Torters Lick Chops, Prepare to Sue Patients Delivering Vaginally

A small study finds intracranial bleeding in newborns is significantly associated with vaginal delivery:

In a study using magnetic resonance imaging, about one infant in four delivered vaginally had at least one form of intracranial hemorrhage, found John Gilmore, M.D., of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, and colleagues.

MRI did not show signs of bleeding for babies born by caesarian delivery, they reported in the February issue of Radiology.

...

[T]he researchers studied 88 asymptomatic newborns, evenly divided between male and female, of whom 65 were delivered vaginally and the remainder by caesarian.

The babies were studied using a 3-Tesla MR machine, without anesthetic [wait till Congress gets a load of this!], between the ages of one and five weeks, the researchers said.

Analysis found that:

- Seventeen of the babies -- or 26% of the cohort -- had bleeding, including 16 subdural, two subarachnoid, one intraventricular, and six parenchymal hemorrhages.
- Seven infants had two or more types of bleeding.
- None of the infants with bleeding had been delivered by C-section.
- Intracranial bleeding was significantly associated with vaginal birth (at P<0.005) but not with prolonged duration of labor or with traumatic or assisted vaginal birth.

Dr. William Blessed, director of maternal-fetal medicine at Providence Hospital and Medical Center, in Southfield, Mich., thinks the information from this study may help doctors with liability issues. "In the past, people always thought if there was a hemorrhage, the doctor must have done something wrong. Now, you see you can have intracranial hemorrhage without [cause]; it can occur in a normal birth."

Meanwhile--despite Dr. Blessed's delusions--torters across the country cannot help but salivate at the prospect of a potential 2.9 million [number of annual vaginal deliveries] pool of defendants.*

*Just so we're clear. I'm mocking the concept that actual scientific evidence is a consideration when it comes to malpractice lawyers suing Ob/Gyns. In no way do I mean to imply that there's more to this study than meets the eye [i.e, that vaginal birth is dangerous]. Not only is this a small study with several limitations; it's observational. In other words, just because IC hemorrhages were observed, doesn't mean they're clinically significant. Not that that ever stopped a torter. [Sorry, couldn't help myself; just had to get in one more dig at you-know-who.]