Silver Nitrate and Prophylactic Eye Ointments for Newborns
What is it?
The application of silver nitrate or an antibiotic ointment such as tetracycline or erythromycin into the eyes of newborn babies just minutes after birth is another routine procedure unique to the United States.
Side Effects:
Silver nitrate bonds with the eye membranes which results in redness, blurred vision, and swelling for several days.
Early visual perception development is altered which impacts the baby's ability to adjust to the world outside the womb.
Why is it done?
The routine administration of eye ointment is required in most instances by state law on the grounds of preventing blindness from exposure to maternal gonorrhea during birth. The masterful theory behind this routine procedure is that it's impossible to determine which babies will really need it, so just do it to everyone.
The glaring flaw
in this logic is that STD screening is also standard procedure as part
of prenatal care. Even if a pregnant woman has screened
negative for gonorrhea earlier in her pregnancy, the law assumes that
either she or her partner will be unfaithful in that time and
unwittingly expose her to STDs again. Nice, really nice.
If
that wasn't enough, the eye ointment doesn't have a 100% success rate
in preventing blindness. As a result, some hospitals have
decided to inject every newborn with penicillin right after
birth. Again, I have to question the logic of injecting a
substance into all newborns to which they might be allergic minutes
after birth for a disease their mother most likely does not have to
prevent a condition they are not likely to develop. But let's
leave these decisions to the professionals, right?
Simple Solutions
1. Choose delayed administration.
This will allow bonding time between you and your new baby without
inflicting pain as one of the child's
earliest sensory experiences.
2.
Request a
non-irritating eye ointment, such as tetracycline.
You can reap the benefits of prevention without introducing the painful
side effects.
3. Refuse
the
procedure
if it is not state law and you know you don't have an STD.
If you don't need it, why take it?
4. Ask
what the
penalty
is for refusal (sometimes a $5 fine) and refuse it then.
As an aside, one of the best natural cures for eye infections (not from STDs, though) is breastmilk. It has amazing anti-infective properties and can cure pink eye as well as other eye irritations. So, it would seem that nature knew what it was doing, doesn't it?
References
Bell TA, Grayston JT, Krohn MA, Kronmal RA, Eye Prophylaxis Study Group: Randomized trial of silver nitrate, erythromycin, and no eye prophylaxis for the prevention of conjunctivitis among newborns not at risk for gonococcal ophthalmitis. Pediatrics 92: 755-760, 1993
Krohn MA, Hillier SL, Bell TA, Kronmal RA, Grayston JT, Eye Prophylaxis Study Group: The bacterial etiology of conjunctivitis in early infancy. Am J Ophthalmol 138: 326-332, 1993
Giving Birth Naturally: Newborn Baby Care: Silver Nitrate
