I'm trying to track down some info on the reliability of Eldon Cards--anyone have anything to share? If you ever got a false result, I"d like to hear of it. If you believe that you've always gotten correct results but have no way to prove it, that won't be so helpful. However, if you DO have some kind of evidence about the EC's accuracy, I'd love to know it.
I know homebirth mws who use them exclusively to determine baby's blood type when Mom is rh- and Dad is rh+, and did use them myself a few times with clients. This occurs in situations where there is no med backup available, or sometimes just not chosen. However, I since heard some things by other mws to the effect that the Eldon Card cannot be relied upon--one even said 'should be used for entertainment purposes only'. The mws I know who do use them, would not have tended to have any opportunity to find out if the cards were ever wrong.
Seems that there would be a couple of ways to get a clue that an Eldon Card result was incorrect: later bloodtyping done through a lab, showing a different type than the EC did; a mom who gets no rhogam, believing from EC that her baby is rh-, but later discovers she's been isoimmunized (thus realizing her last baby really was rh+).
But you might never get those clues. Bloodtyping through a lab might never be done--at least not until the child is much older. And if a mom never does get isoimmunized through carrying rh+ babies--and most never do, with or without Rhogam--then of course there would be no reason to discover that the EC result was wrong.
Am I making sense here? I have just been googling, and have found numerous sites basically holding the Eldon Card as a perfectly acceptable, sufficiently reliable 'field test' for bloodtyping. I did see one comment by a mom who got a false EC result (it was a link to an MDC discussion, actually). I sure would like to have some further evidence on Eldon Cards.
thanks
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I know homebirth mws who use them exclusively to determine baby's blood type when Mom is rh- and Dad is rh+, and did use them myself a few times with clients. This occurs in situations where there is no med backup available, or sometimes just not chosen. However, I since heard some things by other mws to the effect that the Eldon Card cannot be relied upon--one even said 'should be used for entertainment purposes only'. The mws I know who do use them, would not have tended to have any opportunity to find out if the cards were ever wrong.
Seems that there would be a couple of ways to get a clue that an Eldon Card result was incorrect: later bloodtyping done through a lab, showing a different type than the EC did; a mom who gets no rhogam, believing from EC that her baby is rh-, but later discovers she's been isoimmunized (thus realizing her last baby really was rh+).
But you might never get those clues. Bloodtyping through a lab might never be done--at least not until the child is much older. And if a mom never does get isoimmunized through carrying rh+ babies--and most never do, with or without Rhogam--then of course there would be no reason to discover that the EC result was wrong.
Am I making sense here? I have just been googling, and have found numerous sites basically holding the Eldon Card as a perfectly acceptable, sufficiently reliable 'field test' for bloodtyping. I did see one comment by a mom who got a false EC result (it was a link to an MDC discussion, actually). I sure would like to have some further evidence on Eldon Cards.
thanks
