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City hospitals to discourage publishing newborns' namesFrom: Dean Huffman (jth@springnet1.com)Sun Jul 30 11:06:12 2000
Two interesting articles from our local newspaper and food for thought. What do they do at your hospita? - - - - City hospitals to discourage publishing newborns' names By DOUG POKORSKI STAFF WRITER Because of concerns about the possibility of child abductions and lawsuits, Springfield's two maternity hospitals, beginning Tuesday, will stop providing birth announcements to The State Journal-Register. New parents will be able to put their own birth announcements in the Journal-Register under new procedures established by the newspaper, but officials at St. John's Hospital and Memorial Medical Center will advise them against doing so. "I don't know if the word I'd use is 'discourage' publication of birth notices, but the word is real close," said Todd Riplinger, director of risk management at Memorial. "We will recommend that (parents) not do it," said Eileen Streb, supervisor of the Birthing Center at St. John's. She added that St. John's staff members will suggest that new parents not announce new babies by putting balloons, wooden storks or other items in front of their homes. Neither Memorial nor St. John's has ever had a child abduction. The two hospitals have agreed to provide new parents with a form that they can use to submit a birth notice on their own. Previously, both hospitals gave new parents the option of putting birth notices in the paper. Not all parents did so. But when parents did agree to the publication, hospital staff members faxed the information to the paper. Riplinger and Streb said the two hospitals began considering abandoning that procedure after a visit earlier this year from representatives of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. After examining procedures at both hospitals, the NCMEC representatives found that the only security procedure at either hospital that didn't fully meet the organization's standards was the policy on birth announcements. The NCMEC recommends that hospitals consider the risk of publishing birth announcements and provide risk information to parents. If notices are published, they should include only the parents' surname and not include a home address or any other information that could aid a potential child abductor in finding the baby. That recommendation was made despite the NCMEC's own statistics, which show that the chances are miniscule that a child abduction may have been the result of a birth announcement. Since 1983, there have been 192 reported cases nationwide of newborns or infants being abducted. Of those, only four showed evidence that newspaper birth notices may have been used to target a child for abduction, said Cathy Nahirny, supervisor of the NCMEC case analysis and support division. All four of those infants were taken from their homes after being released from the hospital, Nahirny said. One of the four abductions also involved the murder of the mother, she said. No case of an abduction involving a published birth notice has been reported since 1993, she said. Nahirny acknowledged that four cases out of an estimated 75 million births over 17 years represents an extremely small degree of risk. By comparison, a 1999 study by the national Institute of Medicine estimated that 44,000 to 98,000 people die each year because of medical errors committed in hospitals. Moreover, in the four cases where birth notices may have contributed to abductions, the evidence that an abduction would not have occurred if the notice had not been published is open to question. In one of the cases, for example, the abductor of the baby had met the mother, knew she was pregnant and had obtained her phone number months before the baby's birth. In another case, the kidnappers had been planning an abduction well before the abducted baby's birth. They had been visiting a local hospital maternity ward, as well as checking published birth announcements. Nahirny said abductors of newborns and infants almost always are women in troubled domestic relationships who are convinced that having a baby in the household will solve their problems. Such women are very determined, she said. Despite the apparent low level of risk from birth announcements, Nahirny said, "If we can prevent (even) one baby from being abducted, that's good." She added that although the NCMEC evidence does not support the claim, there is a fear that as hospitals tighten security procedures in maternity wards, would-be abductors will turn more and more to abductions from the child's home and that birth notices facilitate home abductions. Hospitals nationally have been discontinuing participation in the publication of birth notices since at least the early 1990s. Although concern over the risk of abductions has been a factor in those decisions, the effect of hospital policies on the outcome of future lawsuits has also been a major reason for the change. The magazine Hospital Risk Management reported on the liability concerns in August 1992. It quoted James Turner, administrator of a Savannah, Ga., medical center. "We recommend that hospitals not be involved in (the birth notice) process at all," Turner was quoted as saying. "Plaintiffs' attorneys are going to look for a link to the hospital. If the hospital puts in a birth announcement, it provides a link." Turner also said having a policy against birth notices is part of an overall strategy to demonstrate that hospitals are doing everything they can to protect patients and to protect them from charges of "blatant disregard" of safety issues. Riplinger, Memorial's head of risk management, said the issue of liability and future litigation was never even mentioned in discussing ending birth announcements, but St. John's Streb acknowledged that liability was a serious concern there. "Exactly," she said. "A lot of cases that have gone to court have tried to argue a hospital's liability because of birth announcements. This is a way of avoiding that." Some new parents think the change in the hospitals' policy is a good idea. "There are people out there who would take advantage (of published birth notices)," said Cory Wellman, Springfield, who gave birth to a son Monday. "If people want to have (the announcement) in the paper, they can do like they do with weddings and graduations (and turn in the information themselves)." Evan Cozadd, whose wife, Janice, gave birth to a daughter Wednesday, disagreed. Having the hospital provide the birth information to the newspaper is "a nice service," he said. "They're afraid that somebody is going to take a baby. That's a bunch of baloney. That's just crazy," said Cozadd, of Petersburg. "Frankly, it's just a measure of the way society is becoming so litigious. They're afraid of litigation, so they're taking away a service." Doug Pokorski can be reached at 788-1539 or doug.pokorski@sj-r.com. © Copyright 2000, The State Journal-Register - - - - SJ-R to continue birth notices By DOUG POKORSKI STAFF WRITER The State Journal-Register will continue to publish birth notices, even though local hospitals have decided to stop providing information on newborns to the newspaper. In fact, the newspaper plans to expand the information it provides about each baby. "We're in the business of providing information to the community," said editor Barry Locher. "A lot of it is not very pleasant information. I would hate to see the opportunity for good news like this to be taken away. It's not going to be." St. John's Hospital and Memorial Medical Center have announced that effective Tuesday, they will stop providing birth information to the Journal-Register and will discourage new parents from doing so on their own. Hospital officials said the decision was due to fear that birth notices might give helpful information to potential child abductors and to concerns that participation in publishing them could cause legal liability problems for the hospitals. "We understand the concerns and the fear that the community, and especially the medical community, lives in (regarding) legal proceedings," Locher said. "None of us wants to jeopardize the safety of children. "But we don't see that putting a baby's name and the parents' names in the newspaper, in all honesty, jeopardizes the child's safety. ... It's too bad we live in such a fearful society." To continue to publish birth notices, the paper has instituted new procedures for parents to get the information to the Journal-Register. The hospitals have agreed to give forms for parents to provide the information, although they will discourage their use. The forms also are available at the front desk of the Journal-Register building at Ninth Street and Capitol Avenue during regular business hours. Forms also can be downloaded from the paper's Web site -- http://www.sj-r.com. The newspaper historically has published the names and hometown of a baby's parents, the gender of the baby, and the date and place of birth. Additional information provided through the new forms includes the baby's name, the names of the baby's grandparents, living or dead, and the names of any living great-grandparents. Parents will be responsible for seeing to it that the forms are delivered to the paper. Births are listed daily in the "For the Record" column of the Journal-Register. Noting that he was anxious to share the news when his children were born, Locher said the Journal-Register will continue to publish birth notices "as long as parents want us to." "I would encourage people to take this opportunity to pass the good news on to friends and family," he said. Doug Pokorski can be reached at 788-1539 or doug.pokorski@sj-r.com. © Copyright 2000, The State Journal-Register
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