Daily Rounds: Left-Leaning Moms; Not Taking Your Pills; Cuts For Grandma; Pierced Kittens

Stillborn study: New Zealand study suggests women who sleep on left side decrease risk of their baby being a stillborn "A new study from New Zealand has found that women who sleep on their left side during their last night of pregnancy decrease the risk that their baby will be stillborn by roughly half. The researchers who conducted the study say that may be because when the mother-to-be lies on her back or right side, it restricts blood flow to the unborn baby. But the researchers also say that women should not fret about the increased risk because it is still very small: the chance of the baby being still born rises to 3.93 per 1,000 for those who don’t sleep on their left side from 1.96 per 1,000 for those who do, Reuters reports." (slatest.slate.com)

Not Running a Hospital: Drug adherence still falters "We also discussed how technology might be used to enhance adherence. I mentioned advanced design pillboxes, human or computer-aided calls to patients, and texting on cell phones. You would think that electronic prescribing of drugs would enable physicians to see if their patients had picked up their orders, but the full capability of e-prescribing is not generally in use. Most pharmacies do not fill in that portion of the electronic record, and there is no way for an individual clinician to request a fill status for a specific patient or drug order." (Running A Hospital)

Advocates fight nursing home cuts - The Boston Globe “If a caring family member brought their 90-year-old grandmother home for a long holiday weekend, that individual would have to risk losing their bed in the facility they call home in order to enjoy that day or two with their family,’’ said Debbie Banda, director of AARP Massachusetts. (boston.com)

Piercing Cats Is Cruelty, Judges Rule - NYTimes.com "Piercing kittens to give them a “goth” appearance is cruel, a panel of Pennsylvania judges has ruled.
Three judges of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania on Monday affirmed a lower court conviction for animal cruelty of a dog groomer who had offered “gothic” kittens on eBay. The groomer, Holly Crawford of Sweet Valley, Pa., offered the kittens for $100; Judge Kate Ford Elliott wrote in a 19-page opinion that “metal protruded from the kittens’ small bodies, pierced through their ears and necks, and at least one of these kittens also had an elastic band tied around its tail, an attempt at docking, which is a procedure to stem the blood flow so that the tail eventually falls off.” (nytimes.com)