Cutting the Wrong Thing
Posted: Wed 24 October, 2007 Filed under: 1BEM, Cynicism, Weirdness 2 Comments »File under: Bizarre and “Eh?”
A Tyneside father is trying to get a hospital to allow him to cut the umbilical cord when his child is born. Fair enough – although the local NHS trust has a policy that doesn’t allow people to do this, and has done since 1997.
But the bizarre bit is the reason for this policy to have been brought into being. From the news story…
“In 1997 South Tyneside NHS Trust banned relatives from cutting cords after a baby’s toe was accidentally cut off.”
What?!?
Maybe I’m missing something – not having been present at the birth of anyone, for example – but how the fuck can you cut off a toe “by accident” while cutting the umbilical cord? Even on a really small baby, there’s still a fair bit of distance between the two, surely?
LMAO! Speaking as a father who has done this (it was surprisingly spongey – also, I amusingly managed to cover the assistant midwife with a big spurt of blood. Well, amused me anyway!) I can safely say that I have absolutely no idea how this could have happened unless the way the baby was being held at the time meant that the cord was down by it’s toes.
Even so, it takes some doing!
Please sign the petition! http://www.ourbabyblog.co.uk — thanks for the comments and your funny blog.