STILLBORN BABIES

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There are really few sad events in a parent’s life that he or she experiences than looking at the face of his or her stillborn baby.  The sadness stems not so much that the parents don’t have a baby to nurture but instead the sadness stems from knowing that their unborn baby won’t have a life to enjoy. Even looking at the face of a stillborn baby brings tears to my eyes.  Fortunately, my wife and I have two daughters and we didn’t have to suffer from the agony of looking at the face of two stillborn babies. Both of our daughters had live babies when they were each born.

A pregnant woman may notice that her baby is no longer moving or she may find out at a regular prenatal visit. The provider listens for the baby's heartbeat using a handheld ultrasound device called a Doppler. If there's no heartbeat, an ultrasound is done to confirm that the heart has stopped beating and that the baby has died.

When a baby dies in utero at 20 weeks of pregnancy or later, it's called a stillbirth. When a pregnancy is lost before 20 weeks, it's called a miscarriage. About 1 in 160 pregnancies ends in stillbirth in the United States. Most stillbirths happen before labor begins, but a small number occur during labor and delivery.

One in every 225 births ends in a stillbirth in the United Kingdom. That's 9 babies every day. For every 1,000 babies born, 4.2 were stillborn. Can you imagine how many stillborn babies there were around the world in a year?

When a baby dies in the womb, the sad truth is that the mother still has to go through with the birth, as it's better for her health and her physical recovery. Doctors do try to save the mother from a major surgery since a stillborn baby may not always be delivered by a caesarean section.

Most womenn prefer to have labor induced soon after they learn of their baby's death, either through labor and delivery or through a procedure performed under local or general anesthesia.      

If a woman's cervix has not begun to dilate in preparation for labor, her doctor may insert medicine into her vagina to start that process. Then she gets an IV infusion of the hormone oxytocin (Pitocin) to stimulate uterine contractions. However, the vast majority of women are able to deliver  their  baby vaginally.

                                          

Why, you ask, are babies born as stillborn babies? Women who smoked cigarettes increased the risk of having a stillbirth. The risk increases depending on how much the mother smokes cigarettes.

The risk goes 52% higher if they smoke ten or more cigarettes a day.

When oxygen reaches the lungs of a pregnant woman, she brings with it the air she breathes along with the nicotine from the cigarettes that she has smoked. After the blood enters her heart, it then enters into the blood stream of the unborn baby.   

Nicotine is a drug that is considered to have negative side effects on unborn babies similar to illegal drug use during pregnancy

Nicotine narrows the uterine blood vessels, thus reducing blood flow to the baby. Also, smoking puts the oxygen blocker carbon monoxide into the blood that nourishes baby. Carbon monoxide robs oxygen from the baby. Levels of carbon monoxide have been measured at six to seven times higher in the blood of pregnant mothers who smoke than those who do not smoke.  Smoking thus reduces the oxygen supply to the infant in the womb, in effect slightly smothering the defenseless baby.                     

The developing brain in an unborn baby is particularly vulnerable to low levels of oxygen and for this reason; the immaturity of the brain center that regulates breathing could contribute to the unborn baby’s death. Recent studies of smoking mothers whose unborn babies who died in the womb provide insight into how exposure to smoking may injure the unborn baby’s developing brains. 

Besides causing neurological damage by lessening oxygen supply to the developing brain, nicotine may be poisonous to area of the brain directly involved with heart and breathing functions and arousal from sleep. Yes, babies sleep in the womb. Also, unborn babies whose mothers smoked during pregnancy are more likely to have diminished arousal from sleep in response to a low-oxygen challenge. Hence, they eventually die in the womb.   

When a pregnant woman drinks alcohol, so does her unborn baby. Alcohol in the mother’s bloodstream passes directly through the umbilical cord to interfere with the development of her baby’s body, brain, and organs.   

Women who drink alcohol during pregnancy also face a high risk of suffering from a miscarriage, premature birth, stillbirth, and sudden infant death syndrome. 

A woman who is pregnant and needs help quitting drinking should understand that drug rehab can help them achieve long-term abstinence from alcohol and reduce the potential negative health consequences for both them and their  unborn baby.

Unborn babies exposed to alcohol in the womb face a high risk for physical, behavioral, and intellectual disabilities known as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, are completely preventable and can only be avoided by quitting drinking and getting help for alcohol abuse and dependence.

What can the father of an unborn baby do if the mother refuses to abstain from smoking and/or drinking alcohol while she is pregnant with his baby?  Before I answer that question, I will add this comment.         

Unborn babies are human beings and like a great many unborn babies, they can grow into being famous scientists and doctors, leaders of democratic nations and great writers and others whose works and activities have wonderful effects on millions of people. To destroy that possibility in an unborn baby is not only uncaring, it is also terribly wrong.

In my opinion, such a woman who smokes and/or drinks alcohol while she is pregnant should not have babies. Thus, the father and anyone else for that matter should contact the local Children’s Aid ao that the woman can be arrested and placed in a home for ;pregnant woman and if that fails, she should incarcerated until the baby is born. Further, she should not be allowed to take her baby home. It should be put up for adoption.

I realize that some people will say that this is being too strict but is saving an unborn baby’s life more important than the pregnant mother’s inconvenience who chooses to smoke and/or drink alcohol without any thoughts whatsoever about the unborn baby in her womb? 

At nine in the morning of October, 1933,  I was still in the womb  of  my mother at St. Michael's hospital in Toronto. The nurses feared that I would be a stillbirth baby. They also thought that my mother would also die. As it turned   out, we both survived. The irony is that my mother had no milk to give me but the woman in the next bed lost her baby at birth so I was placed in her bed in order to get her milk.