Marina Marcovich

Marina Marcovich (* 1952 ) is a Viennese pediatrician.

Life

Marina Marcovich completed her medical studies in 1976 with a doctorate. This was followed by training as a pediatrician with Alfred Rosenkranz . From 1981 she was a board member of the Austrian Society for Pre- and Perinatal Medicine , and in 1984 she began to set up a neonatal intensive care unit at Mautner Markhof'schen Children's Hospital . She presented her concept of “gentle neonatology” in 1992 on the occasion of Rosenkranz's retirement; it met with rejection in professional circles. This concept included avoiding machine medicine as much as possible in order to ensure more peace and quiet for the premature babies, as well as increased contact between parents and their children.

In 1993 she was blamed for the death of newborn quadruplets, and in 1994 criminal proceedings were initiated for the negligent homicide of 16 newborns. All deaths in the second half of 1993 were blamed on the doctor in a report by Professor Frank Pohlandt from Ulm. Marcovich was then transferred to the children's department of the Wilhelminenspital in Vienna.

Of the 16 children who died, Marcovich had not known ten at all, so the proceedings were quickly discontinued. Six cases in which she was involved in treatment were further investigated.

In 1996 there was an anonymous complaint against Marcovich, in which she was accused of killing another 17 premature children. The two cases were closed without charge in 1996 and 1997. Marina Marcovich was thus considered rehabilitated. However, she did not return to the Mautner Markhof'sche Children's Hospital, which was closed in 1998, or to another neonatal hospital department, but has since worked as a resident pediatrician in Vienna.

When Dr. Marina Marcovich presented her treatment concept for premature infants in 1992, most premature infants with birth weights <1500 g were intubated and mechanically ventilated immediately after birth. A Danish study that came to the conclusion that cautious use of ventilation significantly improves the prognosis of preterm infants did not appear until the following year. While Marcovich and her team only gave mechanical ventilation to 20% of premature infants <1500 g birth weight, in the Danish study it was 35%.

Dr. Marina Marcovich became known and supported early on by print, television and radio media. In 1994 articles about the treatment concept by Marcovich appeared in the Spiegel ("Kampf der Mechaniker") and in der Zeit ("The medical establishment rages against a doctor who only uses machines in an emergency: Gentle way for premature babies").

Two working groups sat down scientifically with the treatment concept of Dr. Marina Marcovich apart. The working group of Prof. Dr. In 1993, Otwin Linderkamp introduced Marcovich's treatment concept in the neonatology department of the Heidelberg University Children's Hospital. Compared to the previous year, the proportion of ventilated children decreased by 33%, mortality by 40% and the frequency of cerebral haemorrhages by over 50%. For her master's thesis, Beate Marina Huter compared 12 premature babies treated by Marcovich with 14 conventionally (mostly technically) treated premature babies aged 6–13 years in other children's clinics. While 90% of the children in the Marcovich group were securely attached, this was the case for only 73% in the control group. Emotional openness, social skills, and mental health were significantly better in the Marcovich group.

Two authors rated the Marcovich method based on their research. The psychoanalyst W. Ernest Freud, a grandson of Sigmund Freud and close collaborator of Anna Freud, dealt early on with the consequences of the separation of premature babies from their mothers. He came to the conclusion that the “Marcovich method” significantly improves the development of the brain in premature babies and the mother-child bond. The human ethologist Prof. Dr. Wulf Schiefenhövel analyzed Marcovich's treatment concept in the context of his ethnomedical mother-child research and also came to the conclusion that this method promotes the development of premature babies.

Since the turn of the millennium, the treatment of premature babies according to the method of Dr. Marina Marcovich has become a matter of course in many children's clinics, including clinics that had fought her concept a few years earlier.

Web links

• Battle of the Mechanics. In: Der Spiegel. 17/1994. (spiegel.de)
• The truth cannot be changed! Interview with Marina Marcovich and presentation of the events surrounding the proceedings
• Gentle way for premature babies. In: time online. March 4, 1994. (zeit.de)

Works

• A. Klaube, M. Marcovich: Gentle premature baby care from an alternative point of view. In: child nutrition environment. 2, 1993, pp. 12-17.
• M. Marcovich: About gentle treatment of premature babies. New ways in neonatology. In: International Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine. 7, 1995, pp. 57-71.
• M. Marcovich: Early confidence. In: German Midwives Journal. 1, 2003, pp. 6-8.
• M. Marcovich, TM de Jong: Too Small to Live? Security and love from the start. The Marcovich method. Kösel, 2008, ISBN 978-3-466-34520-5 . (Before: Premature babies - too small to live? The Marina Marcovich method. )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ T. Jacobsen, J. Gronvall, S. Petersen, E. Andersen: “Minitouch” treatment of very low-birth-weight infants. In: Acta Pediatrica Scandinavica. 82, 1993, pp. 934-938.
2. ↑ O. Linderkamp, ​​B. Beedgen, D. Sontheimer: The concept of gentle treatment of premature babies by Marina Marcovich. A critical assessment. In: International Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Medicine. 7, 1995, pp. 73-84.
3. ^ O. Linderkamp: Postnatal management of the very-low-birth weight infant. In: F. Cockburn (Ed.): Advances in Perinatal Medicine. Parthenon Publishing, Carnforth UK, 1997, pp. 66-71.
4. ↑ BM Huter: The influence of gentle premature baby care on the attachment and emotional development of the child. Follow-up examination of premature babies by Dr. Marina Marcovich. In: Anthropologischer Anzeiger. 61, 2003, pp. 215-231.
5. ↑ BM Huter: Gentle care for premature babies: Effects on attachment and emotional development of the child: A follow-up examination of premature babies by Dr. Marina Marcovich. Hans Huber Verlag, 2004.
6. ^ WE Freud: Attempts at understanding the most promising paradigm of the neonatal intensive care: Some essential though less tangible aspects of the Marcovich model. In: J. Bitzer, M. Stauber (Eds.): Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology. Monduzzi Editore, Bologna 1995, pp. 249-258.
7. ^ W. Schiefenhövel: A better start into life - Marina Marcovich's new approach to treating premature babies. In: W. Schiefenhövel, D. Sich, CE Gottschalk-Batschkus (Ed.): Gebären. Ethnomedical perspectives and new ways. Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung, Berlin, 1995, S, pp. 229–232.