Comment by goggles99 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by goggles99 | Hacker News Reader

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>The current options in those cases are forceps — large, rounded pliers — or suction cups attached to the baby’s scalp. In untrained hands, either can cause hemorrhages, crush the baby’s head or twist its spine.

Really? you mean these things are going to be available at WalMart so that untrained people can use them?

I really cannot see this being adopted. how are you going to slip this thing past the cervix and pubic bone? The whole reason that you need this thing in the first place is that there is literally zero room there. Also, the inflation is going to cause an even larger object to have to move through the birth canal thus exacerbating the original problem.

How are you even going to know if you have it on completely? you really cannot see in that tight space.

What about fetal distress? I cannot imagine that this thing squishing their entire cranium would bode well for distress which leads to many potential complications.

Maybe most importantly is the fact that this device would likely prevent the infant from ingesting the very important birth canal bacteria which colonized as flora in the baby's gut. c-section births lack this as well and they are at much higher risks for many things because of it.

This is a poor replacement for vacuum extractions (suction cup method) IMO. Maybe in developing countries it could be helpful (MAYBE safer for untrained midwives), but I doubt even that, given it's own disadvantages.

"I really cannot see this being adopted. how are you going to slip this thing past the cervix and pubic bone?"

This is a typical HN top comment dismissal. It works with corks, it works with his basic prototype, it works with medical training dummies and it works with the 30 Argentinian women in live births but a comment dismissing it as being impossible is the top HN comment. Unbelievable.

You use a naive argument to attempt to refute one point of my whole comment (which contains several reasons this will not work) and call the whole thing garbage? Yours is the typical HN top comment dismissal, not mine.

On top of this, your criticism is not even valid. Let me explain why.

You clearly have never given birth with or even assisted in an obstructed delivery? Corks, prototypes, and dummies are not made to fit as tight as an obstructed birth canal and do not even try to replicate this scenario.

If you've read the article carefully, and paid attention to the details you would know the live births used are no evidence that his will work when it is actually needed.

>So far, the device has been safety-tested only on 30 Argentine women, all of whom were in hospitals, had given birth before and were in normal labor.

So the diameter of these women's birth canals were far larger than typical obstructed ones because they had given birth before. They also were in normal labor. There would be far more room available to use this device when it is not actually needed. Try shoving something like this down and around a curved surface with an obstruction preventing it's passage. The material would have to be very stiff, but to curve properly around the head and face, it would have to be very flexible. These things are mutually exclusive. Even if you managed to get it worked into place eventually (without it folding over someplace) it would take a fairly long period of time to work it into place. Suction is very quick to attach and is often used when that baby is already in distress (needs to come out in a hurry).

Here are some more reasons this won't work.

Sizing. Babies craniums are vastly different sizes. Either they will need 8 sized of these hanging on the wall, or the inflation part will have to allow for dramatic size differences. If there is only one size, and the baby's head is small, you are increasing the size of the object that needs to pass through the canal by a large margin (Actually adding to the problem). I suppose that big hospitals could have 8 sizes of these on hand, but not third world midwives.

If there is enough room for this thing to fit on, there is enough room for the Dr or midwife to just use their hands. This is far better anyway as they will have far more tactile feel.

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