Prenatal Care Interventions

🖨️ Print post

Prenatal and Newborn Interventions—It’s an Onslaught

The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation, regularly issues dismal report cards about health rankings in the United States compared to those of its global peers. In a January 2023 report, headlined as “Ac­celerating Spending, Worsening Outcomes,” the foundation lamented that for years on end, the U.S. has had “the worst health outcomes overall of any high-income nation,” including the highest infant mortality rate and the lowest life expectancy at birth.¹ Whereas countries like Norway and Japan document 1.6 to 1.8 infant deaths per thousand live births, in the U.S., the infant mortality rate is three times higher on average (5.4 per thousand) and nearly five to six times higher in states like Arkansas and Mississippi.² Nor do outcomes improve after birth—U.S. children retain a “morbidity disadvantage” compared to peers in other wealthy nations throughout childhood and adolescence.³

Ironically, the U.S. spends significantly more of its gross domestic product on health care than other high-income nations—at last count, over 18 percent, which is nearly double what other Western countries spend.⁴ Where do those dollars go? For pediatric spending, according to a study that examined U.S. health care data through 2013, the largest category of expenditures was for “well-newborn care in the inpatient setting” (referring to hospital interventions within the first few days of life); per-child spending was greatest for infants under one year of age.⁵ Experts use such figures to buttress the health system party line that if infant deaths are occurring, it is not for lack of trying.

“WELL-NEWBORN CARE”

What does inpatient “well-newborn care” consist of? In hospital settings, a flurry of tests and interventions greets babies within their first minutes, hours and days. As Cleveland Clinic explains, “When your baby is born, there are many firsts: a first breath, a first touch. If your baby is born in a hospital, they’ll also receive their first series of health screenings.”⁶ At one and five minutes of life, this process starts with Apgar scoring—the “baseline for all future observations”—to as­sess heart rate, respiratory rate, muscle tone, reflex irritability and color.⁷ Although Apgar scores generally have stood the test of time since Dr. Virginia Apgar came up with the system in 1952, observers note that factors such as maternal sedation or anesthesia and gestational age can falsely lower the score, and they also comment that a “low score doesn’t predict morbidity and mortality for any individual infant.”⁸

The infamous heel prick (blood test), usually done about twenty-four hours post-birth, checks for metabolic abnormalities such as phenylke­tonuria (PKU) and measures bilirubin levels to assess risk for jaundice.⁹ Reflecting health system pessimism about humanity’s innately perfect design, the newborn panel screens for roughly three dozen different conditions (with some state-to-state variability): nine “organic acide­mias” (a class of inherited metabolic disorders), five “fatty acids oxidation disorders,” six “amino acid disorders,” three “hemoglobinopathies” (genetic diseases of hemoglobin), two “other inborn errors of metabolism,” two endocrine disorders, as well as “hearing loss, severe com­bined immunodeficiency, lysosomal storage disorders, congenital heart disease using pulse oximetry, and cystic fibrosis, and. . . spinal mus­cular atrophy” (and a partridge in a pear tree).¹⁰ Most states also require providers to smear the baby’s eyes with antibiotic ointment as soon as possible after birth (see “Making Eye Contact” on page 50).

The hearing test referred to in the above list involves either placing an earbud in the baby’s ear containing a microphone and earphone, or placing “sticker electrodes” on the baby’s head along with small earphones “in or around the child’s ear.”¹¹ (The American Academy of Au­diology notes that some babies may be “noisy or restless during screening” and that “this can influence the results.”¹¹)

Injections—including aluminum-contain­ing vitamin K¹² and hepatitis B¹³ shots—repre­sent the most invasive newborn interventions. From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) perspective, there are almost no contraindications for newborn or subsequent infant vaccines.¹⁴ Inadvertently, however, the Covid lockdowns of 2020 high­lighted the glaring possibility that rather than sparing baby deaths, vaccines and other iat­rogenic (doctor-caused) factors contribute to them. In 2020, infant vaccinations—and family interactions with health care more generally— plummeted dramatically, and lo and behold, when researchers then analyzed adverse event reports submitted to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), they observed a corresponding and precipitous decline in cases of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).¹⁵ SIDS is one of the top three causes of infant deaths overall,¹⁶ and 2020 marked “the lowest yearly number [of SIDS deaths] recorded in the history of VAERS.”¹⁵ Beyond the VAERS data, the U.S. also experienced a reduction in infant mortality overall; as researchers Amy Becker and Mark Blaxill discreetly put it, “something mysterious was saving the lives of children.”¹⁷

If one exposes the ever-growing barrage of newborn and prenatal medical interventions to close scrutiny, U.S. babies’ poor standing inter­nationally does not seem “mysterious” at all. In fact, it would be naive not to take iatrogenesis into account as a likely and major culprit. The remainder of this article considers what we know (and don’t know) about some of the most irksome forms of newborn medical interference.

IT STARTS IN UTERO

Before turning to post-birth interventions, we should remember that medical interventions affecting babies’ future well-being start in utero. Maternal vaccinations and ultrasounds¹⁸ constitute some of the most significant prenatal intrusions, particularly in light of their ability to cause harm synergistically.¹⁹ Kendall Nelson has extensively described the alarming prolifera­tion of maternal vaccine recommendations in past issues of Wise Traditions—with pregnant women now advised to get not only flu and Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis) shots but also the newer Covid and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) products.^20-23 With the floodgates open, other maternal vaccines are on the horizon.²⁴ Discussing the fetal and infant harms caused by Covid shots, Etana Hecht wrote on Substack in May 2022:

“The topic of pregnant and nursing moms getting vaccinated under encouragement and coercion is painful. It’s painful to re­search, painful to write about, and painful to learn how carelessly the most precious among us are being treated.”²⁵

As for ultrasound, medical websites claim that the “typical” ultrasound schedule involves “at least” two ultrasounds—one each in the first and second trimesters, with the possibility of more in the third trimester.²⁶ However, a decade-old analysis of ultrasound data suggests that the average may be much higher—it was already over five ultrasounds per delivery as of 2014.²⁷ The advent of non-medical boutique businesses that provide “keepsake” ultrasounds in 3D and 4D,²⁸ and portable (wireless) ultrasound tech­nologies,²⁹ are some of the factors encouraging women blithely to get additional ultrasounds. (For a fascinating discussion of prenatal ultra­sound’s potential impacts on the baby, see the article by Anke Zimmermann in this issue of Wise Traditions; Zimmermann suggests that it is not unusual for some women to have up to ten ultrasounds per pregnancy and describes a client who received two 3D ultrasounds in one day!)

Warnings about adverse impacts of ultra­sound are not new. Decades ago, researchers compared the “high-intensity audio sound” to which fetuses were exposed³⁰ through ultra­sound to “the sound of a subway train entering a station.”³¹ In 1993, a study linked prenatal ultrasound to speech delays,³² and a 2001 study used left-handedness as a proxy to hypothesize effects on the fetal brain.³³ As a health science consultant told HuffPost back in 2011, ultra­sound affects the migration of neurons and has the potential to “change basic brain functional­ity”; she further explained, “[t]his migration of neurons is one of the most delicate, complex and critical processes during fetal development.”³¹ In light of the literature (vociferously denied by the obstetrics community) linking ultrasound exposure to autism and other neurodevelop­mental disorders,³⁴ it is somewhat alarming that researchers are now promoting ultrasound as a tool to “identify early signs of autism.”³⁵ Know­ing that ultrasounds produce false-positive fetal anomaly results in at least 8.8 percent of cases (and “misclassification of potential anomalies” in 9.2 percent of cases) is a further reason why a subset of parents-to-be prefers to avoid the stress and opt out.²⁷

Beyond ultrasound and vaccination, prena­tal care also comes with a bewildering array of prenatal screening tests, described on the web­site of the Office on Women’s Health within the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS).³⁶ Tests that may be proposed include:

• Ten to thirteen weeks: Chorionic villus sampling (CVS), in which “a needle removes a small sample of cells from the placenta” to diagnose birth defects—a test often pushed on mothers who are age thirty-five or older.
• Eleven to fourteen weeks: Screen involving a blood test plus ultrasound to look for chromosomal disorders and problems such as heart defects.
• Fourteen to twenty weeks: Amniocentesis (a thin needle “draw[s] out a small amount of amniotic fluid and cells from the sac sur­rounding the fetus”).
• Fifteen to twenty weeks: A “maternal serum screen (also called quad screen, triple test, triple screen, multiple marker screen, or AFP)” used to detect risk of chromosomal disorders and neural tube defects.
• Twenty-six to twenty-eight weeks: A glucose challenge screen­ing, possibly followed up by a glucose tolerance test, to assess risk or diagnose gestational diabetes.
• Third trimester: “Biophysical profile” (ultrasound plus “nonstress test”).
• Thirty-six to thirty-seven weeks: A Group B Streptococcus (GBS) test (a swab from the vagina and rectum).

All of these interventions come with risks, which, even if disclosed, are rarely heeded by anxious parents. Cleveland Clinic admits, for ex­ample, that CVS introduces a one in three hundred to five hundred risk of miscarriage as well as infection risks and “rare” cases of limb deformity.³⁷ Discussing limb malformations, a 2003 study described the “absence of the distal portion of the third finger, with tapering and stiff joints,” as a “distinctive effect of exposure to CVS.”³⁸ A 1999 study reported a significantly increased frequency of clubfoot as well as serious intestinal malformations in children exposed to CVS.³⁹ A European study published in 2020 found that “CVS seems to increase the risk of miscarriage by about three times above the patient’s background risk,” with the authors deeming this “a substantial increase in relative terms.”⁴⁰ Amniocentesis, too, poses miscarriage and preterm labor risks as well as risking other potential complications.⁴¹

Nor is the glucose challenge test to screen for gestational diabetes as benign as it may sound. A midwifery practice in New Jersey warns pregnant women against imbibing “toxic” glucose testing drinks, noting that the commonly used product called Glucola contains preservatives as well as a “‘natural’ flavoring ingredient which can actually be a com­bination of up to 100 additives”; they suggest that a fifty-gram carbohy­drate breakfast consisting of two pieces of toast, two eggs, one cup of cow’s milk and one-half cup of fruit juice can serve the purpose equally well.⁴² Describing other glucose drinks, Katie Wells of the Wellness Mama website states that commonly used glucose drinks contain “food dyes, brominated vegetable oil (BVO), dextrose from corn” and other ingredients that she “would not normally consume while pregnant (or ever!).”⁴³ Wells also notes the high rate of false positives, particularly in women who do not ordinarily consume sugar in the large amounts (fifty grams or about twelve teaspoons) present in the test beverages.

In her “Guidelines for a Healthy Pregnancy and Optimal Health for Your Baby” PowerPoint presentation, Weston A. Price Foundation president Sally Fallon Morell discusses the downsides of testing for GBS—noting that the test frequently leads to unnecessary antibiotics and downstream adverse effects on both mother and baby.⁴⁴ Disturbing the baby’s microbiome can trigger short-term effects, such as newborn thrush and yeast infections,⁴⁵ as well as longer-term “metabolic consequences.”⁴⁶ Morell sug­gests that coconut oil and probiotic foods during pregnancy are preferable measures for ensuring a healthy bacterial balance. Unfortunately, the alternative to antibiotics being floated by the pharmaceutical industry is a GBS vaccine, with Pfizer currently running clinical trials with pregnant women.⁴⁷

MAKING EYE CONTACT

The mandate to apply erythromycin oint­ment (or, formerly, silver nitrate drops) to new­borns’ eyes within one to two hours of birth offers a case study of many of the perils and pitfalls of an overly zealous and medicalized post-birth environment. First is the fact that the measure dates back to the nineteenth century, when a tiny percentage of infants (estimated at 0.3 percent) developed blindness that a scientist, in 1879, hypothesized was due to Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteria.⁴⁸ In a 2023 publication, two female researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn made the case that the practice of universal “prophylaxis” which took hold both domestically and globally on the basis of this shaky hypothesis—a practice now over one hundred forty years old—is “not literature-supported” and, for multiple reasons, should be discontinued.⁴⁹

A number of European countries have al­ready adopted this advice. Italian researchers who object to their country’s status quo policy have reasonably lobbied in favor of pronounc­ing the mandatory measure “obsolete,” given that they were able to find only one possibly relevant case of infant conjunctivitis among nearly two hundred thousand neonates born over a three-year period.⁵⁰ For their part, the two SUNY researchers also characterize as pointless the addition of Chlamydia trachomatis to the list of declared bacterial risk factors for newborn blindness (this took place in the 1990s when the low prevalence of gonorrhea could no longer satisfactorily justify the prophylaxis policy), because the 0.5 percent erythromycin ointment used in the U.S. “is ineffective against C. trachomatis.”⁴⁹

Dr. Sam Bailey raises even more funda­mental points in a video questioning claims that N. gonorrhoeae bacteria are responsible for the symptoms labeled as “gonorrhea” or that “gonorrhea” is transmissible.⁵¹ Among the variety of revealing historical tidbits she uncovers is an animal study that supposedly documented mother-to-baby transmission. The researchers forcibly injected a substance into a pregnant rat’s abdomen, calling it “infection” and then documenting fetal death, but this un­natural “physical violation,” as Bailey remarks, “can hardly be seen to implicate Neisseria as a pathogen in normal settings.” She also describes 1940s-era experiments in Guatemala that failed to produce syphilis in male prisoners who were amply supplied with alcohol and artificially “in­fected” prostitutes. Another American study of the era turned to “deep inoculation of the penis,” namely, “the painful procedure of traumatizing the penis by inserting a toothpick wrapped in bacteria-soaked cotton into the urethra.” The CDC used that experiment to claim a gonorrhea “transmission rate” of 33 percent, but Bailey’s more logical conclusion is that “if you stick a toothpick into a penis, there will be unpleasant repercussions.”⁵¹

The fact that newborn eye intervention is a legal requirement set out in most U.S. states’ “Regulations for Disease Reporting and Control,” with providers required to record it in the infant’s medical record,⁵² points to another significant problem with most newborn protocols—one that has become more obvious with the overt rise in medical tyranny since 2020. As a non-profit legal advocacy organization put it in late 2023, not only do “[l]aws governing the care of newborns abound” but they interfere with parents’ right to make independent health care decisions for their baby.⁵³ Fortunately, some states have loosened their laws, acknowledging parents’ right to opt out of the eye treatment and no longer slapping providers who fail to administer the intervention with a Class C misdemeanor charge.⁵⁴

In the face of strangely persistent shortages of erythromycin ointment, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and health authorities are now advising a more aggressive protocol. They recommend testing any mother for gonorrhea who is “at risk for exposure to N. gonorrhoeae or who had no prenatal care,”⁵⁵ using one of the very same types of bogus testing methods—nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT)⁵⁶—that helped gin up the ostensible Covid crisis.⁵⁷ Even those who believe that these artificial sequencing tests mean something have criticized NAAT testing for gonorrhea as being prone to “false-positives,” particularly in settings where gonorrhea is uncommon.⁵⁸ Nevertheless, if the mother tests NAAT-“positive” for “gonorrhea,” the AAP’s recommendation—where topical erythromycin ointment is unavailable—is to inject the poor baby with up to two hundred fifty milligrams of another antibiotic called cef­triaxone. The drug is contraindicated for newborns with a high bilirubin level and premature infants,⁵⁹ and breastfeeding mothers are advised to use it “with caution” because of its ability to cause bilirubin-induced neurological damage.⁶⁰

The persistent mucking about with newborns’ eyes reveals how little concern is generally lent toward the baby’s experience. In the days of the acidic silver nitrate drops initially used as “prophylaxis,” the drops were “extremely irritating to the eye” (including burning the cornea) and could cause “severe pain, chemical pink eye. . . and temporary vision problems.”⁴⁸ Early on, doctors used 2 percent silver nitrate, but because it so frequently triggered “chemical conjunctivitis,” the consensus later converged on a reduced concentration of 1 percent.⁵⁰ Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) admits that even the antibiotic ointments that became the standard of care beginning in the 1950s can cause new­borns’ eyes to become “very irritated with red­ness or swelling”—but, untroubled by the fact that blurry eyes also interfere with mother-child bonding, CHOP sternly tells distressed parents to hang tight and make no attempt to wash the goop out.⁶¹ Rebecca Dekker of Evidence-Based Birth has reasonably pointed out that there are gentler ways to prevent newborn eye infections, including the simple measure of using mother’s first milk (colostrum) as eye drops.⁶² Some countries have embraced povidone iodine as an alternative.⁵⁰

GENETIC SCREENING GRAVY TRAIN

Medicine presents genetic screening as a net-positive, but the fact is that prenatal and newborn screening for “a rapidly expanding list of. . . potential genetic flaws”⁶³ comes with psy­chosocial and other risks. Discussing newborn testing, one group of authors notes, “uncertainty in the science of predictive testing and treatment combines with issues of privacy and religious and cultural beliefs,” creating a “fuzzier. . . bal­ance of interests.”⁶⁴

False-positive results bring many of these issues to the fore. A Chinese study that assessed false-positives in response to expanded new­born screening for metabolic disorders found that not only were parents who received false-positive results more stressed out, children with false-positive results “were triple as likely” as children with normal results (27 percent versus 9 percent) to experience subsequent hospital­ization!⁶⁵ U.S. researchers, too, have examined these issues, noting that early experiences with PKU screening “showed poor parental under­standing of false-positive results and a tendency for parents of such children to perceive their children as medically vulnerable.”⁶⁶ Some stud­ies link false-positive results to “long-lasting psychological stress” in the parents.⁶⁶ As states continue to add “multiple independent diseases of low prevalence” to their screening panels, this increases the likelihood of false-positives, with estimates suggesting that, already by 2005, the U.S. may have been generating over fifty-one thousand such results annually.⁶⁷

The complexities surrounding false-positives also touch on the long-simmering ethical debate over the “right not to know.” In an article published in 2016 in BMC Medical Ethics,⁶⁸ a Norwegian researcher noted that the explosion of “omics” branches of science (such as genomics) is leading to ever more “incidental findings of uncertain significance” (IFUS), raising pressing “right not to know” questions. Whereas “genet­ics professionals appear to think that to know is [always] better than not to know,” he concludes:

“[T]o know or not to know, that is not the question. The question is: can I trust the test results and will they make any difference? I.e., will I become diseased and can anything be done? IFUS cannot answer these questions. Accordingly, if I cannot trust a test result, and/or (if the result is accurate but) nothing can be done to improve my health, there appear not to be any compelling reason [sic] that I should be informed, if I do not want to be. Correspondingly, one could claim a right not to be given inaccurate and/or inactionable information. In the case of IFUS, ignorance is bliss.”⁶⁸

Medicine’s fixation with genetic screening raises questions about the direction in which “old biology” is taking us—versus what Dr. Tom Cowan and others are calling the “new biology.”⁶⁹ In Cowan’s 2019 book, Cancer and the New Biology of Water,⁷⁰ he suggests that the very concept of DNA “as masterminding the life of the cell, controlling its every move, is wrong.” Discussing cancer, he continues: “Rather, DNA is one aspect of the complex life of the cell and the life of the organism. It is essential to rethink science’s obsessive focus on DNA and genetic determinism if we are ever to make real strides in the prevention and treatment of [cancer].”

Unfortunately, mainstream science is moving in the opposite direc­tion of the “new biology,” embracing genomics as a major new frontier and opportunity.⁷¹ Genomics claims to study all of a person’s genes—the complete set of DNA called the genome⁷²—and “genomic medicine” promises that once it identifies genes “involved in disease aetiology,” it will be able to “develop better treatments and cures.”⁷³ “Whole-genome sequencing” (WGS)—a sequencing process said to translate “all of the 3 billion DNA base pairs that make up an entire human genome into a file made up of letters”⁷⁴—is poised to replace tandem mass spectrometry, the most recent fancy technology used to detect congenital diseases fol­lowing an infant heel prick.

As described by Children’s Health Defense (CHD), Harvard geneti­cist and “molecular engineer” George Church has played a lead role in marketing WGS to the public.⁷⁵ CHD describes Church as “the ‘godfather’ of the Human Genome Project, co-founder of multiple genomics-focused companies, one-time close associate of Jeffrey Epstein and on record as describing as ‘feasible’ the assembly of Neanderthal DNA into an embryo and implantation in a woman. Church has been at the forefront of efforts to normalize synthetic biology, gene editing and. . . transhumanism” and “has been accused of promoting eugenics as well as unethical human experimentation.”⁷⁵ Church’s Veritas Genomics company began offering WGS services in 2016 but, as CHD notes, he has remained silent about privacy and ethical issues, including “what it means for a for-profit com­pany to stockpile babies’ genetic blueprints” or, in Corey Lynn’s words, to build a “global marketplace for genomic and healthcare data.”⁷⁶

In a nod to some of the implications, the BBC reported on a part­nership between DNA testing company 23andMe and pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), announced in 2018 as a way to combine “23andMe’s genetic research with GSK’s drug development expertise.”⁷⁷ 23andMe’s top legal and regulatory officer explained the deal as a win for her customers (“giv[ing] customers more information they can use to inform their health decisions”), but even the tame BBC wondered, “has the company changed its focus to monetising its genetic database”?

Another cautionary tale comes from the HHS Inspector General’s Office, which in 2019 warned the public about “nationwide genetic testing fraud.” Although the scam in question affected the Medicare system, not newborns, it showed that genetic testing can be a fruitful avenue for fraud. In the scheme, fraudulent recruiters would get Medicare beneficiaries to take a genetic test and get a doctor’s sign-off allowing a lab to process the test; in return, the doctor would get a kickback, Medicare would re­imburse the lab and the lab would share the proceeds with the recruiter.⁷⁸

OTHER INVISIBLE AND UNRECOGNIZED THREATS

In addition to the obvious interventions, there are many other ways that hospitals and conventional newborn settings may expose babies to harm. For example, a growing body of literature describes the high ex­posures to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) that can occur in the hospital environment.⁷⁹ A study dating back to 1994 assessed the occupational exposures of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurses and found that “the vast majority of observed peaks. . . occurred while [nurses] were in close proximity to infant bed units” called isolettes, where the magnetic field levels measured were comparable to levels detected in worksites “related to electrical occupations.”⁸⁰ Because the study focused on nurses’ exposures, the authors said little about the fields’ impact on the premature or critically ill newborns in the isolettes, other than a one-sentence recom­mendation to investigate the “health consequences of long-term infant exposure to such field levels.” Nowadays, in addition to the electronic soup generated by ubiquitous medical devices and smartphones, large hospitals also brag about their “infant security” measures, which may include attaching an electronic security sensor to the baby’s umbilical cord clamp, as well as twenty-four-hour video surveillance.⁸¹

University hospitals pose another subtle threat to newborns and their families—the research dragnet. For example, describing itself as a “premier research institution,” Brigham and Women’s Hospital “offers interested families the option to participate in research studies ranging from the evaluation of tools to measure jaundice to studies on genome sequencing of newborns.”⁸² Given the decimation of meaningful in­formed consent we have witnessed in recent years, even the most altruistic of individuals may wish to consider the tradeoffs of research participation. As the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) has reported, FDA pushed through a rule change in December 2023 that “solidifies that scientists are allowed to conduct human experiments without informed consent, as long as the research poses ‘minimal risk’ and includes ‘appropriate safeguards.’”⁸³

Aspirin represents a recent addition to the list of possible prenatal interventions. In 2021, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and others began recommending low-dose aspirin use beginning at twelve weeks gestation for pregnant women at high risk of preeclamp­sia.⁸⁴ The USPSTF recommends determining “high risk” primarily on the basis of a history of preeclampsia in a prior pregnancy, chronic hypertension or type 1 or type 2 diabetes, but also furnishes a long list of other risk factors: multifetal gestation, conception using assisted reproductive technology, autoimmune disease, kidney disease, nulliparity, high prepregnancy body mass index, family history of preeclamp­sia, being age thirty-five or older and being Black. Though aspirin sounds as innocuous as apple pie to most Americans, Tom Cowan has shown that its toxicity is underestimated and that “it is far from a safe or effective medicine.”⁸⁵

Parents’ preconception health status is an important and underestimated determinant of a baby’s subsequent health, but it is somewhat worrisome to see the medical community setting its sights on beefing up “preconception care,”⁸⁶ a trend that promises more interventions. Un­surprisingly, those advocating for more attention to the preconception period leave unaddressed one of the most important preconceptional influences—a nutrient-dense diet.⁸⁷

In late 2022, CDC reported that home birth levels had risen to their highest level in thirty years, with a 19 percent rise in the number of home births from 2019 to 2020, and another 13 percent increase between 2020 and 2021.⁸⁸ Overall, only 1.5 percent of U.S. women deliv­ered at home as of January 2021, but the CDC’s report highlighted large percentage increases in some states.

In early 2024, a Commonwealth-Fund-supported report by STAT indicated that home birth looks set to continue its upward trajectory, pro­pelled by “a community of women who feel that they are going to make their own decisions.”⁸⁹ Childbirth researcher Eugene Declercq told STAT, “This is about dissatisfaction with care at the hospital. This is about a lack of trust in that care.” Although Declercq’s research suggests that hospital bullying contributes significantly to lack of trust, one wonders whether families are also trying to spare their newborns the trauma of running the medical gauntlet.

---

SIDEBAR

ONE FAMILY’S EXPERIENCE

The following is a lightly edited reader comment posted in response to a September 2022 article at Children’s Health Defense titled “Prenatal care, American style—a Trojan horse for harmful interventions?”⁷⁵

“In 1977, our daughter was a few weeks old and my wife’s breast milk seemed to be inadequate for her. We went to her doctor at the time to see what should be done. He recommended a soy type of milk. This almost did [our daughter] in. A couple of days later. . . I was over at the book aisle and came across a book by Adelle Davis [and] I started reading it, as my wife was shopping. It [piqued] my interest right away, and we bought it. [We] went home and started to do everything possible that was recommended. Raw milk, brewer’s yeast, different vitamins, etc. Within days, [our daughter] improved immensely. My wife went in for the next visit with the doctor, and he noticed that our daughter was doing well, and stated. . . ‘keep doing [what I recommended].’ My wife said, ‘What you recommended almost did her in.’ She told him what we were doing based on Adelle Davis’s book, and he lost it. [He] slammed his fist down on the desk, and said we were going to kill her with what we were doing. My wife (furious by now) got up and left. That started our search for ways that worked (in the past or present) and [we] kept doing it, the best we could. I knew some people in the past who were into this kind of health, and they seemed to be in somewhat better shape than most.”

---

REFERENCES

1. Gunja MZ, Gumas ED, Williams RD II. U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective, 2022: Accelerating Spending, Worsening Outcomes. The Commonwealth Fund, Jan. 31, 2023.
2. National Center for Health Statistics. Infant mor­tality rates by state. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, last reviewed Sep. 12, 2023.
3. Thakrar AP, Forrest AD, Maltenfort MG, et al. Child mortality in the US and 19 OECD com­parator nations: a 50-year time-trend analysis. Health Aff (Millwood). 2018 Jan;37(1):140-149.
4. Healthcare spending in the United States remains high. Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Apr. 5, 2023.
5. Bui AL, Dieleman JL, Hamavid H, et al. Spend­ing on children’s personal health care in the United States, 1996-2013. JAMA Pediatr. 2017 Feb 1;171(2):181-189.
6. Why do they prick your newborn baby’s heel? Cleveland Clinic, Oct. 5, 2020.
7. Belleza M. Care of the Newborn: Study Guide for Nurses. Nurseslabs, Apr. 30, 2024.
8. The APGAR score. CREOGs Over Coffee, Oct. 2, 2022.
9. https://www.uclahealth.org/medical-services/birthplace/planning-your-childs-birth/screen­ings-and-vaccinations
10. Paradise D. How accurate is newborn genetic testing? CryoCell International, last updated Sep. 29, 2023.
11. https://www.audiology.org/consumers-and-patients/children-and-hearing-loss/newborn-hearing-screening/
12. Vitamin K shots. Children’s Health Defense, Feb. 13, 2020.
13. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf
14. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Contraindications and precautions. Cen­ters for Disease Control and Prevention, updated Aug. 1, 2023.
15. Hooker B. During COVID lockdown, vaccine rates dropped—so did the number of SIDS deaths. The Defender, Jan. 22, 2021.
16. National Center for Health Statistics. Infant health. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, last reviewed Apr. 25, 2024.
17. Becker A, Blaxill M. Lessons from the lockdown: Why are so many fewer children dying? A white paper from Health Choice, Jun. 18, 2020. https://www.rescuepost.com/files/lessons-from-the-lockdown-vf-6-17-20—-new-layout.pdf
18. Children’s Health Defense Team. Prenatal ultrasound—not so sound after all. Children’s Health Defense, Aug. 20, 2019.
19. Book summary: 50 human studies: a new bibliography reveals extreme risk for prenatal ultrasound. Harvoa, 2015. https://harvoa.org/chs/pr/dusbk1.htm
20. Nelson K. Vaccines and pregnancy. Wise Traditions. Summer 2018;19(2):71-6.
21. Nelson K. Covid injections: the emerging reproductive fallout. Wise Tradi­tions. Fall 2021;22(3):74-83.
22. Nelson K. Navigating novel RSV vaccines amid a complex history. Wise Traditions. Winter 2023;24(4):62-67.
23. Children’s Health Defense Team. Pfizer works to fast-track more vaccines for pregnant moms, despite mounting evidence rushed COVID shots harmed babies. The Defender, Nov. 9, 2022.
24. Pfizer (PFE) Group B Streptococcus vaccine candidate granted FDA break­through therapy designation. StreetInsider.com, Sep. 7, 2022.
25. Hecht E. Vaccinated women: fertility signals are coming through. Clown World–Honk, May 25, 2022. https://etana.substack.com/p/vaccinated-women
26. What is the typical pregnancy ultrasound schedule? UPMC HealthBeat, May 8, 2023.
27. Horsager-Boehrer R. Pregnancy without ultrasound? Pros and cons. UT Southwestern Medical Center, Sep. 24, 2019.
28. Grady S. It’s a booming baby business, but are 3D/4D ultrasounds really worth the risk? Fox 6 Now Milwaukee, Feb. 17, 2015.
29. Eggleston AJ, Farrington E, McDonald S, et al. Portable ultrasound tech­nologies for estimating gestational age in pregnant women: a scoping re­view and analysis of commercially available models. BMJ Open. 2022 Nov 30;12(11):e065181.
30. Fatemi M, Alizad A, Greenleaf JF. Characteristics of the audio sound gener­ated by ultrasound imaging systems. J Acoust Soc Am. 2005 Mar;117(3 Pt 1):1448-1455.
31. Risley MC. Could prenatal ultrasounds contribute to cases of autism? Huff­Post, Jul. 13, 2011 (updated Sep. 12, 2011).
32. Campbell JD, Elford RW, Brant RF. Case-control study of prenatal ultra­sonography exposure in children with delayed speech. CMAJ. 1993 Nov 15;149(10):1435-1440.
33. Kieler H, Cnattingius S, Haglund B, et al. Sinistrality—a side-effect of pre­natal sonography: a comparative study of young men. Epidemiology. 2001 Nov;12(6):618-623.
34. Rosman NP, Vassar R, Doros G, et al. Association of prenatal ultrasonography and autism spectrum disorder. JAMA Pediatr. 2018 Apr 1;172(4):336-344.
35. A routine prenatal ultrasound can identify early signs of autism, study finds. ScienceDaily, Feb. 9, 2022.
36. Office on Women’s Health. Prenatal care and tests. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, last updated Feb. 22, 2021.
37. Chorionic villus sampling for prenatal diagnosis. Cleveland Clinic, last reviewed Jun. 27, 2021.
38. Golden CM, Ryan LM, Holmes LB. Chorionic villus sampling: a distinctive teratogenic effect on fingers? Birth Defects Res A Clin Mol Teratol. 2003 Aug;67(8):557-562.
39. Stoler JM, McGuirk CK, Lieberman E, et al. Malformations reported in chorionic villus sampling exposed children: a review and analytic synthesis of the literature. Genet Med. 1999 Nov-Dec;1(7):315-322.
40. Gil MM, Molina FS, Rodríguez-Fernández M, et al. New approach for estimating risk of miscarriage after chorionic villus sampling. Ultrasound Obstet Gynecol. 2020 Nov;56(5):656-663.
41. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/treatment-tests-and-therapies/amniocentesis
42. Pregnant women should avoid toxic glucose testing drinks. Midwives of New Jersey, Apr. 29, 2024.
43. Wells K. Glucola pregnancy glucose test: what I do. Wellness Mama, Jan. 29, 2016.
44. Morell SF. Guidelines for a Healthy Pregnancy and Optimal Health for Your Baby. Weston A. Price Foundation, n.d. https://www.westonaprice.org/wp-content/uploads/HealthyPregnancy.pdf
45. Dinsmoor MJ, Viloria R, Lief L, et al. Use of intrapartum antibiotics and the incidence of postnatal maternal and neonatal yeast infections. Obstet Gynecol. 2005 Jul;106(1):19-22.
46. Turta O, Rautava S. Antibiotics, obesity and the link to microbes—what are we doing to our children? BMC Med. 2016 Apr 19;14:57.
47. Madhi SA, Anderson AS, Absalon J, et al. Potential for maternally admin­istered vaccine for infant Group B Streptococcus. N Engl J Med. 2023 Jul 20;389(3):215-227.
48. Dekker R. The evidence on: erythromycin eye ointment for newborns. Evidence-Based Birth, Nov. 12, 2012 (updated Nov. 6, 2019).
49. Franco S, Hammerschlag MR. Neonatal ocular prophylaxis in the United States: is it still necessary? Expert Rev Anti Infect Ther. 2023;21(5):503-511.
50. Auriti C, Mondì V, Aversa S, et al. Ophthalmia neonatorum in Italy: it is time for change. Ital J Pediatr. 2021 Dec 18;47(1):238.
51. Bailey S. What we weren’t taught about gonorrhea. Dr Sam Bailey, May 17, 2022.
52. https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/content/uploads/sites/13/2019/08/Erythromy­cin-Variance-Letter_07.23.19_with-links.pdf
53. Newborn eye ointment and parental rights. Heritage Defense, Sep. 28, 2023.
54. Porter R. Erythromycin (newborn eye goop) law in Tennessee. Blissful Birth­ing TN, Oct. 3, 2020.
55. Erythromycin ointment shortage. American Academy of Pediatrics, Jan. 8, 2024. https://publications.aap.org/redbook/resources/27790/Erythromycin-Ointment-Shortage?autologincheck=redirected
56. https://www.ondemand.labcorp.com/blog/covid19-test-comparison
57. Bailey S. The truth about PCR tests. Dr Sam Bailey, Jan. 13, 2021.
58. Katz AR, Effler PV, Ohye RG, et al. False-positive gonorrhea test results with a nucleic acid amplification test: the impact of low prevalence on positive predictive value. Clin Infect Dis. 2004 Mar 15;38(6):814-9.
59. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/drugs/20162-ceftriaxone-injection
60. https://www.rxlist.com/ceftriaxone/generic-drug.htm
61. https://www.chop.edu/conditions-diseases/eye-prophylaxisvitamin-k-injec­tion
62. Dekker R. Evidence on: eye ointment for newborns. Evidence-Based Birth, 2017.
63. Molteni M. How much prenatal genetic information do you actually want? Wired, Mar. 27, 2019.
64. Kraszewski J, Burke T, Rosenbaum S. Legal issues in newborn screening: implications for public health practice and policy. Public Health Rep. 2006 Jan-Feb;121(1):92-94.
65. Tu WJ, He J, Chen H, et al. Psychological effects of false-positive results in expanded newborn screening in China. PLoS One. 2012;7(4):e36235.
66. Lipstein EA, Perrin JM, Waisbren SE, et al. Impact of false-positive newborn metabolic screening results on early health care utilization. Genet Med. 2009 Oct;11(10):716-721.
67. Tarini BA, Christakis DA, Welch HG. State newborn screening in the tandem mass spectrometry era: more tests, more false-positive results. Pediatrics. 2006 Aug;118(2):448-456.
68. Hofmann B. Incidental findings of uncertain significance: To know or not to know—that is not the question. BMC Med Ethics. 2016 Feb 13;17:13.
69. https://www.thenewbiology.com/
70. Cowan T. Cancer and the New Biology of Water. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green Pub­lishing, 2019.
71. Bick D, Ahmed A, Deen D, et al. Newborn screening by genomic sequencing: opportunities and challenges. Int J Neonatal Screen. 2022 Jul 15;8(3):40.
72. A brief guide to genomics. National Human Genome Research Institute, last updated Aug. 16, 2022.
73. Hall WD, Morley KI, Lucke JC. The prediction of disease risk in genomic medicine. EMBO Rep. 2004 Oct;5 Spec No(Suppl 1):S22-S26.
74. Whole genome sequencing. Yale Medicine, n.d.
75. Children’s Health Defense Team. Prenatal care, American style—a Trojan horse for harmful interventions? The Defender, Sep. 29, 2022.
76. Lynn C. The global landscape on vaccine ID passports part 4: Blockchained. Corey’s Digs, Aug. 26, 2021.
77. Fogarty P. Who’s making money from your DNA? BBC, Mar. 1, 2019.
78. Office of Inspector General. Nationwide genetic testing fraud. U.S. Department of Health & Hu­man Services, last updated Feb. 24, 2023.
79. Stam R, Yamaguchi-Sekino S. Occupational exposure to electromagnetic fields from medical sources. Ind Health. 2018 Apr 7;56(2):96-105
80. Paul M, Hammond SK, Abdollahzadeh S. Power frequency magnetic field exposures among nurses in a neonatal intensive care unit and a normal newborn nursery. Bioelectromagnetics. 1994;15(6):519-529.
81. https://www.uclahealth.org/medical-services/birthplace/planning-your-childs-birth/infant-security
82. https://www.brighamandwomens.org/pediatrics/well-newborn-care
83. Disturbing FDA loophole allows scientists to do experiments on humans without informed consent. ICAN Legal Update, Apr. 29, 2024.
84. Aspirin use to prevent preeclampsia and related morbidity and mortality: preventive medication. USPSTF, Sep. 28, 2021.
85. Cowan T. Questioning the safety and effective­ness of daily aspirin use. Wise Traditions. Fall 2018;19(3):34-36.
86. Stephenson J, Schoenaker DA, Hinton W, et al. A wake-up call for preconception health: a clinical review. Br J Gen Pract. 2021 Apr 29;71(706):233- 236.
87. Morell SF. Nutrition and mental development. Weston A. Price Foundation, Mar. 17, 2011.
88. National Center for Health Statistics. Home births in the U.S. increase to highest level in 30 years. CDC, Nov. 17, 2022.
89. Cohen E. As midwife-assisted home births rise, so too do high-risk births outside hospitals. STAT, Feb. 23, 2024.

This article appeared in Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, Summer 2024

🖨️ Print post