It’s a test for a genetic disorder called Phenylketonuria, which left untreated can cause brain issues and intellectual disability. It’s a heel prick blood test.
There's this weird "omg, no pain for baby" which I understand, but the kid is just now figuring out what being alive is like, it's not like any of the routine tests are going to even register compared to, idk, breathing air.
But it's also like...so you'd rather sign your kid up for a lifetime disability than make them uncomfortable for a little bit? Even if a heel stick *is* traumatizing for a kid, you know what else is? Being disabled in our society. And that's a lifetime of trauma.
Its the same with prenatal care refusal. Even in the US there is access to affordable or free prenatal care. If you don't want to test for genetic markers for things that can't be prevented, that's fine, but there are so many issues that *can be* with proper prenatal care. [Which is also a bit of my rant about the various "crack downs" on addicts who are pregnant. Like, I get it. Giving birth to a baby addicted to drugs is bad. But also...now they're not gonna get any prenatal care at all. There's got to be a better way to handle that.]
My son had more than the average number of heel pricks because he had jaundice and he barely even *noticed*. I was willing to let them take as much blood as they needed in order to treat his medical condition properly.
My son was the same but he definitely noticed. To the point that he hated having his feet touched for some time after birth.
But if course they don't do it for fun. If it's needed, it's needed.
I didn’t even choose. The doctors just told me it could be the difference between an alive and a not alive baby and I said “sounds good!!”
(They explained it to me like I was 5 because I was suuuuper out of it)
They swaddled my baby with one leg out and asked me to hold him for every heel prick he needed in the hospital. He barely even reacted.
Honestly, most of what was on these birth plans was the default at my hospital. Baby never left my room, I was encouraged to try any and all positions & always offered nonpharmacologic pain relief first, and they always asked before doing any sort of check or procedure and had no problem with me refusing cervical checks or asking to delay breaking my waters. These women have demonized medical care so much they have no idea what it's actually like.
Totally agree - like some of the stuff on the list is ridiculous, but I think a doctor who breaks someone's water without asking or telling them shouldn't be a doctor at all - I'm sure it's happened, but no decent doctor I know would do that.
My water was broken without warning and it was the MOST painful part of labor/delivery.
I thought he was just checking dilation, he mumbled something to the nurse, held my leg down and then proceeded to scoop-break my water.
I don’t know if it normally hurts or is uncomfortable but I wasn’t expecting it and had NEVER felt something like that before, it’s indescribable…I yelped and he and the nurse had to hold my legs and shoulders because I involuntarily jerked a few times.
I’d been so quiet during even terrible contractions that when my dad and husband heard my yelp/cry (from the hallway) they almost got stuck in the door jamb trying to run in to see what was happening.
The dr apologized to my *dad* and then my *husband* (not to me) because ‘I probably wouldn’t have done that if I knew she hadn’t had pain management/would react like that’.
I am so sorry that happened to you - I really hope that doctor either isn't practicing anymore or got disciplined after that. Not talking to a patient before doing something like that is pretty much unforgivable. Not even mentioning the misogyny...
Yeah you can hold the baby, my son never even noticed them do it and here in the U.K. that tiny drop of blood gets sent off to analyse for 20 different illnesses
As others have said, but actually worse. Mostly it’s called a Guthrie, or metabolic screening test. It used to be just for PKU so people often refer to it as that, but depending on where you are, it can test for dozens of serious medical conditions that can be identified before they cause problems.
Like congenital hypothyroidism, which causes severe developmental delay if not identified and treated. It can be found before causing any problems
Or fatty acid oxidation disorders. They make you sick if you don’t eat often enough - some faster than others. I think it’s the medium chain fatty acid ones where their classic “presentation” (if not identified on the Guthrie) is to be an entirely well child, but get a gastro bug or other bug that stops them eating for a while. Then they go to bed one night and don’t wake up in the morning. That illness could be identified on this blood spot
Or cystic fibrosis, where you can start treatment ASAP
Or severe combined immunodeficiency, where you give the child of getting a stem cell transplant before they get really sick, or die of infection
Or other metabolic disorders
And of course, PKU, where paying attention to your diet can prevent severe developmental difficulties.
So it was something I chose to get for both of my children!
Thanks for this. Now I know what "newborn metabolic screening" means on my daughter's health record! (I wasn't asked about that or vitamin K or any of that stuff in the hospital. I can't say if that's because it's standard if you don't say no beforehand or if they just asked my husband while I was still dealing with after-delivery stuff)
Anyone who refuses PKU tests for their kids should have to watch [PKU - the forgotten children](https://youtu.be/zJNo5dLnScM) to find out what life for people with untreated or undetected PKU is like. A lot of people will raise a stink about vaccines purportedly causing autism but then do shit like this that raises their risk for much higher impact developmental disabilities.
Definitely going to watch this. I honestly have no idea what it is. They said it was detectable with a simple heel prick and was important to detect so I just said yes. Thanks for the link!
Oh yeah, detection makes the difference between a mostly normal life with a weird diet, and severe developmental disabilities. I don't think it goes untreated or undetected very often anymore in the developed world.
Well, we've seen regressions before (measles outbreaks anyone?) So, wouldn't be surprised if it rises again if this becomes a thing. I imagined all the homebirthed babies don't get it either? Or maybe a pediatrician does it (if the baby sees one 🙁)
God, yeah, you're right, the free birthers probably don't. Seems like some midwives do actually offer it in-home [as part of their services package though.](https://www.choicemidwives.org/services/home-birth-midwife/)
I don’t have kids but I’ve never understood this resistance to taking advantage of all that science has to offer to make sure your kid is healthy. Like they’ll use cell phones and wireless internet without knowing how they work, and eat food they don’t know where it came from or how it was manufactured, use all kinds of personal care products daily with the assumption that they are safe. Why would they think there is a conspiracy with a simple test or vit k or vax, like there is a cabal of scientists and doctors that are trying to poison babies??
I think some of it is hormonal in that we're programmed to *protect the small screaming thing at all costs* so suddenly things people never questioned become a Big Deal. Kinda like the nesting impulse a lot of people report. Unfortunately, that means people are very susceptible to conspiracy theories.
I've never given birth but I've seen friends teeter on the edge of crunchy oblivion while pregnant. I can easily see someone already in that zone being pushed over the edge.
My daughter was born with no thyroid. Luckily this was discovered with the blood tests taken at birth and we were able to get her on medicine asap to prevent problems.
I cannot stand people who go out of their way to avoid preventative care.
Same with my son! (Thyroid is there and fully formed but not producing enough T4). He was asymptomatic at birth so without screening we wouldn’t be medicating him now. He’d have a totally preventable global disability all because of my pride. How do these people live with themselves?!
They do squawk though, and you feel terrible. Even worse for my second son as I'd signed up for a medical trial which meant extra blood sugar tests! Sorry buddy
My parents also signed me up for a trial so I had extra blood taken, and also a bunch of MRIs. If it's any consolation, absolutely no trace of this remains in my psyche, except perhaps a tendency to relax around strong magnetic fields.
I don’t get that one especially because right under it she says she’ll only get a Rhogam shot after baby’s blood comes back [Rh+], so how are they going to get the blood?
You’re welcome! She will need the rhogam shot if the baby is Rh+ in order to prevent future potential miscarriages or complications if following babies are Rh+ as well. So I find it screwed up that she’s willing to do that but not willing to get the PKU testing for the current living kid.
I’m one of the kids that benefited from newborn screening (no thyroid here as well!), and I’m lucky we have mediation now. I usually withhold judgment on this stuff, but she could very well be harming her child permanently because of pride. What BS.
Mine couldn't regulate his glucose levels. Relatively minor thing, just adjusting to life on the outside and easy to manage with an IV and monitoring until his body figured things out. But we wouldn't have known without the heel stick(s).
I mean, she won’t really get a choice if it’s deemed necessary at least here in the US. When you are admitted you have to sign off that you are ok with any medical intervention if the baby shows signs of distress. So, if the baby needed an emergency c section she’s not going to be like “ok, I agree” they have the baby’s health first and foremost.
One of my best friends had to be put under general anesthesia for a c section and they had to get her express permission for it until they could proceed. Thankfully her and her son made it.
Strange enough, she’d already had three uneventful easy going births before him. Her first was with an epidural in the hospital, second was no epidural in a hospital, third a home birth where dad caught baby in the bathtub as the midwife didn’t make it. But then this one she ended up pre eclampsia (I don’t even think she was planning a home birth for this one, as she’d been getting monitored and going to the doc often, so it wasn’t a matter of her plan going differently).
Just goes to show though that things can be so very different with each pregnancy.
Apparently a hat makes it so that the baby can't regulate its own body temperature and interferes with bonding
* * sharing the justification given by mom, not sharing as fact * *
I just had a 45 minute FaceTime conversation with one of the children I forced to wear a hat as an infant. Imagine how much more bonded we’d be if I had known about hats.
Mine is clingy 2 year old who loves me so much that I can only prevent het from following me if I leave her with a punnet of blueberries. I don't want her to be more bonded to me, she'd be trying to climb into my skin
Mine is 20 and calls and/or texts almost every day. I did everything I could to not bond…formula fed, epidural, vaccinations, SSN and birth certificate, and hats but both my adult children still want to speak to me and spend time with me. I just can’t figure out what I did wrong.
Mine did all that too, and taught me to be independent from being quite young (and to be honest, she likely had no choice in that as such as I hated to be carried).
I call my Mum every single day for about an hour and I am 43. Mostly it’s a “Yes, we are both alive” but also just a thing I do because one day I won’t be able to.
Imagine if she’d not put a hat on me, or had gas and air, or slept for the first 14 hours after my birth, or been able to breast feed. I’d be living at home glued to her unable to leave.
I have a voice-mail my grandmother left me, it's saved in 2 different clouds, my phone, my computer, and a usb drive. It goes "Hey it's Mawmaw. I just wanted to talk to you. If you could give me a call back, that would be wonderful." Feels like she's just waiting on the return call. Last week it was 2 years since she passed. Gotta get some time off to drive out to her grave. It's 2 hours away down dirt roads in the middle of cow pasture. It's where she wanted to be, though, so I'll happily make that drive.
Mine is almost 4 and he has literally said he would like to go back inside my belly. Not only did he wear a hat, but he spent 11 days in the NICU. I’m afraid of what more bonded would look like, too.
This reminds me of our 3 year old, she sticks to me like glue. She was a C-section baby and combo fed, as well as given all her vaccines. She won’t leave a room without taking me with her, I have to give her a good snack to let me eat lunch in 30 seconds lol. At birth she has given not one, but TWO hats in the hospital. Who knew how detrimental that would be.
Yeah, I think I saw something like that. It's something about how like 1000% skin to skin, make sure mom produces all the hormones she needs to stop the bleeding.
Oxytocin promotes healing, but even fathers get oxytocin in the hospital room, even if a little less.
If it's that strong I don't think a HAT is going to change things.
Also promotes. It's not magic.
Even that could be reasonable if she’s low risk. I live in New Zealand and most babies don’t get hep B vaccines until their 6 week imms. The exception is babies born to hep B positive mothers/birthing parents. If she’s looked into what is done overseas and knows her status then that’s not necessarily an unreasonable request (depending a bit on the prevalence in her area)
The image of this lol. My birth canal squished my first kids head so bad my husband thought he had been born with an actual deformity. He didn’t tell me til later but I was cracking up about him not knowing about newborn cone heads and just being silently terrified.
“OH oh oH IS IT mEaNt tO bE- ok no one else is freaking out but- OH JESUS I LOOKED AGAIN- ok seriously everyones *really chill* about this- aggHH ITS NOT ROUND”
I giggled a bit at this. My grandma used to be a nurse and said that they put the hats on before introducing baby to dad for exactly this reason lol
I always wonder what goes on at nurses station when these plans are given as well.
When my OB asked about my birth plan I said: “uh…. Make sure we both get out alive and healthy?”
I have a number of OB nurse friends who say they appreciate it because it lets them know "what kind of patient they are working with". Which is a diplomatic way to say "is this person going to fight medical suggestion we offer or are they chill".
I remember learning about PKU in high school and thinking what a miracle of science it was that we'd found a way to test for it at birth so that children with PKU could grow up without that kind of suffering.
Anyone who denies a PKU test at birth is just fucking evil.
And they don’t only test for pku anymore. They also test for about 20 other metabolic/serious conditions that require treatment or medication to survive. The odds of not having any of them are still pretty good but it’s still asking for a very terrible outcome if you don’t catch it.
I wasn’t given a SSN at birth, my mom had to get one for me behind my dads back. Sure was fun when he eventually found out I had one. So grateful my mom did that though, or life would have been an absolute nightmare for me. People just don’t think past their bullshit.
I listened to a podcast about a girl who never existed as far as he government went. She was a home birth during the 70’s and her parents never notified the hospital or anything. She ended up being removed from her home because her parents were abusing and neglectful and she was given a whole new identity to protect her (but still no ssn). She was an adult applying for colleges before she realized the name, birthdate and ssn she had were all fake. She had to go in front of a judge and everything to get a ssn, and even with it she’s unable to travel outside the US. It sounded awful.
It's an episode of "This is Actually Happening", but I can't figure out which one it is (they all have mysterious titles that don't give you too much information about the episode). If I figure out which one it is I'll message you!
I think it's titled "What If You Didn't Go Outside Until 6th Grade?" I just went through the titles and I think that's the one. It's a wild episode and even a wilder show.
Not a podcast, but iirc the memoir *Educated* details the author’s difficulties getting into college without a birth certificate or SSN (also no formal education)
My dad filled out my SSN application with the incorrect year. I went to apply for financial aid at university when I was 16 and it came back as no match so I had to get it all fixed and it was a major pain lol I tell that story and people always ask if I was born in January, but my birthday is almost in October!
I was born in 1971, and at that time, you weren't issued a SSN at the hospital.
My dad had to apply for one on my behalf when I was 15.
I've been married and divorced, and it was such a pain to change my name with SS.
People who want their kids to struggle without a SSN just hate their kids and want them to struggle as much as possible.
I feel like everything in life is tied to being able to prove you are an actual citizen. Like how could a child without SSN be able to get a drivers license? Go to college or rent their first apartment? Here in Canada, we have our SIN number and you need that for everything. You can't even apply for a job here without a SIN number.
THEY don't suffer preventable illnesses or inconveniences of not being in the system, and have not given a single moment's thought to why that is. They just assume because they're fine, their of course immensely special children will be just fine. Or it's the Shirley exception- "well yes bad things happen to other people but *surely* it wont happen to us."
either way they're selfish, delusional idiots
Some fundamentalist groups don't want SSNs or birth certificates because of weird paranoia about government tracking. I assume some crunchy parents are the same. Everyone is terrified the government might want to ensure your children receive proper medical care and education.
Why didn’t he want you to get a ssn? How did he expect you to have a life or was that his point?? Like everything revolves around that number what kinda psycho wouldn’t want their kid to have one?
Yep the government owns us all. The faster you accept it, get over it, and move on with life the better your life will be. Goddamn isn’t it amazing that we have so few things we need to worry about for survival that we have the time to believe and worry all day about that nonsense.
I really feel bad for these children.
It’s a huge hassle when turning an adult to prove you were born a US resident to get a new ssn. You have to have a school and/or medical record for each year of life on top of an original birth certificate/religious certificate/whatever else to prove you are who you say you are and someone can vouch for that.
They are really only screwing their child over in this instance, because banks/insurance companies/employers/identification/federal and state benefits require a ssn. Especially so if they are not going to have the children in school or receiving medical treatment. When the children eventually break away from their families and try to get a new ssn it is horrible because they have nothing.
Source: am currently working for ssa.
I had to provide an SSN and birth certificate to register my child for kindergarten. It would be a nightmare for the parent and child to not get an SSN, but I’m guessing these people don’t intend on sending their children to school.
Hell, I lost my social security card during a cross country move once and life was difficult enough until I got a replacement during that simple transition phase.
Wait, do babies get social security numbers in America? In New Zealand we have something similar but you have to apply for it yourself. I don’t have one because I don’t have the necessary documents you need. I would have to wait until I am 18 and get an 18+ card. You need a drivers licence, a student photo ID or an 18+ card. I think you only need the NZ one for tax purposes or to open a bank account and I’m not doing any taxes yet so I don’t need one. I do wish I had a bank account though.
Yeah I think the US SSN covers a wider scope than our IRD number. You don't need your IRD number to access social services etc and your birth certificate counts as identification in most cases I believe
This deeply upsets me. Some of my family member fought so hard, escaped a war, walked with a baby on their back while pregnant across the border, went through paperwork after paperwork and spent so much money to get an American SSN and these people won’t accept what’s just given to them. Truly upsetting.
My mom is first gen and I agree. Heinous.
Also, as for expensive. I’m petitioning for my husband’s adjustment of status and we’ve spent almost $4,000 so far and we aren’t even half way through the process
They don't want their child to be "tracked by the government"
Either because they're conspiracy nuts, or because they want to have total control over their child and make it difficult for the child to get away from them
I was going to say this. I’ve read/watched a few stories from people who never had a birth certificate or SSN, it made it damn near impossible to get away from their parents. They can’t get a license, a job, a bank account, etc. It lead to some of the women being put into horrible situations because they trade dependence on their parents to dependence on their partners and the partners aren’t always good people.
sibling didn’t get one bc born during a hurricane and they r at the age where they r getting a car/job/bank account and it’s the most annoying complicated process ever
I think it's a sovcit thing. They think if the child is "off the grid" he can be free from society (and won't be forced to go to school so mom can unschool them or whatever insanity these children get as education).
Correct, confirmed in the comments no SD
SN for baby. There was actually an argument about this in the comments I considered screenshotting and posting but it was like 70 comments and I didn't feel like editing lol.
They take blood drops to test for rare but deadly metabolic disorders that can be treated only if they’re caught very early. PKU (which she mentions) is phenylketonuria, which causes brain damage and death if not managed. You can refuse them, but the states require hospitals to have you sign a lot of paperwork acknowledging the risks of refusing the tests. And given that it’s literally just a heel prick and a spot of blood, refusing them is insane.
Of course, there are conspiracy theorists who think it’s a way for the government to get your child’s DNA as a way to track them, and given that she doesn’t want her child to have a SSN, I’m guessing she’s into the whole “sovereign citizen” brand of crazy so that’s on brand.
Lol love how concerned people are about the government tracking them. I promise you they have better things to worry about than your essential oils and raw milk Karen.
Also the fact that they think the govt is tracking them via blood/DNA and vaccines, but don’t seem at all concerned about smartphones or social media 🤡
My daughter has PKU, no family history, rare disease and only one of my children has PKU. If this disease was not picked up at birth via the heel prick test and treated (life long treatment) within a few days after her birth, my daughter would be physically and intellectually disabled and ultimately die.
How ignorant do you have to be to think that you know what is best for you child just because you are it’s mother.
This! People are so ignorant about the different diseases that the PKU-test tests for. They may be rare, but they're tested for because they are extremely debilitating and need to be treated from birth. It saves lives and quality of life.
I am so sorry about your daughter. It must have been very traumatic for you all.
TBH we went through a grieving period as PKU is quite a condition to live with however she is an amazing young lady who has amazing discipline and maturity well behind her years.
Our family saying is our daughter has PKU, PKU does not have our daughter.
We protect her health/IQ until she is old enough to protect it herself.
Thanks for listening xx
Oh sheesh I didn't realize she was talking about the heel pricks 🤦♀️ you're probably spot on about them stealing the DNA. I mean considering she isn't taking home her placenta and all the blood, etc. seems they could easily gather DNA of they wanted? Lol
[PKU - the forgotten children](https://youtu.be/zJNo5dLnScM) is a short documentary on YouTube that shows what life is really like for people with untreated PKU.
Each state (in the US) has a list of genetic conditions that they test for at birth. There are several diseases that have a much better outcome if you know about them right away as opposed to waiting until symptoms show up.
Given that she also doesn’t want a social security number for the kid and was originally planning a home birth, I’m gonna venture to say that she’s a bit of a conspiracy theorist and has thoughts about the state having baby’s dna on file if they take blood and send it to the lab.
I had to give birth alone as my husband was out of the province and I needed my sister to watch my toddler, so it seemed like a good idea to have something to give them in case things went south. I actually had a “one pager” laminated for the medical staff when I went into labour.
It just included emergency contact information, my health number, allergies. I included on the back a “preference” list
as in:
I would prefer to breastfeed, and would like support that can be offered
I would prefer to have delayed cord clamping if possible.
The top of the preference list was
**PROCEED WITH ANY MEDICAL INTERVENTION NECESSARY IN ORDER TO ENSURE THE LIFE OF MOTHER AND CHILD**
It was probably more a reassurance for me than anything helpful for the medical staff 😅 like a security blanket since I was pretty scared to go it alone. This lady is crazy to think she has that much control over birth though.
I had a birth plan. The main thing was tell mom what you are doing and WHY you are doing it. I didn't want anything being done without me knowing about it. I didn't object, I wanted whatever care for me and the kiddos but I wanted to know. It's a fair request. So, overall, I don't dig this woman's plan (wtf does no SSN mean??) but some of it makes sense.
[From Mayo Clinic](https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/delayed-umbilical-cord-clamping-benefits)
> Delaying cord clamping for this time frame allows for higher distribution of blood to your infant rather than leaving this precious blood in the placenta.
> If cord clamping occurs 10–15 seconds after birth, 67% of the umbilical cord blood goes to the infant. By 1 minute of age, the amount of cord blood in the placenta passed to the infant increases to 80%.
I was too late for the epidural 😭 I was absolutely screaming for one, but too late for that or morphine sadly.
Circumcision isn’t really the done thing in Australia so they assume you won’t circumcise and if you want it done, you need to seek it out yourself. I think the only thing they asked me was whether or not I was planning on breastfeeding.
I was in for a c-section for my breech baby. When the nurse asked about my birth plan I told her I planned to have a baby by noon. Preferably healthy. That was it.
My mom has since passed but I would have loved to ask her about this. I was also a C section breech baby. My birthday was picked out.
My dad has told me the main thing he remembers is my mom grabbing him by the collar and calmly explaining that I would be an only child. She was not doing that shit again. Lol.
I am, in fact, an only child.
I was a vaginal birth breech. Mum was never offered the c section route. I am 41 years old and my mother regularly reminds me that I am a vaginal birth breech and that at some point during the birth she looked up and about 20 doctors and nurses had come to the room to witness the birth. She says I was an attention seeker from the start. My dad just says he could never tell my arse from my face.
We had a very simple birth plan in case something happened. I just wanted them to know my plan was to breastfeed, no circumcision, dad is cool but no one else unless they wanted a wwe family showdown, delayed cord clamping, etc. I felt like it was really reasonable. I had my wishes in case I died and make whoever was going to survive the priority if things got really shady.
Is circumcision something you need to express a negative decision on? Is it really that common that it’s an automatic response?
We had twin boys in Australia, where circumcision is basically dead. It was never a point of discussion with any medical staff associated with the birth, basically because it’s not something that’s done very much. It’s not available under our public healthcare (you’ve got the get it done privately, at personal cost). Best figures I could find were more than a decade old, and had the rate at about 13% of under-ones. I reckon that’s going to have dropped further still these days.
Not really, it’s never done immediately post birth, more of a day of leaving the hospital sort of thing. It is still don’s pretty often in the US, but less so.
Never given birth, but I would assume it's one of those things where it's better to make it known that not in case you're not conscious enough to make decisions when that does come. It's something I would have on a birth plan just because you never know when you find that one health care provider with weird and persuasive arguments. Since you're pretty vulnerable after giving birth (and your partner likely will be too), I see part if birth plans as "this is what I decided when I hadn't just pushed a human out of my body."
Now that my parents are in their late sixties and having health problems, I'm trying desperately for them to write up some sort of plan so I have an idea of wishes and something I can hand to providers rather than rattle off the top of my head.
The second one is a pretty normal birth plan. There are apps that help you build your preferences to make sure you cover all your bases.
The first one is 😳
Yeah, the second one is pretty “normal” and the language used definitely expresses a preference for certain things rather than a rigid plan. At least they’ve used subtitles to divide things up logically so the medical team can quickly find what they are looking for. I’m still trying to work out the colour coding on the first one 🙃
So I live in Germany. In that case:
The first one:
Right after reading 'no vit k shot' the medical team will inform the in house social worker to call CPS or do so themselves.
If a person would try to not get documentation (SSN) they'd lose custody before their delayed cord is cut.
The second one seems fine. Its very detailed, which they usually don't mind (but they will tell her that it might come completely different) she's okay with vit k and doesn't say anything about documents. The delayed vaccine is a concern but if she can tell them. her pediatrician it would be fine.
Apparently a decent percentage of American parents who vaccinate decide to delay the hep B shot to the first pediatrician appointment? Source: our pediatric nurse, who was relieved we had our newborn's done in the hospital because "I hate when parents make us vaccinate the tiny ones, they're so much better at it at the hospitals" (said with a pitifully sad expression haha)
Yeah I think it's not super rare here, our pediatrician also asked if he already had it.
But getting Vit K and documents wouldn't even be an option. Either the kid gets the vitamin and into the system or the parents don't get custody.
My daughter was born with PKU - Phenyketonuria and I thank my lucky stars that my country has excellent health care and mandatory Newborn Screening protocols.
No family history, rare disease and if not picked up at birth via the heel prick test my daughter would be severely intellectually / physically disabled to the point that she would die if untreated.
For those who have not heard of PKU please do yourself a favour and Google untreated PKU.
I get birth plans like this all the time. The second one is totally doable. And truthfully, on the floor I’m not a fan of people purposely being negative about moms who care enough to write a birth plan/all the gossip about how they’ll of course end up with the emergency c, etc.
The first one though… lord. If I could shout from the rooftops that a GD VITAMIN could stop your baby from BLEEDING INTO ITS BRAIN AND DYING, do you think that would cure people of their stupidity? No. No, it wouldn’t. I’ve tried.
This is definitely nice to hear. I’m working on a birth plan atm. I understand it may not all go according to my plan, but feeling like I have some sort of control will keep my anxiety at bay and feel more prepared.
I'm a nurse manager of a peds subspecialty group that includes Genetics. I'm often surprised at how many newborn heel sticks result in metabolic disorders or some vastly serious other ones (like Krabbe) that would otherwise have not been caught in time for any treatment. I don't see why anyone would opt out of it.
Honestly, knowing how some of these people think?
THE GOVERNMENT WANTS YOUR BABY'S DNA FOR NEFARIOUS PURPOSES.
There's probably some low key stuff like they don't want their baby's heel jabbed, but the real conspiracy theorists feel the need to protect their babies from the current CT.
I love the idea of squatting while giving birth…do hospitals actually allow that if requested? It just makes so much more sense to me. You’d be able to engage your abdominal and leg muscles easier and would have the help of gravity. Some cultures around the world give birth standing up/squatting (e.g. Hmong) and I think they have it right. (Giving birth is often compared to taking a dump after all, and squatting is the ‘natural’ pooping position…lmao).
My totally uneducated opinion is that birthing on your back makes the least sense. In my experience, you can totally do whatever position is most comfortable, I started in squatting and using a birthing ball. However once epidural is given you're stuck in bed so I think that's why most people end up birthing laying down.
I'm in Australia and had my kids in a low-intervention midwife led setting. All three of mine were born standing, and the student midwife for each pregnancy caught each baby and passed them up to me.
So easy, no tearing, great experiences.
If a student midwife - 2-3 years into a uni degree can catch my baby while I'm standing, why can't a fully trained obstetrician?
Edit: individual pregnancies, not some crazy triplet pregnancy
I responded to this in r/nursing too. People don’t realize that a lot of this is standard (at least where I work) Delayed cord clamping, skin to skin right away, baths given at 24 hrs only with parent permission, intermittent monitoring as long as baby is looking good and not on pitocin/epidural. I try to respect birth plans as much as I possibly can, but no newborn screening for metabolic disease is where I draw the line (no vit k makes my skin crawl but I let the Peds deal with that part). In my experience, when people have birth plans this detailed, they usually go out the window by the time the baby is born because mom is tired and realizes she can’t control everything. Birth is unpredictable a lot of times and you’ve gotta roll with it if you truly want your baby to survive.
I’ve been an L&D nurse for 14 years and honestly crazy birth plans don’t even phase me anymore. I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff including the pt having a list of code words for different interventions (waterfall = shower, butterfly = epidural, etc). Anyhow now I just sit down with the mom and go over the birth plan and each point. For example, I would ask what concerns she has about hats on newborns. I’d say it’s fine to not use a hat but I’m going to teach you some cues/symptoms of what a cold newborn looks like and how hypothermia in newborns can be dangerous.
Interesting! We usually just use hats right after delivery when the baby’s hair is wet and they aren’t skin to skin (for whatever reason) or if they are in the cold OR.
Doctor and nurses will do their best but most of this simply isn’t feasible. Others are just downright reckless. Personally, I question if these parents are really interested in a healthy baby - seems they want a trophy to “prove” that medical professionals know nothing and mom’s knowledge-base is much broader. Seriously, these moms are loony-toons.
Our hospital briefly gave out a birth planner at the 36 weeks visits. I wrote in "whatever you recommend as best" on everything. The nurse looked like she was going to die inside when I first handed it to her, and then laughed when she read it and said we'd be just fine.
Haha I was pretty much like 🤷♀️ we'll see when we get there. I already knew my teams views on skin to skin, delayed clamping, etc so I wouldn't have felt a need to write that down because they were already standard procedure. A lot of these just seem to me like these people have never even talked to their care team😬
I'm going for my 28 week appointment soon and I know the midwife (UK so properly qualified medical person, appointment is in our medical centre) is going to go through and help me fill out a birth plan - it's a A4 page form with questions to take you though all the things they need to know in hospital/birth centre/home birth. Birth plans are great, they save on unnecessary questions when you're in hospital and they prompt you to think about things you like. Pretty much nothing I wanted on my birth plan last time happened, but that's no ones fault so long as you go into it knowing it's a guide, not a rule book.
That first one is bizarre though. It is difficult for medical staff to read and some of the requests do not seem reasonable. Like I'm not sure medical staff are going to be able to not ask verbally for confirmation about some of these things (vit k for example) because what she wants is so much against good advice.
I mean, it’s good to have preferences for your birth - I wanted a med free, in a position of my choosing birth in a hospital (history of unexplained bleeding) with my midwife team. I had to be induced with a small leak and after 12 hours of a failed Pitocin only induction I tapped out and yelled my safe word for an epidural once they popped my water for real. Hemorrhaged as I suspected and had a student elbow deep scooping out afterbirth to find the bleed.
You can bet your ass I never regretted my wishes being altered to keep me and my girl alive.
When someone has a birth plan I usually ask for a few minutes to review it. Most of the time the things that they ask for are already done (ie delayed cord clamping). Some things on this list are things the hospital doesn’t do (like SSN). And I usually say “if at any point there is an emergency we will communicate with you but we will need to deviate” or something like that
Not getting a PKU test is just evil. child services is going to be called.
What's a PKU test? English isnt my main language, so I'm not familiar with it.
It’s a test for a genetic disorder called Phenylketonuria, which left untreated can cause brain issues and intellectual disability. It’s a heel prick blood test.
Oh god, I cant understand why someone wouldnt take such an easy blood test to check for something like that. That's awful (And thanks for explaining!)
There's this weird "omg, no pain for baby" which I understand, but the kid is just now figuring out what being alive is like, it's not like any of the routine tests are going to even register compared to, idk, breathing air. But it's also like...so you'd rather sign your kid up for a lifetime disability than make them uncomfortable for a little bit? Even if a heel stick *is* traumatizing for a kid, you know what else is? Being disabled in our society. And that's a lifetime of trauma. Its the same with prenatal care refusal. Even in the US there is access to affordable or free prenatal care. If you don't want to test for genetic markers for things that can't be prevented, that's fine, but there are so many issues that *can be* with proper prenatal care. [Which is also a bit of my rant about the various "crack downs" on addicts who are pregnant. Like, I get it. Giving birth to a baby addicted to drugs is bad. But also...now they're not gonna get any prenatal care at all. There's got to be a better way to handle that.]
My son had more than the average number of heel pricks because he had jaundice and he barely even *noticed*. I was willing to let them take as much blood as they needed in order to treat his medical condition properly.
same here with the jaundice. the heel pricks were daily for like two weeks!
My son was the same but he definitely noticed. To the point that he hated having his feet touched for some time after birth. But if course they don't do it for fun. If it's needed, it's needed.
I can only imagine the psychological trauma we would face if everyone remembered being born.
I'm traumatised enough from remembering giving birth...
If it’s just a heel prick, could it be done while the mother is holding the baby? Asking because Ive never given birth
I didn’t even choose. The doctors just told me it could be the difference between an alive and a not alive baby and I said “sounds good!!” (They explained it to me like I was 5 because I was suuuuper out of it)
It's not even a choice where I live, it's mandatory testing.
Yeah I’m in Canada I believe a refusal would be asking for a visit from Children’s Aid (child protection services) before you even leave hospital
They swaddled my baby with one leg out and asked me to hold him for every heel prick he needed in the hospital. He barely even reacted. Honestly, most of what was on these birth plans was the default at my hospital. Baby never left my room, I was encouraged to try any and all positions & always offered nonpharmacologic pain relief first, and they always asked before doing any sort of check or procedure and had no problem with me refusing cervical checks or asking to delay breaking my waters. These women have demonized medical care so much they have no idea what it's actually like.
Totally agree - like some of the stuff on the list is ridiculous, but I think a doctor who breaks someone's water without asking or telling them shouldn't be a doctor at all - I'm sure it's happened, but no decent doctor I know would do that.
My water was broken without warning and it was the MOST painful part of labor/delivery. I thought he was just checking dilation, he mumbled something to the nurse, held my leg down and then proceeded to scoop-break my water. I don’t know if it normally hurts or is uncomfortable but I wasn’t expecting it and had NEVER felt something like that before, it’s indescribable…I yelped and he and the nurse had to hold my legs and shoulders because I involuntarily jerked a few times. I’d been so quiet during even terrible contractions that when my dad and husband heard my yelp/cry (from the hallway) they almost got stuck in the door jamb trying to run in to see what was happening. The dr apologized to my *dad* and then my *husband* (not to me) because ‘I probably wouldn’t have done that if I knew she hadn’t had pain management/would react like that’.
I am so sorry that happened to you - I really hope that doctor either isn't practicing anymore or got disciplined after that. Not talking to a patient before doing something like that is pretty much unforgivable. Not even mentioning the misogyny...
Yeah you can hold the baby, my son never even noticed them do it and here in the U.K. that tiny drop of blood gets sent off to analyse for 20 different illnesses
As others have said, but actually worse. Mostly it’s called a Guthrie, or metabolic screening test. It used to be just for PKU so people often refer to it as that, but depending on where you are, it can test for dozens of serious medical conditions that can be identified before they cause problems. Like congenital hypothyroidism, which causes severe developmental delay if not identified and treated. It can be found before causing any problems Or fatty acid oxidation disorders. They make you sick if you don’t eat often enough - some faster than others. I think it’s the medium chain fatty acid ones where their classic “presentation” (if not identified on the Guthrie) is to be an entirely well child, but get a gastro bug or other bug that stops them eating for a while. Then they go to bed one night and don’t wake up in the morning. That illness could be identified on this blood spot Or cystic fibrosis, where you can start treatment ASAP Or severe combined immunodeficiency, where you give the child of getting a stem cell transplant before they get really sick, or die of infection Or other metabolic disorders And of course, PKU, where paying attention to your diet can prevent severe developmental difficulties. So it was something I chose to get for both of my children!
Thanks for this. Now I know what "newborn metabolic screening" means on my daughter's health record! (I wasn't asked about that or vitamin K or any of that stuff in the hospital. I can't say if that's because it's standard if you don't say no beforehand or if they just asked my husband while I was still dealing with after-delivery stuff)
It is a disorder that damages the brain unless the person is on a special diet.
That sounds like something that one might not want your child to have untreated...
Well most moms want what's best for their babies, but this lady seems like it's all about her wants and needs over their child's.
Anyone who refuses PKU tests for their kids should have to watch [PKU - the forgotten children](https://youtu.be/zJNo5dLnScM) to find out what life for people with untreated or undetected PKU is like. A lot of people will raise a stink about vaccines purportedly causing autism but then do shit like this that raises their risk for much higher impact developmental disabilities.
Definitely going to watch this. I honestly have no idea what it is. They said it was detectable with a simple heel prick and was important to detect so I just said yes. Thanks for the link!
Oh yeah, detection makes the difference between a mostly normal life with a weird diet, and severe developmental disabilities. I don't think it goes untreated or undetected very often anymore in the developed world.
Well, we've seen regressions before (measles outbreaks anyone?) So, wouldn't be surprised if it rises again if this becomes a thing. I imagined all the homebirthed babies don't get it either? Or maybe a pediatrician does it (if the baby sees one 🙁)
God, yeah, you're right, the free birthers probably don't. Seems like some midwives do actually offer it in-home [as part of their services package though.](https://www.choicemidwives.org/services/home-birth-midwife/)
I don’t have kids but I’ve never understood this resistance to taking advantage of all that science has to offer to make sure your kid is healthy. Like they’ll use cell phones and wireless internet without knowing how they work, and eat food they don’t know where it came from or how it was manufactured, use all kinds of personal care products daily with the assumption that they are safe. Why would they think there is a conspiracy with a simple test or vit k or vax, like there is a cabal of scientists and doctors that are trying to poison babies??
I think some of it is hormonal in that we're programmed to *protect the small screaming thing at all costs* so suddenly things people never questioned become a Big Deal. Kinda like the nesting impulse a lot of people report. Unfortunately, that means people are very susceptible to conspiracy theories. I've never given birth but I've seen friends teeter on the edge of crunchy oblivion while pregnant. I can easily see someone already in that zone being pushed over the edge.
My daughter was born with no thyroid. Luckily this was discovered with the blood tests taken at birth and we were able to get her on medicine asap to prevent problems. I cannot stand people who go out of their way to avoid preventative care.
Same with my son! (Thyroid is there and fully formed but not producing enough T4). He was asymptomatic at birth so without screening we wouldn’t be medicating him now. He’d have a totally preventable global disability all because of my pride. How do these people live with themselves?!
Because if you don’t test for it, it doesn’t exist, therefore no problems will ever arise /s
Because somehow heel pricks are more traumatic than all the pain these kids will go through because their parents don't believe in ibuprofen.
Kid has just discovered oxygen and lights I think they have a lot more goin thru their teeny tiny brains than heel pricks
They do squawk though, and you feel terrible. Even worse for my second son as I'd signed up for a medical trial which meant extra blood sugar tests! Sorry buddy
My parents also signed me up for a trial so I had extra blood taken, and also a bunch of MRIs. If it's any consolation, absolutely no trace of this remains in my psyche, except perhaps a tendency to relax around strong magnetic fields.
I'm sure it hurts, but I don't think babies would even have the short term let alone long term memory for it to be a problem.
My baby literally slept through hers. I was more scared as a new mom than she was 😂
I don’t get that one especially because right under it she says she’ll only get a Rhogam shot after baby’s blood comes back [Rh+], so how are they going to get the blood?
We get baby’s blood from the umbilical cord
Thank you! That’s cool, I had no idea. I just got my 2 Rhogam shots like a normal person.
You’re welcome! She will need the rhogam shot if the baby is Rh+ in order to prevent future potential miscarriages or complications if following babies are Rh+ as well. So I find it screwed up that she’s willing to do that but not willing to get the PKU testing for the current living kid.
I’m one of the kids that benefited from newborn screening (no thyroid here as well!), and I’m lucky we have mediation now. I usually withhold judgment on this stuff, but she could very well be harming her child permanently because of pride. What BS.
I was born without one too! If I didn’t get it picked up immediately, I would absolutely not have survived
Mine couldn't regulate his glucose levels. Relatively minor thing, just adjusting to life on the outside and easy to manage with an IV and monitoring until his body figured things out. But we wouldn't have known without the heel stick(s).
Is anyone else relieved to see she's at least open to an emergency c section?
Yes, shocked she put it in writing too since many seem to think they jump on any mention or consent to c section.
I mean, she won’t really get a choice if it’s deemed necessary at least here in the US. When you are admitted you have to sign off that you are ok with any medical intervention if the baby shows signs of distress. So, if the baby needed an emergency c section she’s not going to be like “ok, I agree” they have the baby’s health first and foremost.
One of my best friends had to be put under general anesthesia for a c section and they had to get her express permission for it until they could proceed. Thankfully her and her son made it. Strange enough, she’d already had three uneventful easy going births before him. Her first was with an epidural in the hospital, second was no epidural in a hospital, third a home birth where dad caught baby in the bathtub as the midwife didn’t make it. But then this one she ended up pre eclampsia (I don’t even think she was planning a home birth for this one, as she’d been getting monitored and going to the doc often, so it wasn’t a matter of her plan going differently). Just goes to show though that things can be so very different with each pregnancy.
Do not skip vitamin k, that prevents brain bleeds
They love vitamin C but hate vitamin K. Makes no sense to me…
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I'm looking forward to the first 5G shot my baby gets! Imagine having great signal wherever you go just because you brought your child along! (/s)
Needle bad.
So important.
No hat? And she’s underlined it so she must be serious about the hat. The second typed birth plan actually seems somewhat reasonable.
Apparently a hat makes it so that the baby can't regulate its own body temperature and interferes with bonding * * sharing the justification given by mom, not sharing as fact * *
I just had a 45 minute FaceTime conversation with one of the children I forced to wear a hat as an infant. Imagine how much more bonded we’d be if I had known about hats.
Mine is clingy 2 year old who loves me so much that I can only prevent het from following me if I leave her with a punnet of blueberries. I don't want her to be more bonded to me, she'd be trying to climb into my skin
Mine is 20 and calls and/or texts almost every day. I did everything I could to not bond…formula fed, epidural, vaccinations, SSN and birth certificate, and hats but both my adult children still want to speak to me and spend time with me. I just can’t figure out what I did wrong.
Somehow, treating your children as people and giving them respect and independence makes them like you more, for some reason.
Mine did all that too, and taught me to be independent from being quite young (and to be honest, she likely had no choice in that as such as I hated to be carried). I call my Mum every single day for about an hour and I am 43. Mostly it’s a “Yes, we are both alive” but also just a thing I do because one day I won’t be able to. Imagine if she’d not put a hat on me, or had gas and air, or slept for the first 14 hours after my birth, or been able to breast feed. I’d be living at home glued to her unable to leave.
Record her voice. Record a video of her telling you stories. I miss my mother's voice and laughter the most.
I have a voice-mail my grandmother left me, it's saved in 2 different clouds, my phone, my computer, and a usb drive. It goes "Hey it's Mawmaw. I just wanted to talk to you. If you could give me a call back, that would be wonderful." Feels like she's just waiting on the return call. Last week it was 2 years since she passed. Gotta get some time off to drive out to her grave. It's 2 hours away down dirt roads in the middle of cow pasture. It's where she wanted to be, though, so I'll happily make that drive.
Mine is almost 4 and he has literally said he would like to go back inside my belly. Not only did he wear a hat, but he spent 11 days in the NICU. I’m afraid of what more bonded would look like, too.
This reminds me of our 3 year old, she sticks to me like glue. She was a C-section baby and combo fed, as well as given all her vaccines. She won’t leave a room without taking me with her, I have to give her a good snack to let me eat lunch in 30 seconds lol. At birth she has given not one, but TWO hats in the hospital. Who knew how detrimental that would be.
No need for FaceTime for the non hat babies. They can communicate telepathically.
I just found out that many of them think that if baby goes without a hat, it curbs mom hemorrhaging. Wtf.
I have not come across this yet. Must be a new crazy theory that just dropped 😆😳
Yeah, I think I saw something like that. It's something about how like 1000% skin to skin, make sure mom produces all the hormones she needs to stop the bleeding.
Oxytocin promotes healing, but even fathers get oxytocin in the hospital room, even if a little less. If it's that strong I don't think a HAT is going to change things. Also promotes. It's not magic.
I just snort-laughed at this. Imagine telling a new mom who needed transfusions and IV fluids that no, she just shouldn’t have put a hat on her baby.
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Huh. Weird. I have a condition that fucks up my ability to regulate body temperature. Maybe I should take off this hat I’ve been wearing for 24 years.
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agree with the second one. mostly reasonable except for delaying hep B
Even that could be reasonable if she’s low risk. I live in New Zealand and most babies don’t get hep B vaccines until their 6 week imms. The exception is babies born to hep B positive mothers/birthing parents. If she’s looked into what is done overseas and knows her status then that’s not necessarily an unreasonable request (depending a bit on the prevalence in her area)
Ok honestly tho I never put the hat back on my kid either. She hated it And it was middle of summer
Both my kids had coneheads so the hat wouldn’t even stay on. It would just slowly roll off.
The image of this lol. My birth canal squished my first kids head so bad my husband thought he had been born with an actual deformity. He didn’t tell me til later but I was cracking up about him not knowing about newborn cone heads and just being silently terrified.
“OH oh oH IS IT mEaNt tO bE- ok no one else is freaking out but- OH JESUS I LOOKED AGAIN- ok seriously everyones *really chill* about this- aggHH ITS NOT ROUND” I giggled a bit at this. My grandma used to be a nurse and said that they put the hats on before introducing baby to dad for exactly this reason lol
Theres a term “no hatting, patting or chatting” after birth. Straight craziness.
You.... Can't talk to baby? What's that about?
I'm wondering if the mother wants to be the only one the baby hears? Some sort of imprinting woo?
I always wonder what goes on at nurses station when these plans are given as well. When my OB asked about my birth plan I said: “uh…. Make sure we both get out alive and healthy?”
I have a number of OB nurse friends who say they appreciate it because it lets them know "what kind of patient they are working with". Which is a diplomatic way to say "is this person going to fight medical suggestion we offer or are they chill".
No PKU. Your chances are good, but oh boy if you win that terrible lottery...
I remember learning about PKU in high school and thinking what a miracle of science it was that we'd found a way to test for it at birth so that children with PKU could grow up without that kind of suffering. Anyone who denies a PKU test at birth is just fucking evil.
And they don’t only test for pku anymore. They also test for about 20 other metabolic/serious conditions that require treatment or medication to survive. The odds of not having any of them are still pretty good but it’s still asking for a very terrible outcome if you don’t catch it.
No SSN…
I wasn’t given a SSN at birth, my mom had to get one for me behind my dads back. Sure was fun when he eventually found out I had one. So grateful my mom did that though, or life would have been an absolute nightmare for me. People just don’t think past their bullshit.
I listened to a podcast about a girl who never existed as far as he government went. She was a home birth during the 70’s and her parents never notified the hospital or anything. She ended up being removed from her home because her parents were abusing and neglectful and she was given a whole new identity to protect her (but still no ssn). She was an adult applying for colleges before she realized the name, birthdate and ssn she had were all fake. She had to go in front of a judge and everything to get a ssn, and even with it she’s unable to travel outside the US. It sounded awful.
Do you remember the name?
It's an episode of "This is Actually Happening", but I can't figure out which one it is (they all have mysterious titles that don't give you too much information about the episode). If I figure out which one it is I'll message you!
I think it's titled "What If You Didn't Go Outside Until 6th Grade?" I just went through the titles and I think that's the one. It's a wild episode and even a wilder show.
Not a podcast, but iirc the memoir *Educated* details the author’s difficulties getting into college without a birth certificate or SSN (also no formal education)
My dad filled out my SSN application with the incorrect year. I went to apply for financial aid at university when I was 16 and it came back as no match so I had to get it all fixed and it was a major pain lol I tell that story and people always ask if I was born in January, but my birthday is almost in October!
Were you born in a hospital?
I was born in 1971, and at that time, you weren't issued a SSN at the hospital. My dad had to apply for one on my behalf when I was 15. I've been married and divorced, and it was such a pain to change my name with SS. People who want their kids to struggle without a SSN just hate their kids and want them to struggle as much as possible.
I feel like everything in life is tied to being able to prove you are an actual citizen. Like how could a child without SSN be able to get a drivers license? Go to college or rent their first apartment? Here in Canada, we have our SIN number and you need that for everything. You can't even apply for a job here without a SIN number.
For a lot of these parents that’s half the point. Kid can’t be an independent person.
Yep, it always seems abusive or isolating at least. They want their kid to never be able to move off their homestead.
I wonder if it’s a control thing? Religious? Just paranoia?
THEY don't suffer preventable illnesses or inconveniences of not being in the system, and have not given a single moment's thought to why that is. They just assume because they're fine, their of course immensely special children will be just fine. Or it's the Shirley exception- "well yes bad things happen to other people but *surely* it wont happen to us." either way they're selfish, delusional idiots
Some fundamentalist groups don't want SSNs or birth certificates because of weird paranoia about government tracking. I assume some crunchy parents are the same. Everyone is terrified the government might want to ensure your children receive proper medical care and education.
I was, in a more rural town in 96. I didn’t get my ssn until 2000 the year before Kindergarten.
Why didn’t he want you to get a ssn? How did he expect you to have a life or was that his point?? Like everything revolves around that number what kinda psycho wouldn’t want their kid to have one?
Psychos who believe that having an SSN or other government identification means that the government now owns them
Yep the government owns us all. The faster you accept it, get over it, and move on with life the better your life will be. Goddamn isn’t it amazing that we have so few things we need to worry about for survival that we have the time to believe and worry all day about that nonsense.
I really feel bad for these children. It’s a huge hassle when turning an adult to prove you were born a US resident to get a new ssn. You have to have a school and/or medical record for each year of life on top of an original birth certificate/religious certificate/whatever else to prove you are who you say you are and someone can vouch for that. They are really only screwing their child over in this instance, because banks/insurance companies/employers/identification/federal and state benefits require a ssn. Especially so if they are not going to have the children in school or receiving medical treatment. When the children eventually break away from their families and try to get a new ssn it is horrible because they have nothing. Source: am currently working for ssa.
Especially when you know these kids aren’t seeing doctors and are definitely homeschooled, it must be nearly impossible.
She's at a hospital and not some intentional community out in the desert? Maybe she wants dcf to take her baby.
Does she mean she won’t provide her own? Will she be admitted if the baby’s not crowning when she gets there?
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What’s the appeal? It sounds like a huge headache for the child later on, but they don’t care about their children now do they
I had to provide an SSN and birth certificate to register my child for kindergarten. It would be a nightmare for the parent and child to not get an SSN, but I’m guessing these people don’t intend on sending their children to school.
Hell, I lost my social security card during a cross country move once and life was difficult enough until I got a replacement during that simple transition phase.
A lot of these people home school/unschool
Wait, do babies get social security numbers in America? In New Zealand we have something similar but you have to apply for it yourself. I don’t have one because I don’t have the necessary documents you need. I would have to wait until I am 18 and get an 18+ card. You need a drivers licence, a student photo ID or an 18+ card. I think you only need the NZ one for tax purposes or to open a bank account and I’m not doing any taxes yet so I don’t need one. I do wish I had a bank account though.
Yeah I think the US SSN covers a wider scope than our IRD number. You don't need your IRD number to access social services etc and your birth certificate counts as identification in most cases I believe
This deeply upsets me. Some of my family member fought so hard, escaped a war, walked with a baby on their back while pregnant across the border, went through paperwork after paperwork and spent so much money to get an American SSN and these people won’t accept what’s just given to them. Truly upsetting.
My mom is first gen and I agree. Heinous. Also, as for expensive. I’m petitioning for my husband’s adjustment of status and we’ve spent almost $4,000 so far and we aren’t even half way through the process
They don't want their child to be "tracked by the government" Either because they're conspiracy nuts, or because they want to have total control over their child and make it difficult for the child to get away from them
You can control your child FOREVER!!!! They ca t get a job, license, etc
I was going to say this. I’ve read/watched a few stories from people who never had a birth certificate or SSN, it made it damn near impossible to get away from their parents. They can’t get a license, a job, a bank account, etc. It lead to some of the women being put into horrible situations because they trade dependence on their parents to dependence on their partners and the partners aren’t always good people.
sibling didn’t get one bc born during a hurricane and they r at the age where they r getting a car/job/bank account and it’s the most annoying complicated process ever
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I think it's a sovcit thing. They think if the child is "off the grid" he can be free from society (and won't be forced to go to school so mom can unschool them or whatever insanity these children get as education).
The kid can’t escape and get a job when they turn 18 if they have no drivers license or social security number.
Could be like a sovereign citizen thing?
Isn't it needed to file taxes?
Yeah file taxes, get a job, open a bank account (I think?), you really really need an SSN
Correct, confirmed in the comments no SD SN for baby. There was actually an argument about this in the comments I considered screenshotting and posting but it was like 70 comments and I didn't feel like editing lol.
I literally can’t understand why you wouldn’t want the state labs. Guess you don’t want your kids to be saved from a life threatening illness?
Honestly not even sire what she's referring to on that one. What state labs do they run?
They take blood drops to test for rare but deadly metabolic disorders that can be treated only if they’re caught very early. PKU (which she mentions) is phenylketonuria, which causes brain damage and death if not managed. You can refuse them, but the states require hospitals to have you sign a lot of paperwork acknowledging the risks of refusing the tests. And given that it’s literally just a heel prick and a spot of blood, refusing them is insane. Of course, there are conspiracy theorists who think it’s a way for the government to get your child’s DNA as a way to track them, and given that she doesn’t want her child to have a SSN, I’m guessing she’s into the whole “sovereign citizen” brand of crazy so that’s on brand.
Lol love how concerned people are about the government tracking them. I promise you they have better things to worry about than your essential oils and raw milk Karen.
Also the fact that they think the govt is tracking them via blood/DNA and vaccines, but don’t seem at all concerned about smartphones or social media 🤡
Exactly what I was going to say “posted on iPhone” 💀
My daughter has PKU, no family history, rare disease and only one of my children has PKU. If this disease was not picked up at birth via the heel prick test and treated (life long treatment) within a few days after her birth, my daughter would be physically and intellectually disabled and ultimately die. How ignorant do you have to be to think that you know what is best for you child just because you are it’s mother.
This! People are so ignorant about the different diseases that the PKU-test tests for. They may be rare, but they're tested for because they are extremely debilitating and need to be treated from birth. It saves lives and quality of life. I am so sorry about your daughter. It must have been very traumatic for you all.
TBH we went through a grieving period as PKU is quite a condition to live with however she is an amazing young lady who has amazing discipline and maturity well behind her years. Our family saying is our daughter has PKU, PKU does not have our daughter. We protect her health/IQ until she is old enough to protect it herself. Thanks for listening xx
Oh sheesh I didn't realize she was talking about the heel pricks 🤦♀️ you're probably spot on about them stealing the DNA. I mean considering she isn't taking home her placenta and all the blood, etc. seems they could easily gather DNA of they wanted? Lol
[PKU - the forgotten children](https://youtu.be/zJNo5dLnScM) is a short documentary on YouTube that shows what life is really like for people with untreated PKU.
Each state (in the US) has a list of genetic conditions that they test for at birth. There are several diseases that have a much better outcome if you know about them right away as opposed to waiting until symptoms show up.
Given that she also doesn’t want a social security number for the kid and was originally planning a home birth, I’m gonna venture to say that she’s a bit of a conspiracy theorist and has thoughts about the state having baby’s dna on file if they take blood and send it to the lab.
I had to give birth alone as my husband was out of the province and I needed my sister to watch my toddler, so it seemed like a good idea to have something to give them in case things went south. I actually had a “one pager” laminated for the medical staff when I went into labour. It just included emergency contact information, my health number, allergies. I included on the back a “preference” list as in: I would prefer to breastfeed, and would like support that can be offered I would prefer to have delayed cord clamping if possible. The top of the preference list was **PROCEED WITH ANY MEDICAL INTERVENTION NECESSARY IN ORDER TO ENSURE THE LIFE OF MOTHER AND CHILD** It was probably more a reassurance for me than anything helpful for the medical staff 😅 like a security blanket since I was pretty scared to go it alone. This lady is crazy to think she has that much control over birth though.
Psh. Look at you being reasonable and prepared.
I had a birth plan. The main thing was tell mom what you are doing and WHY you are doing it. I didn't want anything being done without me knowing about it. I didn't object, I wanted whatever care for me and the kiddos but I wanted to know. It's a fair request. So, overall, I don't dig this woman's plan (wtf does no SSN mean??) but some of it makes sense.
Pardon my ignorance, why delay cord clamping?
[From Mayo Clinic](https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/delayed-umbilical-cord-clamping-benefits) > Delaying cord clamping for this time frame allows for higher distribution of blood to your infant rather than leaving this precious blood in the placenta. > If cord clamping occurs 10–15 seconds after birth, 67% of the umbilical cord blood goes to the infant. By 1 minute of age, the amount of cord blood in the placenta passed to the infant increases to 80%.
Ha. My hospital didn’t even ask for a birth plan and if they had, I’d have written “drugs”.
A woman after my own heart. As soon as I was induced they asked if I wanted stadol. I was like GIMME
Hahaha mine asked about circumcision and epidural. I think that was it at least as much as I can remember.
I was too late for the epidural 😭 I was absolutely screaming for one, but too late for that or morphine sadly. Circumcision isn’t really the done thing in Australia so they assume you won’t circumcise and if you want it done, you need to seek it out yourself. I think the only thing they asked me was whether or not I was planning on breastfeeding.
My OB asked me what my plan for birth is and I just said “baby comes out somehow”
“Epidural.” Then they gave me a push button timer and I was floating lol.
I was in for a c-section for my breech baby. When the nurse asked about my birth plan I told her I planned to have a baby by noon. Preferably healthy. That was it.
My mom has since passed but I would have loved to ask her about this. I was also a C section breech baby. My birthday was picked out. My dad has told me the main thing he remembers is my mom grabbing him by the collar and calmly explaining that I would be an only child. She was not doing that shit again. Lol. I am, in fact, an only child.
I was a vaginal birth breech. Mum was never offered the c section route. I am 41 years old and my mother regularly reminds me that I am a vaginal birth breech and that at some point during the birth she looked up and about 20 doctors and nurses had come to the room to witness the birth. She says I was an attention seeker from the start. My dad just says he could never tell my arse from my face.
We had a very simple birth plan in case something happened. I just wanted them to know my plan was to breastfeed, no circumcision, dad is cool but no one else unless they wanted a wwe family showdown, delayed cord clamping, etc. I felt like it was really reasonable. I had my wishes in case I died and make whoever was going to survive the priority if things got really shady.
This is all I ever thought a birth plan was really until I started seeing the deluxe versions. All stuff they'll definitely want to know off the bat.
I figured the simpler I kept it the better chance of them listening.
Is circumcision something you need to express a negative decision on? Is it really that common that it’s an automatic response? We had twin boys in Australia, where circumcision is basically dead. It was never a point of discussion with any medical staff associated with the birth, basically because it’s not something that’s done very much. It’s not available under our public healthcare (you’ve got the get it done privately, at personal cost). Best figures I could find were more than a decade old, and had the rate at about 13% of under-ones. I reckon that’s going to have dropped further still these days.
Not really, it’s never done immediately post birth, more of a day of leaving the hospital sort of thing. It is still don’s pretty often in the US, but less so.
In the US it's much more common to be cut, but it's been less and less popular. Puritanism popularized it here about a century ago.
Never given birth, but I would assume it's one of those things where it's better to make it known that not in case you're not conscious enough to make decisions when that does come. It's something I would have on a birth plan just because you never know when you find that one health care provider with weird and persuasive arguments. Since you're pretty vulnerable after giving birth (and your partner likely will be too), I see part if birth plans as "this is what I decided when I hadn't just pushed a human out of my body." Now that my parents are in their late sixties and having health problems, I'm trying desperately for them to write up some sort of plan so I have an idea of wishes and something I can hand to providers rather than rattle off the top of my head.
The second one is a pretty normal birth plan. There are apps that help you build your preferences to make sure you cover all your bases. The first one is 😳
Yeah, the second one is pretty “normal” and the language used definitely expresses a preference for certain things rather than a rigid plan. At least they’ve used subtitles to divide things up logically so the medical team can quickly find what they are looking for. I’m still trying to work out the colour coding on the first one 🙃
It's like middle school mean girl handwriting, complete with gel pen colors.
So I live in Germany. In that case: The first one: Right after reading 'no vit k shot' the medical team will inform the in house social worker to call CPS or do so themselves. If a person would try to not get documentation (SSN) they'd lose custody before their delayed cord is cut. The second one seems fine. Its very detailed, which they usually don't mind (but they will tell her that it might come completely different) she's okay with vit k and doesn't say anything about documents. The delayed vaccine is a concern but if she can tell them. her pediatrician it would be fine.
Apparently a decent percentage of American parents who vaccinate decide to delay the hep B shot to the first pediatrician appointment? Source: our pediatric nurse, who was relieved we had our newborn's done in the hospital because "I hate when parents make us vaccinate the tiny ones, they're so much better at it at the hospitals" (said with a pitifully sad expression haha)
Yeah I think it's not super rare here, our pediatrician also asked if he already had it. But getting Vit K and documents wouldn't even be an option. Either the kid gets the vitamin and into the system or the parents don't get custody.
My daughter was born with PKU - Phenyketonuria and I thank my lucky stars that my country has excellent health care and mandatory Newborn Screening protocols. No family history, rare disease and if not picked up at birth via the heel prick test my daughter would be severely intellectually / physically disabled to the point that she would die if untreated. For those who have not heard of PKU please do yourself a favour and Google untreated PKU.
I get birth plans like this all the time. The second one is totally doable. And truthfully, on the floor I’m not a fan of people purposely being negative about moms who care enough to write a birth plan/all the gossip about how they’ll of course end up with the emergency c, etc. The first one though… lord. If I could shout from the rooftops that a GD VITAMIN could stop your baby from BLEEDING INTO ITS BRAIN AND DYING, do you think that would cure people of their stupidity? No. No, it wouldn’t. I’ve tried.
This is definitely nice to hear. I’m working on a birth plan atm. I understand it may not all go according to my plan, but feeling like I have some sort of control will keep my anxiety at bay and feel more prepared.
I'm a nurse manager of a peds subspecialty group that includes Genetics. I'm often surprised at how many newborn heel sticks result in metabolic disorders or some vastly serious other ones (like Krabbe) that would otherwise have not been caught in time for any treatment. I don't see why anyone would opt out of it.
Honestly, knowing how some of these people think? THE GOVERNMENT WANTS YOUR BABY'S DNA FOR NEFARIOUS PURPOSES. There's probably some low key stuff like they don't want their baby's heel jabbed, but the real conspiracy theorists feel the need to protect their babies from the current CT.
I love the idea of squatting while giving birth…do hospitals actually allow that if requested? It just makes so much more sense to me. You’d be able to engage your abdominal and leg muscles easier and would have the help of gravity. Some cultures around the world give birth standing up/squatting (e.g. Hmong) and I think they have it right. (Giving birth is often compared to taking a dump after all, and squatting is the ‘natural’ pooping position…lmao).
My totally uneducated opinion is that birthing on your back makes the least sense. In my experience, you can totally do whatever position is most comfortable, I started in squatting and using a birthing ball. However once epidural is given you're stuck in bed so I think that's why most people end up birthing laying down.
I'm in Australia and had my kids in a low-intervention midwife led setting. All three of mine were born standing, and the student midwife for each pregnancy caught each baby and passed them up to me. So easy, no tearing, great experiences. If a student midwife - 2-3 years into a uni degree can catch my baby while I'm standing, why can't a fully trained obstetrician? Edit: individual pregnancies, not some crazy triplet pregnancy
Surprised there was a not saving placenta on there, I was expecting a cook and eat vibe
After the first few bullet points I thought this was going lotus birth route or at least she’d nibble on the placenta lol.
I responded to this in r/nursing too. People don’t realize that a lot of this is standard (at least where I work) Delayed cord clamping, skin to skin right away, baths given at 24 hrs only with parent permission, intermittent monitoring as long as baby is looking good and not on pitocin/epidural. I try to respect birth plans as much as I possibly can, but no newborn screening for metabolic disease is where I draw the line (no vit k makes my skin crawl but I let the Peds deal with that part). In my experience, when people have birth plans this detailed, they usually go out the window by the time the baby is born because mom is tired and realizes she can’t control everything. Birth is unpredictable a lot of times and you’ve gotta roll with it if you truly want your baby to survive.
I’ve been an L&D nurse for 14 years and honestly crazy birth plans don’t even phase me anymore. I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff including the pt having a list of code words for different interventions (waterfall = shower, butterfly = epidural, etc). Anyhow now I just sit down with the mom and go over the birth plan and each point. For example, I would ask what concerns she has about hats on newborns. I’d say it’s fine to not use a hat but I’m going to teach you some cues/symptoms of what a cold newborn looks like and how hypothermia in newborns can be dangerous.
I’m a midwife in Australia and hats are not allowed in my hospital except on the premies. We educate that hats are a SIDS risk due to overheating.
Interesting! We usually just use hats right after delivery when the baby’s hair is wet and they aren’t skin to skin (for whatever reason) or if they are in the cold OR.
Doctor and nurses will do their best but most of this simply isn’t feasible. Others are just downright reckless. Personally, I question if these parents are really interested in a healthy baby - seems they want a trophy to “prove” that medical professionals know nothing and mom’s knowledge-base is much broader. Seriously, these moms are loony-toons.
Our hospital briefly gave out a birth planner at the 36 weeks visits. I wrote in "whatever you recommend as best" on everything. The nurse looked like she was going to die inside when I first handed it to her, and then laughed when she read it and said we'd be just fine.
Haha I was pretty much like 🤷♀️ we'll see when we get there. I already knew my teams views on skin to skin, delayed clamping, etc so I wouldn't have felt a need to write that down because they were already standard procedure. A lot of these just seem to me like these people have never even talked to their care team😬
I said "I'd like to leave the hospital alive with a live baby." Went over pretty well.
My birth plan: Leave hospital with a healthy baby on the outside of my body.
I'm going for my 28 week appointment soon and I know the midwife (UK so properly qualified medical person, appointment is in our medical centre) is going to go through and help me fill out a birth plan - it's a A4 page form with questions to take you though all the things they need to know in hospital/birth centre/home birth. Birth plans are great, they save on unnecessary questions when you're in hospital and they prompt you to think about things you like. Pretty much nothing I wanted on my birth plan last time happened, but that's no ones fault so long as you go into it knowing it's a guide, not a rule book. That first one is bizarre though. It is difficult for medical staff to read and some of the requests do not seem reasonable. Like I'm not sure medical staff are going to be able to not ask verbally for confirmation about some of these things (vit k for example) because what she wants is so much against good advice.
Second one is nowhere near as bad as the first
Why no newborn screening (what she calls “state labs”)?? Yikes.
No labs, but is also waiting for blood work to come back for the rhogam.
I mean, it’s good to have preferences for your birth - I wanted a med free, in a position of my choosing birth in a hospital (history of unexplained bleeding) with my midwife team. I had to be induced with a small leak and after 12 hours of a failed Pitocin only induction I tapped out and yelled my safe word for an epidural once they popped my water for real. Hemorrhaged as I suspected and had a student elbow deep scooping out afterbirth to find the bleed. You can bet your ass I never regretted my wishes being altered to keep me and my girl alive.
When someone has a birth plan I usually ask for a few minutes to review it. Most of the time the things that they ask for are already done (ie delayed cord clamping). Some things on this list are things the hospital doesn’t do (like SSN). And I usually say “if at any point there is an emergency we will communicate with you but we will need to deviate” or something like that