The safety of hospitals...

Now, everyone who knows me, know that I have a very vested interest in what goes on in hospitals, especially since I have to go to one to have my baby soon (I wanted a home birth, but there are no midwives experienced in HB in a 50 mile radius from where I live).

About three or four weeks or so ago, the first reports of babies (started at 7, and soon it was up to 19, final death toll was 22 newborn babies) dying in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of a Durban Hospital, the Mahatma Gandhi Hospital, due to a strange illness. Read more about the initial report here.

Since Durban is one of the largest cities in the country, this was distressing in itself, but over the weekend, the results of an investigation launched were made public. In the investigation it was found that the outbreak was due to unsanitary and unhygenic practises in the hospital, dirty equipment and the like. 22 babies are dead because the hospital was unsanitory, giving the babies contaminated and infected bottles, IVs etc.

22 Newborn babies. Dead. I simply can't get over it.

Then you get those people who look at you and say: "But you are placing your baby's life in danger if you have a home birth", while the truth, according to science and scientific studies, is that a home birth (adhering to certain rules of safety, of course) is at least as safe or safer than a hospital birth. And this is in industrialized nations where hospitals are more hygenic, sanitary and staffed than they are here.

Then some people wonder why I get all angry! I wonder what they'd do if I walked up to the "hospital birth club", who insist that anyone who wants to give birth at home doesn't deserve to have a baby, and said: "It is scientifically proven that home birth is as safe or safer than hospital, and that's in countries like America, where the hospitals are clean for the most part. Who's putting their babies' lives more at risk: me who would choose to birth safely at home, following the "safety rules", or you, who go to a place that's proven to be more dangerous?"

Of course I would never do that, since I believe all women's choices are their own and has nothing to do with me, but I wish that they'd lay off me about my choices! I wish that I could have found a midwife who was experienced at home births and had my baby at home. And I hope, hope, hope, that nothing like what happened in Durban happens in the hospital where I'll have my baby. What else is there to do?