Sunday, March 13, 2011

Easing the Ride on the NICU Rollercoaster

The Natural Parents Network published another article I wrote, "Easing the Ride on the NICU Rollercoaster". Pop on over to read some tips and tricks on how to maintain normalacy and sanity while your little one is in the hospital.

This article is timely, but in a sad way. The FDA recently approved the use of progestrone shots during pregnancy to help prevent pre-term labor in high risk women. Women who need it take one shot weekly to help prevent contractions and the possible complecations that go with them. I took this medicine when I was pregnant with Cole and I believe it helped get him to 38 weeks.

The shots used to be about 10-30 dollars a week and could be made at a compounded pharmacy. Now they are 1,500 dollars! The price increase is horrible and I believe it takes advantage of women who are desperate to try and bring their babies to term. What was a simple, inexpensive and fairly affordable fix even if you had to pay out of pocket, is now much more expensive, hard to pay out of pocket and I can see insurence companies refusing this medicine to women, yet instead paying millions of dollars for the NICU and follow up care for the first two years- or longer.

How this is right, fair and good for maternal fetal health is beyond me. And legal? Oh, don't get me started.

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