Political Quotes

“I rise today to introduce legislation, along with my friend and able colleague, Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, that would create a national campaign at the Department of Health and Human Services to bring attention to congenital diaphragmatic hernia. What is CDH? It is a birth defect that occurs when the fetal diaphragm fails to fully develop, allowing abdominal organs to migrate up into the chest. This invasion of organs--including the bowel, stomach, spleen, and liver--may severely limit the growth of a baby's lungs. Regrettably, some have recommended terminating the pregnancy when a woman learns that her unborn child has CDH. This is an important issue, and makes promoting awareness of this birth defect and the positive outcomes of good treatment especially important. CDH will normally be diagnosed by prenatal ultrasound as early as the 16th week of pregnancy. That is important. If undiagnosed before birth, the baby may be born in a facility that is not equipped to treat its compromised respiratory system because many CDH babies need to be placed on a heart-lung bypass machine, which is not available in many hospitals. The lungs of a baby with CDH are often too small, biochemically immature, structurally immature, and the flow in the blood vessels may be constricted, resulting in pulmonary hypertension. As a result, the babies are intubated as soon as they are born, and parents are often unable to hold their babies for weeks or even months at a time.…”