Miscarriage news round-up 11.19.2007

So, periodically I'm going to post recent news stories dealing with miscarriage. Today will be the first edition.

1. An inquiry has been opened in Sydney, Australia, following the story of a woman who miscarried at 14 weeks in the toilet of a hospital ER after waiting more than an hour for care. Other news outlets have reported that at least one other woman had a similar experience. The story is pretty terrible, and the response of the hospital nursing staff sounds dismissive at best.
2. A woman is suing Walgreens for failure to properly supervise its pharmacy employees, saying that she miscarried after (and as a result of) being given chemotherapy drugs instead of prenatal vitamins by the pharmacy. My heart really goes out to this woman. The situation sucks -- sucks generally, and sucks that much more if it was preventable and brought about by someone else's lack of attention. That kind of carelessness, with such tragic results, is reprehensible. That said, proving causation (i.e. that the drug was the sole cause of the miscarriage) will be challenging, likely requiring, among other things, a pathology report on the fetus to show that cellular division and growth were inhibited and that there were no chromosomal problems that could have contributed to the miscarriage. I'm also curious as to what she was given at the pharmacy -- were the package insert and labeling those for the prenatals or for the chemo? If the former, that's really f*cked up. If the latter, she's going to be asked how she didn't notice during the month she took them that she was taking something different from what she was prescribed with what I can only imagine is a package insert filled with warnings. Putting myself in her shoes, on the one hand, I generally read the materials I get with a prescription; on the other, for something as routine as prenatal vitamins, I can easily imagine not bothering. Either way, I hope that she is finding some peace amidst the tragedy of miscarrying and the chaos of litigation.
3. And in celebrity news, in this month's Marie Claire, Nicole Kidman reveals that, at 23, early in her marriage to Tom Cruise, she had an ectopic pregnancy, prompting she and Cruise to adopt their two children. In addition, late in their marriage (shortly before he filed for divorce), she suffered a miscarriage. She said this to correct reports stemming from an earlier article in Vanity Fair that she had lost one baby during her pregnancy with Cruise, and that this loss was a miscarriage early in their marriage.