively large, so could block a child's breathing to some degree. I don't like the sound of it at all.

Fair do's I s'pose. I don't know jack about babies.

It's a bit wrong, but considering the fact that it used to be socially acceptable for adults to shut children in smokey rooms with them, give them gripe water (alcoholic), smack them if they were being naughty, drive around without belting them into cars and other such things, it's a bit hysterical.

I don't know how old you are abs, but I was a late 70's baby and if parents today tried some of the shit that was acceptable back then, they would be considered child abusers!

We all survived. FFS, children survive all over the world in far more challenging conditions, so this is just another wanky first world (non) problem. I think today's society is far too child-centric, people need to go back to the good old days of boiled potatoes, spankings, children being seen and not heard, Rent a Ghost and Angel Delight!

Angel Delight was never acceptable, Lesley. I heartily concur with your views on Rent-A-Ghost however.

Sorry, it's evil Leslie today. I've just been really nostalgic about the early 1980's recently.

I do think it was a dodgy thing to do.

Ab Origine wrote:
There was the dodgy caramel one that looked like poo. It might have been Instant Whip though.

Also, tinned chocolate puddings, orange squash that tasted like chemicals and Findus Crispy Panckakes.

Findus Crispy Pancakes, ahhh used to come in mince and cheese varieties if I remember correctly. I preferred the mince ones. I did like them, but they were a bit weird at the same time.

Oh yeah, Poor baby I hope the kid was okay... hospitals are understaffed and that these days aren't they? And nurses, etc. overworked?

Eh? When did people stop boiling potatoes?

From what I've seen, they're not understaffed on the admin side - just the actual carers!

Under-staffing doesn't excuse stupidity either.

When Alex was born, they whipped him off into intensive care for a few hours, because they reckoned he didn't have enough sugar in his blood (he wouldn't latch on properly so wasn't getting enough milk, yet I had to kick off big time to make them give me bottled milk for him, which he was perfectly fine with as soon as they backed down). When they handed him back after a few hours, he had masses of shit dried solid on his bottom, which took me an eternity to get off, and he was absolutely red raw underneath, so I can't say my experience of 'special care' is positive.

I don't know much about hospitals these days, but it seems to me that there's too much management/admin, and not enough caring... it should be simple stuff, I mean how hard is it to wipe a baby's arse, and keep the wards clean and all that?

Gilly wrote:
If you're a parent you get to see this kind of thing and you know
I recall getting a call at 3am the night after my missus had one of our kids by c-section.
She was on a morphine drip.
The nurse called me to ask me to come in with baby milk because the hospital supposedly didn't have any and they couldn't 'wake my wife to get her to breastfeed'....I shit you not...

Lets just say that when I got to the hospital shit flew fast and all over the f*cking place

andyh wrote: No wonder the hard-pressed staff are toiling to cope with MRSA outbreaks 'n stuff when you're chucking shit all around in maternity wards!

Pull that stunt once it's all privatised and see how you like the invoice young fellow-me-lad.

Seriously though.
My lass was born 9 1/2 weeks early, she was 4lbs which is a fair size for that point.
Anyhoo, they won't let them home here until they've steadied at 5lbs for a few days, So she was in Special Care for a month.
The thing with kids wards is when one kid kicks off, they pretty much all start to kick off.
Mattress alarms on the little cots are forever going off for no apparent reason and have to be constantly reset, etc
By the time my wee one was in a little over a week I was chipping in on routine things, those nurses have a heavy gig.
I can easily see how one thought it was an ok temp-fix to stick a bit of micropore on the dummy.
It was hardly superglued, gaffataped or stapled on.

feather wrote:
lol

Well what actually happened was a lazy nurse lost her job.
The cupboard was ofc full of baby milk.

Apologies for my earlier post, I do have a very dark sense of humour that other people probably won't find amusing.

The point I was trying to make is that we are actually pretty lucky to have an NHS in the first place. Things aren't always ideal, but for the most part, nurses do the best they can and lives are saved. It's not great to tape a dummy in, but surely the nurse wouldn't have done it if there was a real danger of suffocation. I can imagine how this could look terrifying to worried parents, but a nurse sees this stuff all the time and might think it's fine. They just can't care for those babies in the same manner parents would necessarily like. Surely people must know this.

From what I've heard from friends and relatives, the NHS does a lot for premature babies. Mind you, there's now talk about families coming into hospitals to help care for elderly relatives.

But yes, bring back spanking and crispy pancakes.

Having experienced the enjoyment of childbirth in an English and Greek hospital all I'll say is do everything in your power to protect the NHS...even in it's current state!

oioioi wrote:
They'd get rid of the NHS tomorrow if they could.
They'd still f*****g tax you for it though!!

Feather, the same could be said in any ordinary, open maternity ward which you'd typically find yourself sharing with other mums & babies - one cries in the night, they all start. But I don't think I'd like to see them all having their gobs 'stopped'.

Lesley, how do you know how much risk would be involved? That hasn't been explored, because it shouldn't be necessary because it's not an approved practice.

Yes, there are good things about the NHS, but that doesn't negate the unacceptable things.

I could relate horror stories about the goings on when my son was born - but won't in case folk are queasy.

I agree Gilly but the difference in an ordinary maternity ward is the mothers are present to care for the kids when they kick off.
Usually in a special care ward there's 1, maybe 2 nurses.

I'm not by any means condoning the practice btw, I do understand though how someone pushed may think it was a temp solution.

ftr. I don't even like the use of dummies.
The distortion and damage they can do to kids pallets is horrible.

i can't see why babies are even given those damned things. make it easier on the parents? kids grow up just fine without the use of some plastic pos being shoved in their mouth to shut 'em up... not to mention if you do that you end up having to break them of the use of it, retrain them so-to-speak, they become dependent on that piece of plastic to comfort them and soothe them instead of knowing they can go to their parents and get that.
learn to pick your baby up, hold it, cuddle it and you may find it doesnt cry quite as much.