:: The S.I.C.L.E. Cell ::

:: Monday, July 04, 2005 ::

Just got back from Gainesville, Florida where I spent an alacritous 7 hours digging up everything I could on hyperemesis gravidarum. 97 articles later... the overall verdict is that there's a whole lotta nothin' goin' on, although I did read some interesting theories and one fairly smashing review.

Disheartened to see that Wernicke's encephalopathy cases have not been eradicated and disgusted to see that the psychogenic etiology theory still abounds in some professional populations (can you say "Frenchy"?). You'll forgive me, but their arguments are less based on evidence and more ad hominem. Flipping members of the GPWHC (God-playing Women Haters Club)! Ugh and double ugh.

No one knows how many children ("wanted" children for the "pro-choicers" who are reading) are aborted due to the debilitation of severe HG, but estimates indicate that roughly 5 in 1,000 develop the illness, which translates into several thousand hospitalizations in the U.S. annually. Some sources estimate 55,000 hospitalizations a year, though 39,000 were reported for one year in one of the studies I was taking a gander at. In short, big numbers have HG bad enough for hospitalization, and HG that bad translates into abortion.

In one study population the abortion rate was 8%. That's flipping high. In most of the other studies I've chanced to peruse the rate was around 1-2%. I wish we had an actual reflection of numbers, but reporting is not mandatory and women are not comfortable admitting that they opted for abortion. Planned Parenthood, whose "live-at-5" banner was seen draped across one of the main roads leading through the center of the uber liberal University of Florida, will blame those of us who oppose abortion. We've created the stigma. Of course it has nothing to do with disemboweling children. Were it not for our wholehearted rejection of that idea, society would embrace it, hunky dory scenario that it is. Silly us. Harmful us. First we ruined slavery and now this. We don't know when to quit.

I digress.

One of the things that continues to occur to me is the notion that women are being put on hold until their HG can truly be elucidated. Read: women are being made to suffer, "to get behind the 8 ball," as my beloved physician puts it, in order to prove that they are really sick. That and the fact that some aren't trained well enough to recognize the disorder. Unnecessary suffering. Suffering that steals lives. Grrr.

The grossest understatement of the century:
For sick moms, the ones who are always being used to pimp abortion to the rest of the world population, the cry should not be for easier access to abortion. The cry should be for better flipping health care.

Could any solution be more apparent???
Can I get a flipping witness?

Anyway, I'm back.
For a little while yet.

:: ashli 10:12 AM # ::
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