Elena LaVictoire's Profile

For the first time, a majority of those surveyed disapproved of the president’s work on health care (53 percent) and oppose the health care reform package making its way through Congress (51 percent, compared to 44 percent approval).

That seven-point margin for opposition is its most to date -- indeed statistically significant for the first time -- and the differential in intensity of sentiment has grown since September.

For the first time, a majority of those surveyed disapproved of the president’s work on health care (53 percent) and oppose the health care reform package making its way through Congress (51 percent, compared to 44 percent approval).

That seven-point margin for opposition is its most to date -- indeed statistically significant for the first time -- and the differential in intensity of sentiment has grown since September.

My heart went out to them. But I knew there was little I could do.
With five other pregnant women to care for at the same time, all with
hugely different and complex problems, I was rushed off my feet and
didn't have the time to look after her properly, to allay her fears or
to hear about how she wanted the birth to unfold.

I longed to sit with this poor young woman, calm her and remind her gently to breathe deeply through each contraction.

Just
half an hour of my time could have made all the difference. Instead, I
put on my cheeriest smile and followed hospital procedure. 'Would you
like a painkiller?' I asked.

Ten hours later, after she had been drugged to the eyeballs to dull the pain, I heard she'd given birth.

Her baby was healthy, but I knew I'd let her down.

As I watched her being wheeled into the ward, I felt eaten up with guilt. She'd effectively been ignored from the moment she turned up until the moment she gave birth.

Plonked on an antenatal ward until her time came, with no one to reassure her during what was most likely the most terrifying moment of her life.

No woman should have to give birth in these conditions  -  let alone in a modern hospital with professional staff at hand.

Welcome to the modern NHS maternity ward. A world of shoddy practice, poor hygiene standards and a shocking disregard for patients' individual needs.

Eighty percent of women who get breast cancer have none of the known risk factors!

This means we don’t have a clue as to what causes this disease. Could it be a virus? Is it due to certain environmental factors? Is it because of something that no one has even thought about and that we will never discover unless someone is daring enough to stand up to the status quo and start looking?

When you read some of those files – including 1079 emails and 72 documents – you realise just why the boffins at CRU might have preferred to keep them confidential. As Andrew Bolt puts it, this scandal could well be “the greatest in modern science”. These alleged emails – supposedly exchanged by some of the most prominent scientists pushing AGW theory – suggest:

Results showed that the frequency of VBAC success rose with increasing number of prior VBACs, from 63 percent with no prior VBACs to 88 percent for women with one and 91 percent for those with two or more prior VBACs.

The corresponding incidence of uterine rupture, a serious complication of labor, declined from 0.87 percent to 0.45 percent and 0.43 percent. The rates of other complications followed similar patterns with increasing number of prior VBACs.

In contrast, the investigators note, repeated cesarean deliveries are associated with higher risks of complications like placenta accreta (when the placenta implants too far into the uterus) and trauma to internal organs in the mother, as well as more frequent hysterectomies and blood transfusions.

"Women planning large families ... should be reassured by the increasing success rates and decreasing risks associated with VBAC attempts in successive pregnancies," Mercer and his associates conclude.

Alison has lived and thrived well beyond the expectations of the doctors that have treated her. Juana and the family hold onto a cautious hope that their days with her — however difficult at times —– will continue.

The medical advances in the field withstanding, Alison’s future is still uncertain and her condition is tenuous.

“She’s just so sensitive in a sense that if she gets a bad case of bronchitis, it might go wrong,” the physician assistant, Guerra, says. “But so far, so good. She always responds well when she gets treatments and surprises everybody. She’s just a fighter.”

From Alison’s bedside in the ICU unit, Juana says her one wish for Christmas is that her daughter not be in pain, that she continues to progress and advance and, most of all, that she can be with her “princess.”

“Spending the day with her is beautiful. Her smile and everything,” Juana says. “She is the most amazing gift God has given me.”