Supporters of the water birth technique say primitive reflexes keep babies from taking a breath until they are removed from the water.
But when there are huge financial interests on both sides of the matter and when doctors perform tests simply to avoid lawsuits, I worry about the scientific objectivity of any analysis like this that advocates such sweeping policy changes that could throw out many babies with the bath water.
Dr Gilhooly said immersed babies should be removed from the water quickly to avoid that risk.
More research is to be carried out into the possible effects of the Camelford water poisoning incident on young people and then unborn babies, an MP has been told.
But Dr Joseph Gilhooly, a neonatalogist at Oregon Health and Science University in the US which has a water birth programme, said that babies who do not get enough oxygen during childbirth may gasp for air, risking allowing water to enter their lungs.
They are, in my opinion, the babies that have been thrown out with the bath water.
Tokyo's governor recommended that babies be kept away from the city's tap water as it contained higher levels of radioactive iodine.
But especially in rural India, where women often go back to the fields mere days after giving birth, babies' diets are often supplemented with cow's milk and water, which exposes them to infection.
Those served by the reservoir were warned to boil their tap water before drinking or using it to prepare food, brush teeth or bathe babies.
As rescuers battled to reach the remaining suvivors, food and water were being handed out to long lines of homeless survivors as mothers tried to comfort babies.
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