Category: Umbilical Cord Testing
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Screening Pregnant Women for Substance Use: Key Insights
“You don’t want to go on a date with me, do you?” There’s no good way to answer this question. If I do want to go on a date, I’m actually disagreeing with the person asking me. If I don’t, well, you know…saying “You’re correct. I don’t,” is hard. I refer to this as the…
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Universal Testing for Neonates: A Crucial Need
We know the government is here to help, but the unintended consequences of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) may make it one of the lousiest pieces of legislation ever passed – and amended and amended again. It’s like we’re trying to polish a turd. We know that drug testing is rife with…
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We CAN Mitigate FASDs
One of the conditions that Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) may be mistaken for is Williams Syndrome. In general, it looks the same, the behaviors are the same, and the outcomes are the same. However, Williams Syndrome is typically diagnosed by the time a child is 3½, and FAS is, well, typically not ever diagnosed. Regarding…
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Prenatal Substance Exposure: A Neglected Health Crisis
Urine drug tests can be done for every patient in every hospital…but they aren’t. And that lack of testing everyone who is hospitalized could be considered discriminatory, especially when the group of patients all being tested, under the guise of not discriminating, is pregnant people, as if pregnant people are the only ones who may…
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Mandatory Reporting in Healthcare: The Prenatal Dilemma
Imagine that you’re a person working in the healthcare profession…perhaps a nurse or a doctor. And think about what caused you to go to school for all those extra years. Was it the desire to have lots of student debt? Maybe it was working all those hours, especially on weekends and holidays… Or perhaps it…
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Krabbe? Cancer? FASD?
We’re talking about screening for a lifelong condition that can’t be cured that conservatively affects 5% of the population…1 in 20 live births!
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Racial Disparities in Newborn Drug Testing and Prenatal Care
What would a pregnant person on the verge of delivering a baby say if she were asked if she has a history of drug abuse within the last 12-18 months? How about if she’s asked about her history of child abuse, neglect, or court-ordered placements of children outside the home? History of domestic abuse or…
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Would Your Baby Pass The Test?
The number one cause of pregnancy-related deaths in the US is mental health conditions, which includes overdose and poisoning related to substance use disorders.
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Test It, and You Will Know
How many people have Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs)? Mental illness? Substance use disorders (SUDs)? The disease of addiction? …in the US? What about in Canada? The United Kingdom? Czechoslovakia? We think we have statistics, but as everyone knows, statistics lie. As an example, think about surveying a community regarding whether or not a sports…
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Syphilis or FASDs? Why Not Address Both?
Wisconsin is having a spate of congenital syphilis cases, so much so that Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services issued a memo to healthcare providers, including health departments and tribal health clinics, about the need to test pregnant people for the bacteria that causes the infection. The memo indicates that “The number of congenital syphilis cases…
Guided by Guida 