Thursday November 8 5:32 PM ET

Childbirth Death Risk High in
Jehovah's Witnesses

By Charnicia E. Huggins

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who are Jehovah's
Witnesses have a dramatically increased risk of death due to
excessive blood loss during childbirth and their refusal to
replenish this loss with donated blood, according to the results
of a study.

Blood transfusions are the conventional treatment for obstetric
hemorrhage, or excessive blood loss, but such procedures,
along with any other medical treatments that involve the
administration of blood or blood products, are forbidden by the
Jehovah's Witness religion.

``Pregnancy is safe for women who accept blood products,''
lead study author Dr. Carl J. Saphier of Mount Sinai School of
Medicine in New York told Reuters Health.

Those who reject such products, on the other hand, may have
an increased risk of mortality, ``but it may be minimized by
giving appropriate care,'' he said.

Saphier and his colleagues investigated the risk of maternal
death in a study of 332 Jehovah's Witnesses who gave birth at
Mount Sinai Medical Center from January 1988 through
December 1999.

Nearly 400 deliveries--both vaginal and Cesarean--took place
during the study period, and 24 patients (6%) experienced an
obstetric hemorrhage, Saphier and his colleagues report in the
October issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and
Gynecology (news - web sites).

Two women died from the hemorrhage, corresponding to a
rate of 521 deaths per 100,000 live births--a maternal death
rate nearly 44 times higher than that among the general US
population, the report indicates.

Currently, treating obstetric hemorrhage and certain other
conditions among Jehovah's Witnesses may involve the use of
blood-free products called volume expanders--solutions that
are mixed with the patient's own blood to make up for blood
lost during surgery--or cell savers, which are devices that
collect and recycle the patient's blood.

For one of the patients who died, however, the cell saver
treatment was ineffective because she had already lost large
amounts of blood vaginally, the authors note.

``The findings imply that special care is required for women
who are Jehovah's Witnesses, including special counseling
prior to delivery, methods of minimizing the blood loss at
delivery, and fast treatment for any hemorrhage,'' Saphier said.

SOURCE: American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
2001;185:893-895.

Available onlilne: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011108/hl/childbirth_1.html

One interesting footnote:

We'd been trying to tell our family about the things we'd learnt and they were at the stage of still just about talking to us.

When my "newly appointed if ever there was proof that it wasn't done by holy spirit" elder brother in law Louis Lynch arrived, the first thing he asked was "So, did you have blood?"

This is the same guy who called round at the house and before saying hello wanted to know if we believed "the governing body are Jehovahs spirit appointed representatives". Sheesh.

I'm glad he's in the truth and I hope he never leaves. He deserves it, ha ha ha.

Thank U lee, we will translate it and send it out to the press.
Thank U chasson for the french translation, too.

Hi lee,

Have you read my post that in France the official of Watchtower have recognized to doctor that there are 15 cases of needed translation among french's jw by year ?

If we applied this on a worldwide range, it makes 670 cases of needed transfusion by year by the JW's official own word.

You will noticed that the french's suprem court has recognised that a french's doctor who provide a transfusion to a witness in emergency has not make a professionnal's fault:

The links in french: (if someone has the capacity to translate it in english ?)

http://www.chez.com/tjrecherches/lemonde1.htm

According to an online newspaper from Africa, in Congo, there was in October a young girl who died for refusing transfusion:

http://www.chez.com/tjrecherches/congo.htm

Bye

Charles

While I don't support or understand the Society's blood policy, I wonder what 2 out of 400 deaths really mean, and if it is still too small of a sample to assume a general mortality rate of JW women giving birth.

There are other factors that could play into these women's death. Further there are no statistics given for mortality rates for the general population giving birth.

As well, since the study began, the Society has opened up more blood products available to these women which is likely to reduce the odds of a JW woman dying during a delivery.

Path

Hi path,

well the other statistics that JW provided have not more cases, for example the celeb 1993 statistics deals with 1250 cases of JW.

Even if we divided this rate by three, thinking that in 800 others cases there would be no more JW's death, it is still 12 times higher than in general.

Bye

Charles

Thank you, Lee, for that information. Thank you too for all your hard work in this regard.

It's very sad to see people dying so needlessly. Sometime back in our congregation an old man who had been associated but not baptized had to have some surgery. Things got very messy and he needed blood. He refused and he died. One of the doctors was very upset about the whole matter. She tried her best to get the wife to allow them to try to save the man but the wife was adamant about 'her husband's wishes'. What makes that even sadder still was that they have a daughter that's df'd and she was there, of course, during the whole ordeal. The mother would hardly acknowledge her presence as she sat there and cried for her father who was dying.

I was still an elder then but I talked regularly with the young lady and her husband during that terrible wait. I believe that the old man never got baptized because he wanted to continue to have contact with his daughter and he knew that would be extremely difficult if he was baptized. In the end, however, a man-made doctrine killed him.

-Seen it all, done it all, can't remember most of it-