Posted by: Anne Holmes
Is Your State's Newborn Testing Adequate? - 11/19/13 11:06 PM
I'm a proud mama this week, and sharing my pride here.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel where my daughter is a news editor, this week published a multi-day series on newborn testing. (The heel pricks babies have been getting for decades now.) They worked on this series for a year, and collected info from all states. Jen was one of the two editors to review all the articles prior to publication. She put in a lot of extra hours (even worked during vacation) to get her work done so that this story could be published.
Obviously I know that most Boomer women are past the age of birthing babies, so it might seem odd to post a like to this series here.
But many of us I believe, will still be interested in the findings. And, we are activists. So if we don't like what we read, we're the people who will lead the needed charges to get changes made where they are necessary.
Here's a link that will get you into the series. What I find most interesting is how much variance there is by state - end even by individual hospital within a state - as to how quickly these test results are analyzed.
I was delighted to find out that Iowa, the state I lived in when my kids were born, has an excellent record for quickly turning around the test results. And their labs are open 7 days/week.
Sadly, some states are only affording to staff their testing labs on weekdays. And there are several states which don't have labs that do this testing. They send their tests out of state.
These sorts of issues have led to situations where parents don't learn of treatable situations in time to prevent damage being innocently done to the child. In at least one case I read of here, the lab results came back the day after the child died.
I'm certainly hoping that the results of this 50-state analysis will be a wake-up call.
Please take a look at the article series!
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel where my daughter is a news editor, this week published a multi-day series on newborn testing. (The heel pricks babies have been getting for decades now.) They worked on this series for a year, and collected info from all states. Jen was one of the two editors to review all the articles prior to publication. She put in a lot of extra hours (even worked during vacation) to get her work done so that this story could be published.
Obviously I know that most Boomer women are past the age of birthing babies, so it might seem odd to post a like to this series here.
But many of us I believe, will still be interested in the findings. And, we are activists. So if we don't like what we read, we're the people who will lead the needed charges to get changes made where they are necessary.
Here's a link that will get you into the series. What I find most interesting is how much variance there is by state - end even by individual hospital within a state - as to how quickly these test results are analyzed.
I was delighted to find out that Iowa, the state I lived in when my kids were born, has an excellent record for quickly turning around the test results. And their labs are open 7 days/week.
Sadly, some states are only affording to staff their testing labs on weekdays. And there are several states which don't have labs that do this testing. They send their tests out of state.
These sorts of issues have led to situations where parents don't learn of treatable situations in time to prevent damage being innocently done to the child. In at least one case I read of here, the lab results came back the day after the child died.
I'm certainly hoping that the results of this 50-state analysis will be a wake-up call.
Please take a look at the article series!