Dear all,
I am a final year student midwife, and I would like some information on your views about the administration of anti-D or not in pregnancy and the postnantal period. I work in a large hospital and have recently cared for a woman giving birth who was a Jehovahs Witness. It was a lovely birth and the family were wonderful, but I did not understand why she refused anti-D postnatally. Since then I have done a literature search, and found from studies that 90% of women who are Rh. negative with a Rh. positive baby do not need anti-D. Obviously many women do not realise anti-D is a blood product as it comes in a syringe and is yellow in colour as opposed to being red and labelled blood. I would love some imput from you to help educate me!
Thank-you, and look forward to your replies,
Sadie.
anti-D
by sadie 3 Replies latest jw friends
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sadie
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RedhorseWoman
Sadie, I'm hoping that some others who are more knowledgable in this area will respond to you.
However, at this point in time, the WT beliefs on blood, blood fractions and treatments made with blood fractions are in a state of flux.
Officially, any sort of blood component other than whole blood is a matter of conscience.
Most JW's will take the high road, however, and refuse any treatment containing blood or fractions thereof because of the Biblical injunction to abstain from blood, which is interpreted to include transfusions or any other use of blood.
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Simon
Hi Sadie
RHW is correct - the rules on blood have changed a lot recently but at the same time JWs have been told that nothing has changed which has resulted in a lot of people not knowing what the rules are.
Our family has experience of blood issues and pregnancy (my wife has a clotting condition) and it was only when we researched the issue that we found that our understanding of the societies current position was out of date. What is more, we found that the ruls did not make ANY sense whatsoever and that we were really ignorant of the facts. This is one of the things that made us seriously start to question what we had been taught for so long.
The relief on the consultants face when we told her we were not going to make an issue of blood and blood products was clear to see. I'm glad now that we didn't risk my wifes or my childrens well being over rediculous rules that WILL be or already HAVE been abandoned anyway.
Have you seen the links on blood that someone (I think Path) posted? You will find a lot of info there about the beliefs and how they have changed. -
Xandit
Sadie,
The use of anti-D has been a matter of conscious for quite a long time, certainly in excess of 25 years. My personal experience has been that most Witnesses will accept it. The ones that won't probably really don't have much grasp of the organization's position on the matter.