Taping babies’ mouths normal–hospital staff

CEBU CITY—Using tape to attach pacifiers to babies’ mouths is a usual practice in a hospital here that is now being investigated after pictures of a baby confined at the hospital with a tape on its lip circulated on the Internet.

Two nurses and a midwife of  Cebu Puericulture Center and Maternity House Inc. (CPCMHI) admitted at a hearing on Tuesday that  they used tape to “anchor” pacifiers on babies’ mouths.

The three—nurses Arriane Pacula and Kamille Isabel Neri and midwife Methosheba Orlanes—said the procedure was done on premature babies and only on instructions of doctors.

They, however, denied taping the upper lip of the newborn infant of Jasmine Badocdoc, who posted pictures of her baby with a tape on its upper lip on Facebook.

The use by hospitals of pacifiers, or artificial teats, is not allowed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) in its Baby-friendly Hospital Initiative, which hospitals in the Philippines are supposed to adhere to.

Dr. Raida Varona, CPCMHI medical director, claimed that CPCMHI also adhered to the WHO and Unicef initiative.

Varona, however, said that while the hospital doesn’t use pacifiers on babies that are breast-fed, babies born prematurely are given pacifiers.

Varona said Badocdoc’s baby didn’t need a pacifier so there was no reason for the baby to have a tape on its upper lip.