Taking a Poll

[lorianne]

I am not sure if this is allowed but I will try anyway. I am not trying to offend anyone and this is a delicate subject. My name is Lori and I am am RN at a local hospital. Several of the nurses I work with have had babies born with some difficulties i.e. developmental delays, microcephaly, anencephaly, etc. It seems that it is all too coincidental, so a few of us are trying to look into this subject. It is difficult to research and all of these children have had genetic testing and none of the problems are genetic. We are interested in hearing soem of your stories. These stories WILL NOT be published anywhere and are just for information purposes. We don't need a name just the state you are in and the childs problem. Please be as specific as you can and if I may e-mail you back if I have more questions, please include that in your message. Thank you.

[Tiara]

Not at all sure what you mean. Are you trying to relate women working as nurses with anomalies?

[lorianne]

Originally posted by Tiara:

Not at all sure what you mean. Are you trying to relate women working as nurses with anomalies?

Yes, absolutely. We are totally not sure of or if there is any connection to working as nurses. We are thinking perhaps an environmental exposure of some sort - perhaps to a cleaning agent. We are just trying to gather some info and we will go from there. Thanks.

[Tiara]

I'm sorry I know of no cases like this that show a correlation to nursing. Maybe someone else will have some confirmation. Please accept my concern and empathy.

[longforseaair]

Originally posted by lorianne:

I am not sure if this is allowed but I will try anyway. I am not trying to offend anyone and this is a delicate subject. My name is Lori and I am am RN at a local hospital. Several of the nurses I work with have had babies born with some difficulties i.e. developmental delays, microcephaly, anencephaly, etc. It seems that it is all too coincidental, so a few of us are trying to look into this subject. It is difficult to research and all of these children have had genetic testing and none of the problems are genetic. We are interested in hearing soem of your stories. These stories WILL NOT be published anywhere and are just for information purposes. We don't need a name just the state you are in and the childs problem. Please be as specific as you can and if I may e-mail you back if I have more questions, please include that in your message. Thank you.

I'm not sure, but you've probably thought of where the cancer chemo meds are given in your facility. Also, folic acid deficiency is now the suspected culprit linked to spina bifida. Have you investigated your water source? Old hospital with lead pipes? Or lead solder? An area I knew of had high cancer rates because of an old battery factory near the river, which was a main water source. If you conduct a survey at your facility, you can prepare a sample and decide if it is work-place related or regional. And your state will have a state board of health website and those are very interesting. You may call your local health department and check if they have noticed higher than average rates of birth defects. Sometimes they will tell you, if they know. Do you live in Washington or Oregon where there were major airborne nuclear radiation leaks? Do you live near Three Mile Island? Hope this helps. : ) bbqchick

[-Shirley -]

I recently completed a study about the adverse health effects of shiftwork. There is research showing pregnant shift workers have an increased risk of miscarriage, preterm delivery and low birthweight babies.Perhaps there may be a possible link with abnormalities which may be worth looking into further.