"More than 50 per cent of the population is overweight. So there must be a lot of women in Casey who are getting turned away just because they weigh too much."

--huh?

More than 50% are overweight? well, if you mean over the average weight by 0 pounds that's still under 50%. Statistics like that kind of ruin your stance.

I don't get what the fuss is about. The hospital is simply stating that they aren't able to provide her with the best care and are referring her to the correct facility. If she had a brain tumor, they'd do the same thing and no one would think twice. Not all medical facilities provide the same type of care.

*Exactly*. As it says in the article. They are not equipped to handle the extra complexity her weight creates.

If they tried to take care of her and the baby was harmed, she would be really screaming.

No, the hospital didn't do anything wrong in the slightest.

exactly, I really don't get why overweight people always have to raise a large concern over others not being able to handle them in terms of clothing to buy, health services, and meal portions.

Overweight doesn't mean above the average weight, it means above the ideal weight for the person's height.

Indeed, but given that the BMI distribution should be a Gaussian distribution, "overweight" should indicate a weight at least around the point of 1 standard deviation. It's not like BMIs are such that all overweight people are so overweight that they change the distribution to be top-heavy. There is indeed a "sorta-overweight" kind of person, not just the 100-kilo people who are on the news. in order for 50% of the population to be overweight, there must be an extremely heavy distribution of BMIs in a certain population.

If they actually said "You are too fat" it would definitely be wrong. I agree with maven, she is being handled with care and she shouldn't be upset, she should be thankful. If it was an emergent procedure they would have treated it as such.

The comment about 50% of people being overweight is coming from the squawker, so I guess I wouldn't rely on her statistics overly much.

Yes, and that "certain population" is called the western world

That's when you go out to the parking lot and give birth on the hood of the Chief of Medicine's car.


EDIT: I guess it's true that they were just looking out for her best interests, but where I'm from, plenty of overweight women give birth in regular hospitals. Hell, my best friend's a nurse and she helped deliver a baby from a woman so large her parents [I swear to God, I am not making this up] had to hold her legs apart JUST SO SHE COULD CONCEIVE.

And that's your creepy tidbit for today. You're welcome.

And thanks for the visual, abandoned couch. Now, where do I keep my brain bleach...

Anyway, according to a handy dandy metric converter, the lady is roughly 5ft.5in. and weighs 220.5 lbs. That's pretty big, but hardly uncommon, especially considering that she is pregnant. I have to wonder if there is some information that we aren't getting, because I can't think of any hospital where I live thinking twice about delivering a baby for a woman of her size.

(sorry if everybody already knew the conversion. I'm terrible at metrics.)

69% of people will believe any statistic they read.