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Title: The Business of Baby: What Doctors Don't Tell You, What Corporations Try to Sell You, and How to Put Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Before Their Bottom Line
Author: Jennifer Margulis
Genre: Parenting/consumer reports
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: How corporate interests are interfering with babies' welfare.
Thoughts: I'm honestly not sure how I feel about a bunch of stuff in this book. There's a bunch of stuff that I agree with, and made me feel rather horrified on behalf of people who were not as privileged in their birth experiences as I was. There's also a bunch of science, especially related to vaccines, that I'm deeply skeptical of. The fact that I feel that a lot of the statistics that end each chapter are deeply manipulative isn't helping.
On the side of things that made me even more pleased with my experiences so far as a mom--I really, really like my OB and pediatrician. I happened to give birth on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, despite not actually living there, and being in a very progressive and privileged community really made a difference, I think. My OB's practice and my hospital take an aggressively non-interventionist standpoint and recommended that I go with the drug-free birth I'd wanted in the first place, not wanting to step in unless necessary. (I ended up drugged to the gills for high blood pressure after a brush with pre-eclampsia, but that was after delivery and mostly beside the point.) Say what you will about Bloomburg's nanny-state, but I really appreciated the fact that the nurses were not allowed to give infants formula unless a parent specifically requested it, and that they were all incredibly supportive, certified lactation consultants. In short, the first few chapters of this book are mostly horror stories about conveyor belt hospitals inducing labor and forcing C-sections for their own convenience, and then convincing parents not to breastfeed out of outdated notions. I knew that this happened elsewhere, and I'm very grateful for the doctors and nurses I had who tried really hard to get my kid started in life with a minimum of medical intervention.
But the later chapters, I'm not as sure about. There's a bunch of concern about vaccines, for starters. She phrases some of the argument well--babies are getting way more vaccines than I did when I was a kid, there aren't longitudinal studies for the effects of combined vaccines, and vaccine timing is geared towards protecting herd immunity more than an individual baby. Babies' immune systems probably would handle vaccines better a year or two later, but doctors don't think parents will bring their kids back for regular vaccinations after the first year of well baby visits. But some of her arguments don't fully hold water. She brings up the autism thing, which from everything I've read is fully discredited. She asks why Hep B is the first vaccine they get, when babies don't have sex or use needles, but earlier in the book cites reduced Hep B transmission as a positive for other more natural methods--if it's not a danger, why care? Also, her argument against rotavirus vaccination is that kids who are exclusively breastfed and aren't in daycare are unlikely to get rotavirus. Well, I agree that in a perfect world, my kid would be exclusively breastfed and at home with me all the time. Unfortunately, I'm underproducing and so he either gets some formula or starves. (Yes, I've tried all the pills/pumping/skin-to-skin you could ask for. I'm doing my best. It's not quite good enough. Welcome to the world, kid--I'll try for you, but I'm not perfect.) And since I live in the US, our work policies just aren't good enough for me to take a year off and not blow up my career. So you know what? My kid needs a rotavirus vaccine.
So on the issues I don't know enough about--is J&J's body wash really that bad? If my kid doesn't eat his diapers, does it really matter that the liner that never touches his skin might be toxic?--I'm not sure how I feel. I wish I had the knowledge to actually make judgement calls, but that would require doing a bunch of scientific studies I don't think anyone actually has done (or can ethically do). So now I'm mostly just adding to the giant pile of worry that comes with being a parent.
Author: Jennifer Margulis
Genre: Parenting/consumer reports
Thingummies: 3
Synopsis: How corporate interests are interfering with babies' welfare.
Thoughts: I'm honestly not sure how I feel about a bunch of stuff in this book. There's a bunch of stuff that I agree with, and made me feel rather horrified on behalf of people who were not as privileged in their birth experiences as I was. There's also a bunch of science, especially related to vaccines, that I'm deeply skeptical of. The fact that I feel that a lot of the statistics that end each chapter are deeply manipulative isn't helping.
On the side of things that made me even more pleased with my experiences so far as a mom--I really, really like my OB and pediatrician. I happened to give birth on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, despite not actually living there, and being in a very progressive and privileged community really made a difference, I think. My OB's practice and my hospital take an aggressively non-interventionist standpoint and recommended that I go with the drug-free birth I'd wanted in the first place, not wanting to step in unless necessary. (I ended up drugged to the gills for high blood pressure after a brush with pre-eclampsia, but that was after delivery and mostly beside the point.) Say what you will about Bloomburg's nanny-state, but I really appreciated the fact that the nurses were not allowed to give infants formula unless a parent specifically requested it, and that they were all incredibly supportive, certified lactation consultants. In short, the first few chapters of this book are mostly horror stories about conveyor belt hospitals inducing labor and forcing C-sections for their own convenience, and then convincing parents not to breastfeed out of outdated notions. I knew that this happened elsewhere, and I'm very grateful for the doctors and nurses I had who tried really hard to get my kid started in life with a minimum of medical intervention.
But the later chapters, I'm not as sure about. There's a bunch of concern about vaccines, for starters. She phrases some of the argument well--babies are getting way more vaccines than I did when I was a kid, there aren't longitudinal studies for the effects of combined vaccines, and vaccine timing is geared towards protecting herd immunity more than an individual baby. Babies' immune systems probably would handle vaccines better a year or two later, but doctors don't think parents will bring their kids back for regular vaccinations after the first year of well baby visits. But some of her arguments don't fully hold water. She brings up the autism thing, which from everything I've read is fully discredited. She asks why Hep B is the first vaccine they get, when babies don't have sex or use needles, but earlier in the book cites reduced Hep B transmission as a positive for other more natural methods--if it's not a danger, why care? Also, her argument against rotavirus vaccination is that kids who are exclusively breastfed and aren't in daycare are unlikely to get rotavirus. Well, I agree that in a perfect world, my kid would be exclusively breastfed and at home with me all the time. Unfortunately, I'm underproducing and so he either gets some formula or starves. (Yes, I've tried all the pills/pumping/skin-to-skin you could ask for. I'm doing my best. It's not quite good enough. Welcome to the world, kid--I'll try for you, but I'm not perfect.) And since I live in the US, our work policies just aren't good enough for me to take a year off and not blow up my career. So you know what? My kid needs a rotavirus vaccine.
So on the issues I don't know enough about--is J&J's body wash really that bad? If my kid doesn't eat his diapers, does it really matter that the liner that never touches his skin might be toxic?--I'm not sure how I feel. I wish I had the knowledge to actually make judgement calls, but that would require doing a bunch of scientific studies I don't think anyone actually has done (or can ethically do). So now I'm mostly just adding to the giant pile of worry that comes with being a parent.
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Date: 2013-06-09 12:53 pm (UTC)From:I think you might be on to something with the doctors being too busy (and not trained) to advocate on their own behalf.