home birth
kathy...@gmail.com
It seems to me that women are having fewer home births now. I am
saddened by this and wonder why this is happening. Homebirth and
midwifery were resurected and fought for and protected for about the
last 25 years and we seem to be losing ground again. Of course, I
don't have studies or anything to base this on.......just observations
over the last five years especially. My thought: The big hospital
conglomerates are masterful at marketing fear about our bodies and
concealing their own inadequacies.
Any way I would love to be part of a discussion of this topic.
Jeff
<kathy...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1166281514....@79g2000cws.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> It seems to me that women are having fewer home births now. I am
> saddened by this and wonder why this is happening.
If there is a problem with during birth, the time it takes to get to the
hospital could be deadly.
> Homebirth and
> midwifery were resurected and fought for and protected for about the
> last 25 years and we seem to be losing ground again.
Actually, a lot of hospitals have midwives assist in the deliveries.
However, I am glad homebirth rates are decreasing. The babies have more
trained professionals available in a hospital than at home.
That said, inselected low-risk cases, home delivery appears as safe as
in-hospital delivery, if emergent transport to a hospital is available.
Personally, I think the best care is delivered by midwives in birthing
suites in hospitals, where there is good OB coverage and good emergency
neonatal care, when needed.
> Of course, I
> don't have studies or anything to base this on.......just observations
> over the last five years especially. My thought: The big hospital
> conglomerates are masterful at marketing fear about our bodies and
> concealing their own inadequacies.
Big hospital conglomates? THe biggest hospital conglomate controls what
percent of the hospitals or hospital beds in US?
Grahame
I decided on the holspital for all of them.
I truly believe a woman knows how to give birth naturally. And the home
would be the best place for her to do this without interference.
BUT....I also didnt want anything to go wrong. And could not have lived with
myself IF my child died because I wanted a home birth.
My first child was a 4 hour labor and everything was fine until the end when
she had the cord around her neck 3 times and was born not breathing. 4 min
to get her breathing and 3 days in neonatel. I also had very bad tares to my
anus and needed extensive stitching. Btw I had no pain relief.
I made the right decission. Im glad I was at the hospital
Even though a midwife could have handled the delivery Im sure...we would
have had to go to hospital anyway.
As for my second he was 1 1/2hour labor and all perfectly fine. We only had
the midwife at the hospital, and it could have been a home birth. But again,
I didnt want to take the risk.I was home the next day. no pain relief
The third child 40 min labour and was perfectly fine. I was home 4 hours
later discharging myself.
So even though I think home births are a great idea, I think the hospital
system is good where it lets you give birth as you please. I was in control
with my last 2 births. I was only in the hospital(just in case)
My husband was fully involved with all 3 births, and took control when I
couldnt. If I was to fall pregnant again. I would do as my last have the
baby at the hospital (just in case) and then go home a few hours later. no
pain relief.
So to me the point is....as long as the hospitals are supportive of mothers,
allow a natural childbirth, (if the mother wishes), and is only on hand to
provide medical assistance then Im happy to have the child there.
All the best
Fiona
<kathy...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1166281514....@79g2000cws.googlegroups.com...
Todd Gastaldo
If so, he may have learned "the pathological vision"...
Marsden Wagner, MD^^^ once said in an amicus brief:
"If a nurse or physician desires
to practice midwifery, then it is necessary for each to [undergo one
year or
more of training] to literally 'unlearn' the pathological vision to get
the
proper perspective of normality."
^^^Marsden Wagner, MD served for 15 years as the director of women's
and
children's health for the World Health Organization. The quote above
appeared in Wagner's amicus brief in the Peckman midwifery case and was
published in NAPSAC News Spring 1991 by the InterNational Association
of
Parents and Professionals for Safe Alternatives in Childbirth, Rt. 1,
Box
646, Marble Hill, MO 63764 USA.
Todd
Dr. Gastaldo
Hillsboro, Oregon
USA
to...@chiromotion.com
ON MISC.KIDS...
Ericka Kammerer
> <kathy...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1166281514....@79g2000cws.googlegroups.com...
>> Hi,
>>
>> It seems to me that women are having fewer home births now. I am
>> saddened by this and wonder why this is happening.
>
> If there is a problem with during birth, the time it takes to get to the
> hospital could be deadly.
And introgenic infections and medical mistakes and
such can also be deadly. Statistically, for normal, healthy
women with low risk pregnancies (the sort who are eligible
for home births), the risk profile of home births is as good
as or better than the risk profile for hospital birth. The
few studies that show otherwise are horribly methodologically
flawed (and there are many methodologically sound studies
that show at least equivalent safety for home birth). In addition,
countries where home birth is commonplace have historically
had *better* birth outcomes than the US, where it is rare.
> Actually, a lot of hospitals have midwives assist in the deliveries.
> However, I am glad homebirth rates are decreasing.
Actually, as far as I can tell, they're not decreasing.
> Personally, I think the best care is delivered by midwives in birthing
> suites in hospitals, where there is good OB coverage and good emergency
> neonatal care, when needed.
It is still not equivalent care to a home birth.
While there are many very good midwives working in hospitals
(and OBs, for that matter), there are still issues with
the hospital model that introduce risks.
I think women should have access to whatever
birth location they feel most comfortable with, given that
there is no credible evidence that one is taking an undue
risk choosing a home birth with an appropriately trained
attendant, a normal low-risk pregnancy, and adequate
backup.
Best wishes,
Ericka
Ericka Kammerer
> I considered home birth with all 3 of my children.
> I decided on the holspital for all of them.
> I truly believe a woman knows how to give birth naturally. And the home
> would be the best place for her to do this without interference.
> BUT....I also didnt want anything to go wrong. And could not have lived with
> myself IF my child died because I wanted a home birth.
What if your child died because you chose to be
in a hospital (iatrogenic infection, cascading unnecessary
interventions, problems related to discontinuity of care
or other mistakes that are more likely in hospital)?
I feel very strongly that women should go where
they feel most comfortable, so I certainly do not challenge
your decision to birth in hospital. If that's where you
wanted to be, then that's where you should be. I am only
poking at your "what if" question. So many people raise
that issue with home birth, but it is almost never raised
in the other direction, even though deaths due to those
causes are *far* more common (due to the fact that there
are so many more hospital births--the risks of bad outcomes
due to being in the hospital is about the same as the risk
of bad outcomes due to being at home and not being able to
transport in time to deal with an issue).
None of us get to choose a perfectly safe birth.
We only get to choose which set of risks we are more
comfortable with. It is not surprising to me that more
people are comfortable choosing the set of risks associated
with hospital birth, but I do wish that more people were
aware of those risks (so that they could attempt to mitigate
them).
Best wishes,
Ericka
Grahame
reason.
But to me thats more of an unlikely situation, than complications of
childbirth.
Fiona
"Ericka Kammerer" <e...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:RZadnfaA1MisIBnY...@comcast.com...
Todd Gastaldo
DEAD BABIES AND "MEDICAL MISTAKES" (also: "BABY ER")
Babies are actually being VACUUMED to death - made to bleed to death
into their scalps - thousands per year (please check my math someone?)
- with MD-obstetricians senselessly KEEPING birth canals closed the
"extra" up to 30% as they literally vacuum/rip/separate baby scalps
from baby skulls...
See Dr. Hull made SOME changes I recommended, but he still
'forgets' those hematomas ABOVE the periosteum...
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med/msg/d4f53c2204fce76e
The birth-canal-closing crime is happening routinely at a hospital near
you - and in some home births.
Please report the crime.
I'm cc'ing Oregon Atty Genl Hardy Myers via hardy...@state.or.us.
Eventually law enforcement will stop looking the other way, as in the
arrogant boast of Steve B. Harris, MD:
"Without enforcement, there is no law. Without law, there is no crime.
These are elementary principles. Get an adult to explain them to you."
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids.pregnancy/msg/28866f3384801ae9
Further comment below #####
Kathy Berry wrote
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> It seems to me that women are having fewer home births now. I am
> >> saddened by this and wonder why this is happening.
Jeff (P. Utz, MD?) replied:
> >
> > If there is a problem with during birth, the time it takes to get to the
> > hospital could be deadly.
Ericka replied:
>
> And introgenic infections and medical mistakes and
> such can also be deadly.
#### Ericka is, in effect, indicating here that MD-obstetricians
intentionally closing birth canals up to 30% is a "medical mistake."
#### Babies are DYING - MDs are LYING - and online childbirth educator
Ericka is euphemizing - "medical mistakes and such"...
> Statistically, for normal, healthy
> women with low risk pregnancies (the sort who are eligible
> for home births), the risk profile of home births is as good
> as or better than the risk profile for hospital birth.
#### Regarding the risk profile for hospital birth, let's not forget...
"Many hospitals market their luxurious birth suites...neglecting to
mention
that they have little to offer the one out of ten babies who ends up
needing
an NICU. Those children will have to waste precious minutes or hours
being
transported [to a tertiary care facility] by ambulance...bumping
through
traffic instead of receiving lifesaving care right where they were
born...[M]any small patients arrive...[in tertiary care facility
NICUs]...via ambulance from other hospitals...their parents pale and
terrified in the car behind them, unable to comprehend...why they made
the
mistake of starting out at the wrong hospital in the first place..."
[Humes E. Baby ER: The Heroic Doctors and Nurses Who Perform Medicine's
Tiniest Miracles. NY: Simon & Schuster. 2000:12-13]
See also: Baby ER (Also: Homebirth midwife at a hospital birth)
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.health.alternative/msg/6b425ecc4857967b
> The
> few studies that show otherwise are horribly methodologically
> flawed (and there are many methodologically sound studies
> that show at least equivalent safety for home birth).
#### MD-obstetrician experts have been/still are LYING to cover-up the
massive birth-canal-closing crime of MD-obstetricians.
#### Birth position studies have also been horribly methodologically
flawed - a form of "scientific" lying.
> In addition,
> countries where home birth is commonplace have historically
> had *better* birth outcomes than the US, where it is rare.
>
#### The Western MD-obstetrician birth-canal-closing birth crime is
spreading right along with use of the chair.
See Toilet Training for Thai Army Recruits in: sMEG during squatting?
(also: Asian Pacific Americans)
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids.pregnancy/msg/a2044441c7aca66e
> > Actually, a lot of hospitals have midwives assist in the deliveries.
> > However, I am glad homebirth rates are decreasing.
>
> Actually, as far as I can tell, they're not decreasing.
>
> > Personally, I think the best care is delivered by midwives in birthing
> > suites in hospitals, where there is good OB coverage and good emergency
> > neonatal care, when needed.
>
> It is still not equivalent care to a home birth.
#### Home is mom's turf. Hospital is MD turf.
#### When the homebirth midwife apes the MD in the home - she is
robbing mom (and her baby) right in her home.
> While there are many very good midwives working in hospitals
> (and OBs, for that matter), there are still issues with
> the hospital model that introduce risks.
#### "Good" midwives and "good" OBs - and "good" online childbirth
educators for that matter - do not dismiss obvious, sometimes fatal,
birth crimes as "medical mistakes and such."
#### To be sure, they are all doing much good - but by
ignoring/dismissing the bad - the crime - they do society a grave
disservice.
> I think women should have access to whatever
> birth location they feel most comfortable with, given that
> there is no credible evidence that one is taking an undue
> risk choosing a home birth with an appropriately trained
> attendant, a normal low-risk pregnancy, and adequate
> backup.
>
> Best wishes,
> Ericka
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids/msg/e7afb7dcf84fa6e3
#### Ericka and I are in substantial agreement - except that Ericka
does not call obvious MD crime obvious MD crime.
#### How serious is the obvious MD crime?
#### Again, babies are actually being VACUUMED to death - made to bleed
to death into their scalps - thousands per year (please check my math
someone?) - with MD-obstetricians senselessly KEEPING birth canals
closed the "extra" up to 30% as they literally vacuum/rip/separate baby
scalps from baby skulls...
See Dr. Hull made SOME changes I recommended, but he still
'forgets' those hematomas ABOVE the periosteum...
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med/msg/d4f53c2204fce76e
### Obviously, not all baby deaths can be prevented - it's just that
it's criminal to close the birth canal the "extra" up to 30%...
KEEPING the birth canal closed the "extra" up to 30% as one pulls with
a vacuum just makes the MD crime worse.
### The fact that MD-obstetrician experts are LYING to cover-up will
make prosecution easy - once law enforcement takes action...
#### For the Four OB Lies (they are whoppers)...
See Dents in babies' skulls"
http://groups.google.com/group/
misc.kids.pregnancy/msg/08abfc7ff242150e
Alternate URL:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/chiro-list/message/3897
LADIES: To allow your birth canal to OPEN the "extra" up to 30%, just
stay
off your sacrum as you push your baby out. Many women like side-lying
delivery. Kneeling against the raised head of the bed works. So does
standing. So does hands-and-knees. Virtually EVERY delivery position
allows the birth canal to open maximally - except dorsal and
semisitting -
the two most commonly used by obstetricians.
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Todd
Dr. Gastaldo
Hillsboro, Oregon
USA
PS Further comment - for Ericka... Ericka, you have been covering for
childbirth educator Henci Goer who is failing to inform women that
MD-obstetricians routinely KEEP birth canals closed the "extra" up to
30% when babies get stuck.
See Good one Ericka! (Ericka's sordid Henci Goer joke - again)
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids.pregnancy/msg/d02db7f19d5db306
Similarly, Larry McMahan has been online
pretending that it's not crime when MDs keep birth canals closed when
babies get stuck - with MD-obstetrician experts LYING (see above) to
cover-up. Remember? Larry says that the birth-canal-closing STANDARD
care of MD-obstetricians is mere "substandard care."
#### See again: Good one Ericka! (Ericka's sordid Henci Goer joke -
again)
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids.pregnancy/msg/d02db7f19d5db306
Larry is WRONG. [Crime is occurring.]
Women shouldn't have to ask their MD-obstetricians (or midwives) for
the "extra" up to 30%.
Most women don't KNOW to ask.
Which is why everyone should be calling the "medical mistakes" what
they are - CRIMES.
Everyone should also be emailing LAW ENFORCEMENT.
REMEMBER: MDs are depending on law enforcement looking the other way.
As noted above, Steve B. Harris, MD arrogantly boasts:
"Without enforcement, there is no law. Without law, there is no crime.
These are elementary principles. Get an adult to explain them to you."
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids.pregnancy/msg/28866f3384801ae9
What - really - is the difference between the MD making his arrogant
boast and Ericka Kammerer euphemizing the obvious crimes by calling
them "medical mistakes and such"?
I SAY AGAIN...
Babies are actually being VACUUMED to death - made to bleed to death
into their scalps - thousands per year (please check my math someone?)
- with MD-obstetricians senselessly KEEPING birth canals closed the
"extra" up to 30% as they literally vacuum/rip/separate baby scalps
from baby skulls...
See Dr. Hull made SOME changes I recommended, but he still
'forgets' those hematomas ABOVE the periosteum...
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med/msg/d4f53c2204fce76e
The birth-canal-closing crime is happening ROUTINELY at a hospital near
you - and in some home births.
Please report the crime.
I'm cc'ing Oregon Atty Genl Hardy Myers via hardy...@state.or.us.
Eventually law enforcement will stop looking the other way.
Thanks.
Sincerely,
Todd
Dr. Gastaldo
Hillsboro, Oregon
USA
to...@chiromotion.com
This post will be archived for global access in the Google usenet
archive. Search http://groups.google.com for "Dead babies and 'medical
mistakes' (also: 'Baby ER')"
Todd Gastaldo
LADIES at the very end of this post.
BABIES DYING/MDs LYING
...AND ERICKA'S SORDID JOKE...
Ericka Kammerer is whining about people not being informed (see below)
- even as she supports prominent childbirth educator Henci Goer in
failing to inform women that MD-obstetricians are keeping birth canals
closed the "extra" up to 30% when babies get stuck - as they pull with
vacuums.
Babies are actually being vacuumed to DEATH - made to bleed to death
into their scalps - thousands per year (please check my math someone?)
- with MD-obstetricians senselessly KEEPING birth canals closed the
"extra" up to 30% as they literally vacuum/rip/separate baby scalps
from baby skulls...
See Dr. Hull made SOME changes I recommended, but he still
'forgets' those hematomas ABOVE the periosteum...
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med/msg/d4f53c2204fce76e
This crime should be REPORTED not ignored...
Yes, Ericka puts out a lot of good information - but she is engaging in
a grave act of omission.
Women shouldn't have to ask for the "extra" up to 30%.
Most women don't know to ask.
Law enforcement needs to address this obvious crime.
Fiona/Grahame wrote:
> > I considered home birth with all 3 of my children.
> > I decided on the holspital for all of them.
> > I truly believe a woman knows how to give birth naturally. And the home
> > would be the best place for her to do this without interference.
> > BUT....I also didnt want anything to go wrong. And could not have lived with
> > myself IF my child died because I wanted a home birth.
Ericka Kammerer replied:
>
> What if your child died because you chose to be
> in a hospital (iatrogenic infection, cascading unnecessary
> interventions, problems related to discontinuity of care
> or other mistakes that are more likely in hospital)?
#### With MD-obstetricians closing birth canals up to 30% and KEEPING
birth canals closed the "extra" up to 30% when babies get stuck...
#### With MD-obstetricians failing to obtain informed consent - with
MD-obstetrician experts LYING to cover-up...
#### Women are - in effect - "choosing" MD-obstetrician CRIMES for
themselves and their babies.
> I feel very strongly that women should go where
> they feel most comfortable, so I certainly do not challenge
> your decision to birth in hospital.
#### I, too, believe women should birth where they feel most
comfortable.
#### But powerful cultural authorities - MD-obstetricians have called
homebirth "child abuse" - a crime.
#### This abuse of cultural authority has helped women "choose"
hospital birth.
> If that's where you
> wanted to be, then that's where you should be. I am only
> poking at your "what if" question.
#### Ericka is rather TIMIDLY poking. Babies are DYING and MDs are
LYING.
> So many people raise
> that issue with home birth, but it is almost never raised
> in the other direction, even though deaths due to those
> causes are *far* more common (due to the fact that there
> are so many more hospital births--the risks of bad outcomes
> due to being in the hospital is about the same as the risk
> of bad outcomes due to being at home and not being able to
> transport in time to deal with an issue).
#### The transport issue should indeed be raised "in the other
direction"...
"Many hospitals market their luxurious birth suites...neglecting to
mention
that they have little to offer the one out of ten babies who ends up
needing
an NICU. Those children will have to waste precious minutes or hours
being
transported [to a tertiary care facility] by ambulance...bumping
through
traffic instead of receiving lifesaving care right where they were
born...[M]any small patients arrive...[in tertiary care facility
NICUs]...via ambulance from other hospitals...their parents pale and
terrified in the car behind them, unable to comprehend...why they made
the
mistake of starting out at the wrong hospital in the first place..."
[Humes E. Baby ER: The Heroic Doctors and Nurses Who Perform Medicine's
Tiniest Miracles. NY: Simon & Schuster. 2000:12-13]
See also: Baby ER (Also: Homebirth midwife at a hospital birth)
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med/msg/05fbc37fe969e6c0
> None of us get to choose a perfectly safe birth.
> We only get to choose which set of risks we are more
> comfortable with.
#### But the set of risks for hospital births is reduced - even by
prominent childbirth educators like Henci Goer - with Ericka Kammerer's
support.
See Good one Ericka! (Ericka's sordid Henci Goer joke - again)
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids.pregnancy/msg/d02db7f19d5db306
> It is not surprising to me that more
> people are comfortable choosing the set of risks associated
> with hospital birth,
#### But they aren't "choosing." MD crimes are being IMPOSED upon them
without their consent.
> but I do wish that more people were
> aware of those risks (so that they could attempt to mitigate
> them).
>
#### This is MY point. Why are prominent childbirth educators failing
to tell women that if their babies get stuck, their birth canals will
be KEPT closed the "extra" up to 30%?
#### Why is Ericka Kammerer supporting Henci Goer in this childbirth
education fraud - even as she whines about wishing that more people
were aware of risks?
See again: Good one Ericka! (Ericka's sordid Henci Goer joke - again)
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids.pregnancy/msg/d02db7f19d5db306
#### Why do I care?
#### As I recently noted in this thread...and already said above:
Babies are actually being VACUUMED to death - made to bleed to death
into their scalps - thousands per year (please check my math someone?)
- with MD-obstetricians senselessly KEEPING birth canals closed the
"extra" up to 30% as they literally vacuum/rip/separate baby scalps
from baby skulls...
See Dr. Hull made SOME changes I recommended, but he still
'forgets' those hematomas ABOVE the periosteum...
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med/msg/d4f53c2204fce76e
The birth-canal-closing crime is happening routinely at a hospital near
you - and in some home births.
Please report the crime.
I'm cc'ing Oregon Atty Genl Hardy Myers via hardy...@state.or.us.
Eventually law enforcement will stop looking the other way, as in the
arrogant boast of Steve B. Harris, MD:
"Without enforcement, there is no law. Without law, there is no crime.
These are elementary principles. Get an adult to explain them to you."
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids.pregnancy/msg/28866f3384801ae9
Adults: Please report the crime - and start asking why prominent
childbirth educators like Henci Goer aren't mentioning it.
Ericka's "joke" is a sordid joke. (see Good one, Ericka!, URL above).
Thanks for reading.
Sincerely,
Todd
Dr. Gastaldo
Hillsboro, Oregon
USA
PS Obviously, not all baby deaths can be prevented - it's just that
it's criminal to close the birth canal the "extra" up to 30%...
KEEPING the birth canal closed the "extra" up to 30% as one pulls with
a vacuum just makes the MD crime worse.
The fact that MD-obstetrician experts are LYING to cover-up will make
prosecution easy - once law enforcement takes action...
For the Four OB Lies (they are whoppers)...
See Dents in babies' skulls"
http://groups.google.com/group/
misc.kids.pregnancy/msg/08abfc7ff242150e
Alternate URL:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/chiro-list/message/3897
I am in favor of pardons in advance for MDs. As medical students, MDs
are TRAINED to commit obvious felonies.
Anne Rogers
> suites in hospitals, where there is good OB coverage and good emergency
> neonatal care, when needed.
I'm not convinced, as soon as you have a group of midwives practicing
together, they start to lose their professional autonomy, because you don't
know who will be there on the day, it suddenly becomes less important that
you see the same person each antenatal visit and so on, I don't doubt that
you can get very good care from midwives in birthing centre, but I'm far
from convinced that for the low risk women it's going to amount to being
better. You start to find that midwives are doing VEs because it's policy to
do one on admission, not because doing that VE is going to tell them some
useful information which could potentially change the course of action and
so on.... suddenly women are on a conveyor belt and a midwife becomes little
more than an obstetric nurse.
I'm also not clear on whether you are talking about a midwife led unit with
fast access to obstetric and neonatal care, or a consultant led unit, with
the main care provided by midwives, the two are very different, to the
extent that in some places they exist within the same building and the
outcomes for low risk women starting in the former are better than starting
in the latter.
stasya
I give birth in a hospital because with all three of my kids, I had
post partum hemorraghing. I would have had to been rushed to the
hospital all 3 times, so why not start out there?
Stasya
Clisby
kathy...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It seems to me that women are having fewer home births now. I am
> saddened by this and wonder why this is happening.
I'm not sure it is happening - my impression (purely that) would have
been the opposite. However, I couldn't find any stats on it.
Clisby
Ericka Kammerer
> Thats true, Im sure if my child died, I would blame myself anyway, beyond
> reason.
> But to me thats more of an unlikely situation, than complications of
> childbirth.
However, *statistically*, that's not true. If you start
from the baseline of normal, healthy women having normal, healthy
pregnancies, then the vast majority of complications can either
dealt with at home just fine or give enough time to transport
to deal with appropriately. It's just a fraction of a percent
of the time where you encounter complications that require
immediate access to high tech care in order to avoid a bad
outcome for mother or baby.
Similarly, in a fraction of a percent of the time,
there are bad outcomes that can be traced to problems
encountered in the hospital that wouldn't have been
encountered at home.
So, the bottom line is that those two sources of
risk *ARE* about the same magnitude. Assuming you'd have
been a candidate for home birth anyway, you're not improving
your odds of a good outcome by going to the hospital over
choosing an appropriate home birth setting. You are,
however, choosing *different* risks. Some people are
more comfortable with one set of risks, and some people
are more comfortable with another. That's fine, and
to be expected. It's just the misconception that choosing
one birth location over another *in general* is somehow
"more safe" that I have a beef with. (Note that there
are also situational differences--all home birth choices
and all hospital choices aren't the same, so for some women
in some situations home births would be more risky and
for other women in other situations hospital birth would
be more risky. I'm just talking in broad generalities
here.)
And, of course, statistics don't mean a thing
if you're actually dealing with the bad outcome. I'm
sure we'd all struggle with blaming ourselves no matter
where the bad outcome happened, and no matter what was
logically the case. That's part of why I think it's so
important that women choose what they feel is most
appropriate for them. At least if a bad thing happens,
they aren't *also* dealing with the guilt of choosing
against what they felt to be in their best interests.
Best wishes,
Ericka
Chookie
Ericka Kammerer <e...@comcast.net> wrote:
> >> It seems to me that women are having fewer home births now. I am
> >> saddened by this and wonder why this is happening.
> >
> > If there is a problem with during birth, the time it takes to get to the
> > hospital could be deadly.
>
> And introgenic infections and medical mistakes and
> such can also be deadly. Statistically, for normal, healthy
> women with low risk pregnancies (the sort who are eligible
> for home births), the risk profile of home births is as good
> as or better than the risk profile for hospital birth.
The difficulty with this discussion is that neither you nor the OP have
indicated which part of the world you are talking about. Is it the whole
world? The English-speaking world? Or something else?
The risks to mothers in hospitals vary according to local practice. I am not
sure it is even meaningful to talk about a "hospital model" of birth across
countries, for example.
And as you suggest (I've just snipped for brevity) the problem with working
from statistics is that the tiny risk of Something Awful happening at a home
birth, because it *is* a home birth, still means that Something Awful *will*
happen to someone. Ditto the risk of hospital-acquired infection and
iatrogenic problems in a hospital, of course -- but a mother won't blame
herself for those things.
Of course, I have a particular attitude because I was "low-risk" right up
until the moment I had eclampsia. Even fifty years ago, I probably would have
left the hospital in a box :-/
--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)
"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue
enigma
> Grahame wrote:
>> Thats true, Im sure if my child died, I would blame myself
>> anyway, beyond reason.
>> But to me thats more of an unlikely situation, than
>> complications of childbirth.
>
> However, *statistically*, that's not true. If you
> start
> from the baseline of normal, healthy women having normal,
> healthy pregnancies, then the vast majority of
> complications can either dealt with at home just fine or
> give enough time to transport to deal with appropriately.
out of curiousity, how much time *is* 'time to deal with
appropriately'?
i live in a semi-rural area, but there are 3 hospitals within
a 35 minute drive by car. however, in the case of an
emergency, there's the time it takes to call 911, talk to the
dispatcher, get the emergency crew dispatched (i *think* the
ambulance drivers are at the station during the day, but not
at night, but the crews would be at thier regular jobs & have
to get here too), have the entire EMT crew get to the house,
stabilize & transport... adding a minimum of 20 minutes or so
onto the trip... (i'm guessing on the time because that's how
long it took for the fire dept to get here when i had a
chimney fire. i live less than 2 miles from the station)
on a related note, is it really that uncommon here in the US
to go into a hospital birth with a birth plan spelling out
exactly which interventions you will not allow, or things you
want done? i don't remember everything on mine, except no
drugs, no cutting the cord until all the blood drained, & that
i wanted Tom to help with the delivery. it had a whole page
worth of stuff though.
the OB nurse looked it over, said i could have everything
except Tom helping & it was fine. in the end though, the
doctor overrode the nurse & let Tom help. they did install a
hep lock after 17 hours of labor because i was dehydrating &
they are supposed to give an antibiotic 16 hours after the
water breaks... but the fluids & antibiotic were delivered by
robot & didn't show up until after the birth anyway
(apparently the poor robot got stuck on an elevator).
the point being that delivering in a hospital doesn't mean
you have to give up control.
lee
--
Question with boldness even the existence of god; because if
there be
one, he must more approve the homage of reason than that of
blindfolded
fear. - Thomas Jefferson
Rebecca Jo
> on a related note, is it really that uncommon here in the US
> to go into a hospital birth with a birth plan spelling out
> exactly which interventions you will not allow, or things you
> want done? i don't remember everything on mine, except no
> drugs, no cutting the cord until all the blood drained, & that
> i wanted Tom to help with the delivery. it had a whole page
> worth of stuff though.
> the OB nurse looked it over, said i could have everything
> except Tom helping & it was fine. in the end though, the
> doctor overrode the nurse & let Tom help. they did install a
> hep lock after 17 hours of labor because i was dehydrating &
> they are supposed to give an antibiotic 16 hours after the
> water breaks... but the fluids & antibiotic were delivered by
> robot & didn't show up until after the birth anyway
> (apparently the poor robot got stuck on an elevator).
> the point being that delivering in a hospital doesn't mean
> you have to give up control.
> lee
I think a lot of this depends on the location. My family was really
surprised that I was making a "birth plan" because they'd never heard of it
before. They delivered in hospitals in northern indiana.
I was originally planning on having a hospital birth because of my husband's
wishes, but we switched to a birth center after an incident with the doctor
where she told me that under no circumstances would I be allowed to eat or
drink during labor, I would not be allowed to move around once I got there,
I would immediately get an IV, I would be allowed to "try" other positions
but they didn't do "that Bradley nonsense". She also scoffed at my no-drug
plan and told me that 90% of women end up needing an epidural.
I called someone for a birth center recommendation and found out that the
hospital I was planning on going to was the worst in the area for birthing,
and they do enforce all of the above, regardless of the situation.
I am very happy with the way my birth center birth turned out and am
planning a homebirth this time. I'm also pretty close to a hospital if we do
need to be transported there.
--
Rebecca Jo
Mama to Alexander 6/6/05
EDD 6/27/2007
toto
<rebecca...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I think a lot of this depends on the location. My family was really
>surprised that I was making a "birth plan" because they'd never heard of it
>before. They delivered in hospitals in northern indiana.
I had never heard of it, but I delivered my kids in the early 70s. I
don't think my dil had a birth plan in Illinois either.
--
Dorothy
There is no sound, no cry in all the world
that can be heard unless someone listens ..
The Outer Limits
Penny Gaines
Chookie's point that country matters is very relevant here.
In the UK, you would have called out a medically qualified midwife
relatively early in labour, certainly by the time you would have
gone into hospital for a hospital birth. She would have spotted the
signs that require you to be rushed to hospital, and would have
contacted the emergancy services on your behalf.
--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three
Anne Rogers
> appropriately'?
> i live in a semi-rural area, but there are 3 hospitals within
> a 35 minute drive by car. however, in the case of an
> emergency, there's the time it takes to call 911, talk to the
> dispatcher, get the emergency crew dispatched (i *think* the
> ambulance drivers are at the station during the day, but not
> at night, but the crews would be at thier regular jobs & have
> to get here too), have the entire EMT crew get to the house,
> stabilize & transport... adding a minimum of 20 minutes or so
> onto the trip... (i'm guessing on the time because that's how
> long it took for the fire dept to get here when i had a
> chimney fire. i live less than 2 miles from the station)
the gold standard for c-section is 30minutes from decision to cut, but there
isn't all that much evidence to support that, sometimes it needs to be a lot
lot faster, others the time delay doesn't really matter, the key thing is
though that most decisions don't happen with no warning, in a homebirth with
care from a midwife, they should have been with you for several hours and
pick up any signs and arrange transfer before it becomes a dire emergency,
some emergencies do happen fast, such as waters breaking and cord prolapse
occuring, but that is actually more likely to happen prelabour than during
labour, so that's an emergency that happens at home to women who've planned
hospital births.
>
> on a related note, is it really that uncommon here in the US
> to go into a hospital birth with a birth plan spelling out
> exactly which interventions you will not allow, or things you
> want done? i don't remember everything on mine, except no
> drugs, no cutting the cord until all the blood drained, & that
> i wanted Tom to help with the delivery. it had a whole page
> worth of stuff though.
> the OB nurse looked it over, said i could have everything
> except Tom helping & it was fine. in the end though, the
> doctor overrode the nurse & let Tom help. they did install a
> hep lock after 17 hours of labor because i was dehydrating &
> they are supposed to give an antibiotic 16 hours after the
> water breaks... but the fluids & antibiotic were delivered by
> robot & didn't show up until after the birth anyway
> (apparently the poor robot got stuck on an elevator).
> the point being that delivering in a hospital doesn't mean
> you have to give up control.
it seems to me that nowadays almost everyone makes a birth plan, but you
were lucky that it was only a case of the nurse saying Tom couldn't help and
that being overridden, some doctors/nurses will not allow delayed cord
cutting, or insist on medicine to deliver the placenta, or demand VEs every
4hrs and so on. I've had two hospital births that started as planned
homebirths, with transfers prior to labour, though I fully understand and
accept and am content with those births basically having to occur in
hospital, I definitely lost a lot of control a lot of things were just
assumed, no one ever asked my permission before examining me, or explained
why they were examining me, whereas at home, either these things would have
occured, or the exam wouldn't have happened, we'd have then found somewhere
comfortable and a good position. You can be in control in a hospital birth,
but it's likely that you'll be in control within a certain set of
parameters.
Anne
Ericka Kammerer
> In article <NsmdnQim8Yx5JhnY...@comcast.com>,
> Ericka Kammerer <e...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>>>> It seems to me that women are having fewer home births now. I am
>>>> saddened by this and wonder why this is happening.
>>> If there is a problem with during birth, the time it takes to get to the
>>> hospital could be deadly.
>> And introgenic infections and medical mistakes and
>> such can also be deadly. Statistically, for normal, healthy
>> women with low risk pregnancies (the sort who are eligible
>> for home births), the risk profile of home births is as good
>> as or better than the risk profile for hospital birth.
>
> The difficulty with this discussion is that neither you nor the OP have
> indicated which part of the world you are talking about. Is it the whole
> world? The English-speaking world? Or something else?
Sorry. Talking about the US, as her description
didn't seem to fit anywhere else.
> And as you suggest (I've just snipped for brevity) the problem with working
> from statistics is that the tiny risk of Something Awful happening at a home
> birth, because it *is* a home birth, still means that Something Awful *will*
> happen to someone. Ditto the risk of hospital-acquired infection and
> iatrogenic problems in a hospital, of course -- but a mother won't blame
> herself for those things.
>
> Of course, I have a particular attitude because I was "low-risk" right up
> until the moment I had eclampsia. Even fifty years ago, I probably would have
> left the hospital in a box :-/
There are certainly things that happen, though
I think people often underestimate the ability of midwives
to spot trouble and transfer as needed. Many seem to think
that home birth is a "come hell or high water" sort of thing,
which I suppose it is for a few die hards. Also, while
caregivers in hospital can afford to overlook some things
(and can afford to choose some potentially risky interventions)
precisely *because* they have a hospital at their backs,
home birth caregivers generally know their patients well,
have great continuity of care, and have great instincts
when things aren't going quite right for that particular
person--precisely so that they can transport in plenty of
time for the vast majority of complications.
Best wishes,
Ericka
Ericka Kammerer
> Ericka Kammerer <e...@comcast.net> wrote in
> news:v56dnU84UapGlxvY...@comcast.com:
>
>> Grahame wrote:
>>> Thats true, Im sure if my child died, I would blame myself
>>> anyway, beyond reason.
>>> But to me thats more of an unlikely situation, than
>>> complications of childbirth.
>> However, *statistically*, that's not true. If you
>> start
>> from the baseline of normal, healthy women having normal,
>> healthy pregnancies, then the vast majority of
>> complications can either dealt with at home just fine or
>> give enough time to transport to deal with appropriately.
>
> out of curiousity, how much time *is* 'time to deal with
> appropriately'?
The general recommendation is that it's best to
be able to transport within 30 minutes.
> on a related note, is it really that uncommon here in the US
> to go into a hospital birth with a birth plan spelling out
> exactly which interventions you will not allow, or things you
> want done? i don't remember everything on mine, except no
> drugs, no cutting the cord until all the blood drained, & that
> i wanted Tom to help with the delivery. it had a whole page
> worth of stuff though.
> the OB nurse looked it over, said i could have everything
> except Tom helping & it was fine. in the end though, the
> doctor overrode the nurse & let Tom help. they did install a
> hep lock after 17 hours of labor because i was dehydrating &
> they are supposed to give an antibiotic 16 hours after the
> water breaks... but the fluids & antibiotic were delivered by
> robot & didn't show up until after the birth anyway
> (apparently the poor robot got stuck on an elevator).
> the point being that delivering in a hospital doesn't mean
> you have to give up control.
Many hospitals in the US are exerting more control.
Many people find that their birth plans are not allowed
or are disregarded when the time comes. Many people don't
have enough flexibility in hospital or provider choice
(because of limited availability or insurance limitations)
so it's not always possible to ditch a provider if you
don't like the limitations.
By far, the overwhelming reason most women who
choose home birth choose it is to maintain more control.
Best wishes,
Ericka
Cathy Weeks
Well, as far as I can tell, home birth is *increasing* over what it was
in the 1970s. I had a home birth, and it was a wonderful experience.
I would say it's not the hospital conglomerates that are the problem,
but our society in general, and perhaps the medical model that
encourages fear of childbirth. When I was pregnant, and interviewing a
doctor about her being my baby's doctor, she herself was pregnant at
the time. She told me she supported my right to decide on a home birth,
but as a doctor, she saw or studied ALL THE THINGS THAT COULD GO WRONG
for her to be comfortable chosing to birth at home.
Compare that to my parents family doctor, who chose to her have *her*
last baby at home.
:-)
So when you focus on everything that can go wrong, OF COURSE people
think hospitals are safest.
Cathy Weeks
Cathy Weeks
Jeff wrote:
> <kathy...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1166281514....@79g2000cws.googlegroups.com...
> > Hi,
> >
> > It seems to me that women are having fewer home births now. I am
> > saddened by this and wonder why this is happening.
>
> If there is a problem with during birth, the time it takes to get to the
> hospital could be deadly.
Jeff, the average "decision to incision" time is 30 minutes, and
whether you are waiting on a gurney outside the OR, or traveling in
your midwife's care breathing oxigen, has little differnce in th
outcome. The VAST majority of complications occur during stage one of
labor, in plenty of time to transfer to the hospital. Breech
presentation, meconium in the fluid, etc. And most complications that
can happen during 2nd stage - well, midwives are trained to handle most
of them just fine. The problem that happens during 2nd stage that will
result in the death of mother or baby unless something happens RIGHT
NOW is very, very rare - and occur about as commonly as
hospital-introduced infections or other hospital-occurring
complications that result in the death of mother or child. So yes,
there are babies and/or mothers who might die because of the decision
to birth at home. And there are a similar number of babies and/or
mothers who might die because of the decision to birth at the hospital.
Fortunately, both are rare situations (and I might add - the women or
babies who die because something is needed RIGHT NOW often would have
died no matter where they were. Women and babies do die at hospitals).
Of course, there are women who should birth at the hospital due to
various risk factors. It would be stupid to suggest otherwise.
>
> Actually, a lot of hospitals have midwives assist in the deliveries.
Yes, and those midwives are bound by the rules of the hospital.
Continuous fetal monitoring, constant IVs, rules against laboring women
walking the halls, or moving about their rooms, prohibiting food and
drink during labor, no water births, etc. These are all rules that
have not been shown to help, and in many cases have been shown to
actually LEAD to complications.
> However, I am glad homebirth rates are decreasing. The babies have more
> trained professionals available in a hospital than at home.
Jeff, I'm really bothered by this. For women with low risk factors,
birthing at home is just as safe, and in some ways SAFER. First of
all, you need to consider more than just the health of the baby at
birth. The mother counts too. So for low-risk pregnancies, the
percentage of live and healthy babies is about the same at home as in
the hospital. But, the mothers have more c-sections to heal from, more
episiotomies (considered the most common unnecessary surgery in the
US), more infections. The babies are exposed to more drugs via the
pain medication, and due to infections they must be treated for. All of
these things have been shown to statistically decrease the success of
breastfeeding (I'm speaking in generalities here). So in the end...
even the babies might be less healthy.
> That said, inselected low-risk cases, home delivery appears as safe as
> in-hospital delivery, if emergent transport to a hospital is available.
So why are you glad to see it decreasing? The women who deliver at
home are pretty much always lower-risk women (midwives risk some women
out prior to delivery, and risk others out DURING labor).
Anecdote - my CNM practice was an independent practice. THey had two
OBs who came in once a month to see their 36-weekers to clear them for
a home birth - they went over the records, examined the women, all to
make sure the midwives hadn't missed anything. Assuming everything was
OK, the midwives would only do homebirths between 37 and 42 weeks
gestation, and assuming a WHOLE bunch of other things were ok (like no
meconium in the fluid, no breech presentation, etc) they'd do a home
birth. They recommended transfers if things looked funny during labor
- heartbeat problems with either mother or baby, etc. My understanding
is that this model is relatively common. Anyway, by 2001, their
practice (there were two of them) had delivered more than 3000 babies,
and about half of those were planned home births. They had a 7%
transfer rate (10% for first timers) and about a 5% c-section rate.
And they had never lost a baby or mother.
> Personally, I think the best care is delivered by midwives in birthing
> suites in hospitals, where there is good OB coverage and good emergency
> neonatal care, when needed.
Yes and no. I agree to some extent - it was my second choice after a
home birth, but midwives in these situations are still bound by the
hospital rules, many of which are not actually good rules. I mentioned
a number of them above. It's also worth mentioning that from a germ
perspective, birthing suites or attached birth centers also have higher
rates of infection than do home births or free-standing birth centers.
You just cannot prevent those nasty germs that are in hospitals from
traveling to L&D wings. Doesn't matter how much cleaning is done, or
disinfectant is used, as long as you are mixing sick people and
birthing people, you will get higher rates of illness among the
birthing folks.
I agree with Erika - hospitals are not without risks, and most women
who are contemplating having a child do not know of those risks, and
hence cannot truely make an informed decision. That said, we are all
comfortable with differing types risks, and low-risk women should be
free to choose the location they are most comfortable with (becuase
comfort and peace of mind are VERY important to a good birth -if you
cannot relax, it's just that much harder to do!)
I've also found that doctors (and I know you are an MD) are not
terribly comfortable with situations that are out of their control. My
family-practice doctor (a WONDERFUL doctor for most stuff - I still
miss her - but alas I moved to a different state) was horrified by the
idea that I was contemplating a home birth because I had an "unproven
pelvis". Other than her Medschool training, she did not do births -
they had women go to an OBGYN for obstetrical and gynacologic care. So
she wasn't even particular experienced. Another doctor in that same
practice (another good doctor, I might add) told me that she had
learned too much about what could go wrong, to ever be confortable
hving a home birth herself. What was wierd, is that she had no
understanding of the statistics or practices surrounding home birth,
nor did she understand the risks associated with just being in a
hospital.
I think part of it is that doctors become doctors because they want to
help people - ie they want to take charge. A home birth represents a
situiation where some of the variables are less controlled, and I think
that's uncomfortable for them. I think the mentality is similar to the
husbands of laboring women who are just ... so scared because there's
nothing they can do to help (well, they can, but you know what I mean!)
Sorry for the long rant.
Cathy Weeks
Cathy Weeks
Todd Gastaldo wrote:
> Pregnant? To allow your birth canal to open an "extra" up to 30%, see
> LADIES at the very end of this post.
>
>
> BABIES DYING/MDs LYING
>
> ...AND ERICKA'S SORDID JOKE...
>
> Ericka Kammerer is whining about people not being informed (see below)
> - even as she supports prominent childbirth educator Henci Goer in
> failing to inform women that MD-obstetricians are keeping birth canals
> closed the "extra" up to 30% when babies get stuck - as they pull with
> vacuums.
Todd,
I'm glad you are around to keep people informed on your crusade, but I
must take issue with this one. I think this was incredibly rude.
Ericka is one of our most valuable, and reasoned members of these
sites, and just because (unlike you) she doesn't have a one-track mind,
doesn't mean she is whining, nor does it mean she is guilty of
ommission.
You just lost a lot of credibility here.
Cathy Weeks
enigma
> Many hospitals in the US are exerting more control.
> Many people find that their birth plans are not allowed
> or are disregarded when the time comes. Many people don't
> have enough flexibility in hospital or provider choice
> (because of limited availability or insurance limitations)
> so it's not always possible to ditch a provider if you
> don't like the limitations.
i actually had insurance when i had the baby. fortunately my
OB used the hospital i wanted because they have a regular
maternity ward *and* a birth center.
the birth center section is way more relaxed than the regular
maternity.
> By far, the overwhelming reason most women who
> choose home birth choose it is to maintain more control.
i was 47. i was pretty assertive ;)
-L.
I think you should feel blessed that you have the choice as to whether
or not you have a home birth. Many women never get the chance to
experience pregnancy and childbirth. Worrying about what type of birth
to have seems silly and incidental to many of us who are Primary
infertiles.
Personally I think anyone who takes the risk of homebirth is fucking
nuts. But hey - that's just me.
-L.
Donna Metler
Pre-Eclampsia and HELLP syndrome groups is that midwives do a better job of
picking up the early symptoms than OBs do, simply because usually you have
more contact with them, appointments are longer, and usually they're focused
more on the mother than on charting and record keeping. My perinatal center
used CNMs for monitoring and regular appointments during my second, ultra
high-risk pregnancy, and I feel that my CNM was a major help in getting a
pregnancy to 35 weeks and keeping things balanced and under control. I can
never have even a birthing center birth (I will always have to have
C-sections, and require a CCU and NICU for my and the baby's safety), let
alone a home birth, but the team approach with a midwife leading and an OB
and perinatologist on consultation (with the OB handling medication,
ordering tests and the like and the perinatologist reviewing periodically)
worked very well, and really helped make a horribly stressful pregnancy
much, much less stressful, especially compared to my first one where I
literally didn't see the same OB twice until I was 20 weeks along, and
barely recognized the guy when I ended up in the hospital at 22 weeks!
So, even if you end up with the worst case scenerio, if you're planning for
a midwife-led home birth, you'll probably have a pretty good standard of
care throughout the pregnancy, and have a much more relaxed, positive
experience during the pregnancy.
--
Donna DeVore Metler
Orff Music Specialist/Kindermusik
Mother to Angel Brian Anthony 1/1/2002, 22 weeks, severe PE/HELLP
And Allison Joy, 11/25/04 (35 weeks, PIH, Pre-term labor)
Todd Gastaldo
MDs LYING/BABIES DYING...
Pregnant women: Please see LADIES: PREVENTION [in the URL at the end
of this post] below for a simple way
to help avoid c-sections and episiotomies...
MD-obstetricians are senselessly closing birth canals up to 30%. See
Gastaldo TD. Letter. Birth. 1992;19(4):230-1.
Babies are actually being vacuumed to DEATH - made to bleed to death
into their scalps - thousands per year (please check my math; see the
"Dr Hull" URL below)
- with MD-obstetricians senselessly KEEPING birth canals closed the
"extra" up to 30% as they literally vacuum/rip/separate baby scalps
from baby skulls...
See Dr. Hull made SOME changes I recommended, but he still
'forgets' those hematomas ABOVE the periosteum...
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med/msg/d4f53c2204fce76e
CATHY, DO YOU DISAGREE THAT...
See below.
Todd Gastaldo wrote:
> > Pregnant? To allow your birth canal to open an "extra" up to 30%, see
> > LADIES at the very end of this post.
> >
> >
> > BABIES DYING/MDs LYING
> >
> > ...AND ERICKA'S SORDID JOKE...
> >
> > Ericka Kammerer is whining about people not being informed (see below)
> > - even as she supports prominent childbirth educator Henci Goer in
> > failing to inform women that MD-obstetricians are keeping birth canals
> > closed the "extra" up to 30% when babies get stuck - as they pull with
> > vacuums.
Cathy Weeks replied:
>
> Todd,
>
> I'm glad you are around to keep people informed on your crusade,
#### Isn't it interesting that one must "crusade" to stop
MD-obstetricians from closing birth canals up to 30%, etc.?
#### The crime is so obvious - so massive - it would be surprising if
MD-obstetricians did not have "experts" to give out good info and
studiously ignore the massive MD crime.
> but I
> must take issue with this one. I think this was incredibly rude.
>
#### Sometimes telling the truth seems rude. Babies are dying/MDs are
lying. It was/is incredibly rude of Ericka to lie to support prominent
childbirth educator Henci Goer's bizarre failure to tell pregnant women
that MD-obstetricians are keeping birth canals closed the "extra" up to
30%. For Ericka to whine that people aren't being informed is
hypocrisy.
> Ericka is one of our most valuable, and reasoned members of these
> sites, and
#### Unfortunately Ericka is neither valuable nor reasoned in this
matter. In this matter, Ericka reminds me of NO CIRC's Marilyn Milos,
RN - another "most valuable and reasoned" person. Marilyn toils
tirelessly to end mass infant penis ripping and slicing - but oddly -
Marilyn failed to call attention to a key point - American medicine
lying - using phony "babies can't feel pain" neurology. Ultimately,
Marilyn voted not to have NO CIRC nurses file mandatory suspected child
abuse reports - even as she sold bumper stickers which read "Child
abuse begins with circumcision." The mass infant penis ripping and
slicing that Marilyn "opposes" continues.
> just because (unlike you) she doesn't have a one-track mind,
#### A one-track mind is MANDATORY when children are being abused.
Children are being abused en masse and Ericka is covering/lying for
prominent childbirth educator Henci Goer who is failing to call
attention to the fact that MD-obstetricians are keeping birth canals
closed the "extra" up to 30% when babies get stuck.
#### Maybe Ericka and Henci are good friends and that is the reason for
Ericka's whining hypocrisy?
> doesn't mean she is whining, nor does it mean she is guilty of
> ommission.
>
#### No, I still say she is whining about parents not being informed
even as she lies to help conceal a prominent childbirth educator's
failure to inform.
> You just lost a lot of credibility here.
>
> Cathy Weeks
##### Sorry you feel that way. If you see error in my writing, please
point it out - preferably publicly. It is ERICKA who is lying and
covering up for Henci Goer's bizarre failure to inform parents - even
as she (Ericka) hypocritically whines about parents not being informed.
#### As I indicated in my post (you snipped this)...
"Babies are actually being vacuumed to DEATH - made to bleed to death
into their scalps - thousands per year (please check my math someone?)
- with MD-obstetricians senselessly KEEPING birth canals closed the
"extra" up to 30% as they literally vacuum/rip/separate baby scalps
from baby skulls... "
See Dr. Hull made SOME changes I recommended, but he still
'forgets' those hematomas ABOVE the periosteum...
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med/msg/d4f53c2204fce76e
#### You also snipped this:
"This crime should be REPORTED not ignored...Yes, Ericka puts out a lot
of good information - but she is engaging in
a grave act of omission...Women shouldn't have to ask for the "extra"
up to 30%....Most women don't know to ask...Law enforcement needs to
address this obvious crime."
http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids.pregnancy/msg/112cb54e1443a9a7
CATHY, DO YOU DISAGREE THAT...
#### ....a massive crime is being committed -
complete with MD cover-up lies? I say again: a one-track mind is
MANDATORY when children are being abused. Children are being abused en
masse and Ericka is covering/lying for a prominent childbirth educator
who is failing to call attention to the fact that MD-obstetricians are
keeping birth canals closed the "extra" up to 30% when babies get
stuck.
#### I hope Ericka keeps putting out all that good information - but I
think she needs to end her lying hypocrisy.
#### MD-obstetrician experts should stop THEIR lying too. Their lies
are whoppers. See "Dents in babies' skulls" URL below.
Excerpted from: MDs lying/Babies dying: Cathy, do you disagree that...
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med/msg/3b6fdb51ddea0aa1
Ericka Kammerer
> Ericka Kammerer <e...@comcast.net> wrote in
> news:YuidnR_5L-5bQhvY...@comcast.com:
>
>> Many hospitals in the US are exerting more control.
>> Many people find that their birth plans are not allowed
>> or are disregarded when the time comes. Many people don't
>> have enough flexibility in hospital or provider choice
>> (because of limited availability or insurance limitations)
>> so it's not always possible to ditch a provider if you
>> don't like the limitations.
>
> i actually had insurance when i had the baby. fortunately my
> OB used the hospital i wanted because they have a regular
> maternity ward *and* a birth center.
> the birth center section is way more relaxed than the regular
> maternity.
>
>> By far, the overwhelming reason most women who
>> choose home birth choose it is to maintain more control.
>
> i was 47. i was pretty assertive ;)
I can be pretty assertive as well, but didn't
particularly want to *have* to fight my way through
labor to get what I wanted. It was much nicer knowing
that we were all on the same page. Being able to relax
is very helpful in labor ;-)
Best wishes,
Ericka
Ericka Kammerer
> Another thought here-one thing I've picked up repeatedly on the
> Pre-Eclampsia and HELLP syndrome groups is that midwives do a better job of
> picking up the early symptoms than OBs do, simply because usually you have
> more contact with them, appointments are longer, and usually they're focused
> more on the mother than on charting and record keeping.
...*and* they can't afford to miss these sorts of
things. They have both more motivation to find these things
and more data on which to hone their intuition. I think
many people really underestimate the value of continuity
of care. I went through two different models of care,
even with homebirths. For the first two, I was with a
small practice where the same two midwives were at all
prenatals as well as the entire birth. For the third,
I was with a larger practice where I rotated through
several midwives during prenatals, though I had a single
midwife for the entire birth. All the midwives were
great, but the first set definitely had more information
about me and what was normal for me than the second
group.
Best wishes,
Ericka
Cathy Weeks
-L. wrote:
> experience pregnancy and childbirth. Worrying about what type of birth
> to have seems silly and incidental to many of us who are Primary
> infertiles.
Ummmm... so those of us who are lucky enough to not have to deal with
infertility shouldn't discuss, and make those decisions? It's not
silly nor incidental, and given what you say below - you don't really
think it's silly or incidental either (that it's fucking nuts to have a
birth outside a hospital).
> Personally I think anyone who takes the risk of homebirth is fucking
> nuts. But hey - that's just me.
This is merely showing your ignorance of the actual statistics
surrounding birth. For those of us who were lucky enough to have an
low-risk uneventful pregnancy, home birth is JUST as safe, and in some
ways SAFER than hospital birth.
The rate of healthy babies is roughly the same as in the hospital, but
the rate of healthy mothers is actually higher at home. No unnecessary
episiotomies, no unnecessary abdominal surgeries, etc.
So for me, my own opinion is that unless the hospital is indicated due
to a high-risk nature of a particular pregnancy, why would I want to go
where there are lots of sick people, and risk my own and my baby's
health by putting us near those sick people, or risking putting myself
at risk of unnecessary surgery, and other interventions that might
actually risk my or my baby's health?
In reality, I think a woman should - given a low-risk pregnancy be able
to choose where she is most comfortable - at home, in a birth center,
in a hospital, and that a state and insurance companies should not put
undue burdens on mothers, thus virtually eliminating the ability to
make that choice. In Missouri, where I'm from, all home-birth midwives
must have an OB backup. You know how many OBs are willing to back up
midwives? Not very many. OBs don't trust midwives, and besides,
midwives are often competitors. Insurance companies often refuse to
cover home births, despite the lack of evidence for their danger. In
2001, my home birth cost $3500. Not many women can afford that kind of
expense, thus virtually eliminating it from their options. I was
fortunate to give birth in NJ, where home birth is relatively easy to
come by - my midwives actually helped state legislators draft
legislation protecting home birth, etc. I believe the laws there
require licensing the midwives, thus ensuring women get trained
attendants.
Cathy Weeks
-L.
Cathy Weeks wrote:
> -L. wrote:
> > experience pregnancy and childbirth. Worrying about what type of birth
> > to have seems silly and incidental to many of us who are Primary
> > infertiles.
>
> Ummmm... so those of us who are lucky enough to not have to deal with
> infertility shouldn't discuss, and make those decisions? It's not
> silly nor incidental, and given what you say below - you don't really
> think it's silly or incidental either (that it's fucking nuts to have a
> birth outside a hospital).
I think it's silly and incidental enough not to make a fuss whether or
not you can have one. I mean, seriously. If that's all you have to
worry about, you've got it easy. "Oh woe is me! I can't birth at
home! Whaaaa!!!!!" Please - spare me.
>
> > Personally I think anyone who takes the risk of homebirth is fucking
> > nuts. But hey - that's just me.
>
> This is merely showing your ignorance of the actual statistics
> surrounding birth.
I don't believe any of it - you (generic) can make stats say what you
want. I did it for years.
> For those of us who were lucky enough to have an
> low-risk uneventful pregnancy, home birth is JUST as safe, and in some
> ways SAFER than hospital birth.
>
> The rate of healthy babies is roughly the same as in the hospital, but
> the rate of healthy mothers is actually higher at home. No unnecessary
> episiotomies, no unnecessary abdominal surgeries, etc.
>
> So for me, my own opinion is that unless the hospital is indicated due
> to a high-risk nature of a particular pregnancy, why would I want to go
> where there are lots of sick people, and risk my own and my baby's
> health by putting us near those sick people, or risking putting myself
> at risk of unnecessary surgery, and other interventions that might
> actually risk my or my baby's health?
Hummm....Maybe - just maybe - because if something does go wrong you
have a team of well-trained medical professionals seconds away and not
minutes or hours away? It's not rocket science.
>
> In reality, I think a woman should - given a low-risk pregnancy be able
> to choose where she is most comfortable - at home, in a birth center,
> in a hospital, and that a state and insurance companies should not put
> undue burdens on mothers, thus virtually eliminating the ability to
> make that choice. In Missouri, where I'm from, all home-birth midwives
> must have an OB backup. You know how many OBs are willing to back up
> midwives? Not very many. OBs don't trust midwives, and besides,
> midwives are often competitors. Insurance companies often refuse to
> cover home births, despite the lack of evidence for their danger. In
> 2001, my home birth cost $3500. Not many women can afford that kind of
> expense, thus virtually eliminating it from their options. I was
> fortunate to give birth in NJ, where home birth is relatively easy to
> come by - my midwives actually helped state legislators draft
> legislation protecting home birth, etc. I believe the laws there
> require licensing the midwives, thus ensuring women get trained
> attendants.
So you want the tax payer to fund a "whole 'nother" level of birthing
"professional" which is redundant. I see.
-L.
Banty
>
>
>Cathy Weeks wrote:
>> -L. wrote:
>> > experience pregnancy and childbirth. Worrying about what type of birth
>> > to have seems silly and incidental to many of us who are Primary
>> > infertiles.
>>
>> Ummmm... so those of us who are lucky enough to not have to deal with
>> infertility shouldn't discuss, and make those decisions? It's not
>> silly nor incidental, and given what you say below - you don't really
>> think it's silly or incidental either (that it's fucking nuts to have a
>> birth outside a hospital).
>
>I think it's silly and incidental enough not to make a fuss whether or
>not you can have one. I mean, seriously. If that's all you have to
>worry about, you've got it easy. "Oh woe is me! I can't birth at
>home! Whaaaa!!!!!" Please - spare me.
This is just you wanting attention.
Banty
Cathy Weeks
> I think it's silly and incidental enough not to make a fuss whether or
> not you can have one. I mean, seriously. If that's all you have to
> worry about, you've got it easy. "Oh woe is me! I can't birth at
> home! Whaaaa!!!!!" Please - spare me.
Spare you? Well, you *did* jump into the conversation. If you don't
like the discussion then why did you take part? Just because the topic
causes you pain due to your own situation, doesn't mean it should be
discussed at all, or that people should strive to make their situation
better.
> I don't believe any of it - you (generic) can make stats say what you
> want. I did it for years.
Uh, ok. Your point is what? That anyone can make the stats say
whatever they want? Doesn't that work borth ways? The hospitals (and
you) can make it look dangerous (even if it's not?). Or are you just
not willing to accept anything that doesn't jibe with your
pre-conceived notions?
> Hummm....Maybe - just maybe - because if something does go wrong you
> have a team of well-trained medical professionals seconds away and not
> minutes or hours away? It's not rocket science.
Hmmmmm... it may not be rocket science, then why do as many babies die
every year in the hospital as they do at home? (This is after
controlling for high-risk pregnancies). Those teams of well-trained
medical professionals cannot prevent hospital-caused infections. They
cannot prevent those occasional women who have complications from
anesthesia, and become paralized from the epidural, they cannot prevent
the occasional epidural from not taking so that the mother can FEEL her
abdomen being cut open (Just google Sophie Macgehee over at
misc.kids.pregnancy about that one). Hospitals aren't panaceas for
birth. They do not save all babies no matter what. I very recently met
a baby whose scalp was cut so badly during his c-section birth that it
required stitches. Fortunately, it was in his hair, so it will not be
permanantly disfiguring. In the end, he'll be fine. But hospitals are
NOT without risks to either mother or baby. So your rocket science
comment was just plain silly.
> So you want the tax payer to fund a "whole 'nother" level of birthing
> "professional" which is redundant. I see.
No, I don't think you do. You see, home birth is CHEAPER than hospital
birth. In 2001, when I had my daughter, the cost of my home birth was
$3850 (normally only $3500, but I had a non-stress test at one point).
Your average hospital birth costed $7000, and considerably more for
C-sections - beginning at $10,000. Midwives have a c-section rate of
10% or less, and many hospitals have c-section rates approaching 40% -
the national average is now over 25%. You can do the math if you wish.
One of my midwives did her thesis on how homebirth saves money for the
insurance industry (her practice alone had millions of dollars for the
insurance industry). And in low-income neighborhoods, where midwives
practice (and have the same good outcomes as doctors despite lack of
prenatal care) they save the taxpayers lots of money too.
So it's cheaper, often safer, and gives a better level of care.
Midwives usually spot complications earlier in the process than do
doctors, and give more choices. But, I guess nobody ought to have more
and even better, choices. I see.
Cathy Weeks
cjra
FWIW - part of the reason I was comfortable with a homebirth is that I
live a few blocks from the fire station/paramedics, and 5-10 mins from
the nearest hospital (depending on whether or not you hit red lights).
I specifically chose a midwife who was not hesitant about transfering
to hospital if necessary, who didn't have an anti-hospital bent (a few
midwives in the area are less inclined to transfer, altho my midwife
has only done so a handful of times in over 300 births).
Knowing I had that safety net, and was a low-risk mother, I quite
happily homebirthed. As most of you know, we *did* transfer and it was
a life-saving-measure most likely, since DD was intubated immediately
upon birth. My midwife did not hesitate to transfer once she saw
meconium - altho she decided to call 911 when she detected a strange
heartbeat, the paramedics arrived very quickly, we decided to wait a
few more minutes because the heartbeat returned to normal and I was
already pushing. Once she saw the meconium however, she decided we
needed to go immediately (she has delivered meconium babies before, but
that plus the 1-off heartbeat convinced her to go).
Will I homebirth again, given what happened last time? If I have a
healthy low risk pg, yes. I'll be nervous I'm sure, but OTOH, I feel
even more confident of my midwife's abilities now, knowing how she
handled a potential crisis situation.
>
> on a related note, is it really that uncommon here in the US
> to go into a hospital birth with a birth plan spelling out
> exactly which interventions you will not allow, or things you
> want done? i don't remember everything on mine, except no
> drugs, no cutting the cord until all the blood drained, & thatn,
> i wanted Tom to help with the delivery. it had a whole page
> worth of stuff though.
I'm not a shrinking violet, but i wouldn't have wanted to argue
adherence to my plan when in labor. Even if I'd been confident with my
OB respecting my wishes, the place was full of nurses who all knew what
to do. My first OB admitted to me she rarely shows up til the very end.
While I liked her for many reasons, her reliance upon the medical model
for the sake of it bothered me. For example, re:tests - they were
there, you did them. No questions asked. When told I didn't want
certain tests, she really didn't not know how to handle it. Now,t he OB
who ultimately delivered DD, with whom I'd had no prior contact, was
different. She was very open and listened to my midwife, because she
knew not only had my midwife known me for 9 months, she had been with
me throughout labor and had the best sense of what was going on.
Interestingly, the nurses did not have that respect for my midwife.
But I don't like hospitals. They're for sick people. Working in health
care, and dealing a lot with nosocomial infections, I'm more apt to
stay away from a hospital *unless* I am sick. DD was in NICU for 17
days, and I am very grateful for the care they provided. I don't shun
modern medicine. It has its place, and we used it when needed.
Overall, however, I do think a homebirth is safer. And if any choose to
use my anecdotal experience as an argument against homebirth, here's a
counter one - a colleague of mine had a c-section the week before I
gave birth. Whether or not it was necessary was debatable. She ended up
with a very typical hospital acquired infection (and she's an infection
control nurse at the hospital) and was in hospital for weeks.
Cathy Weeks
> Cathy Weeks wrote:
> I don't believe any of it - you (generic) can make stats say what you
> want. I did it for years.
Here's something for you ...
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/12/19/hospital.bacteria.ap/index.html
If you don't believe this article, then don't bother reading any
further.
These were very sick babies (premature) who shouldn't have been born
anywhere but at the hospital - they were in the neonatal intensive care
ward. However what they died from was a virulent infection that would
have been dangerous to ANY infant despite being healthy at birth. You
cannot truely separate the germs and the sick from the healthy in a
hospital envrironment.
You can state that having a baby outside the hospital is nuts. But *I*
can say that a) no birth, regardless of location, is without risks and
b) women should be given accurate information so that they can weigh
the risks of either location, and c) decide which risks they are most
comfortable with. Because the truth is, that a birthing woman needs to
be confortable with her decision, and trust her caregivers, because a
comfortable woman means one who can relax and concentrate on giving
birth.
I also don't think that we should accept the status quo, or that we
shouldn't strive to better our situation. Your "shut up and accept your
lot" attitude is well.... remarkably cold, and in my opinion is the
type of attitude that prevents progress toward a better place.
Let me ask you this - would you want your son, should he perceive an
unfair, and unjust situation, just look the other way, and accept his
lot in life, or would you hope that he'd struggle to fix the problem?
I'm keeping this hypothetical, because no one can ever really agree on
the appropriateness of any concrete situation, so I'm keeping it
hypothetical.
Cathy Weeks
cj...@yahoo.com
> Chookie wrote:
> > Of course, I have a particular attitude because I was "low-risk" right up
> > until the moment I had eclampsia. Even fifty years ago, I probably would have
> > left the hospital in a box :-/
>
> There are certainly things that happen, though
> I think people often underestimate the ability of midwives
> to spot trouble and transfer as needed.
Mine missed the onset of my preeclampsia altogether, and I had to catch
the symptoms myself. By the time I transfered, I was *really* sick,
with a pressure of 220/116 and well into kidney and liver failure.
Granted, not all women with a rise of 40/20 and trace proteinuria are
going to develop severe preeclampsia, but she scheduled my next
appointment two weeks out and sent me on my merry way. It has
convinced me that some midwives do not spot that particular sort of
trouble very well.
Within a few years everyone we send to midwife care in first world
countries, i.e. 95% of the population, is going to have a stamp on her
chart reading "sFlt-1/sEng PASSED" so it probably doesn't matter all
that much.
--
C
Anne Rogers
> Mine missed the onset of my preeclampsia altogether, and I had to catch
> the symptoms myself. By the time I transfered, I was *really* sick,
> with a pressure of 220/116 and well into kidney and liver failure.
>
> Granted, not all women with a rise of 40/20 and trace proteinuria are
> going to develop severe preeclampsia, but she scheduled my next
> appointment two weeks out and sent me on my merry way. It has
> convinced me that some midwives do not spot that particular sort of
> trouble very well.
hang on, you had a rise of 40/20 and trace protein? and she took no further
action? I realise that rise could still put you in normal blood pressure
zone, say 140/80, from 100/60 but isn't that why they take bp each time.
Shouldn't trace protein always be investigated, I don't think that vaginal
discharge causes a positive on that, in the same way it does on white cells,
so the only explaination other than there actually is protein there is
amniotic fluid. Maybe she was right to not do anything that day, but just a
regular appointment 2 weeks later seems incredibly lax, I don't know whether
the bp was taken at an office visit or not, but the very least I'd expect
would be a 2nd bp reading a day later and if possible doing it at home in
case of white coat hypertension, and education about what signs to watch out
for and when to call etc. Did you follow up afterwards what the course of
action should have been with the changes you mentioned?
Anne
Banty
cj...@yahoo.com says...
>
>Ericka Kammerer wrote:
>> Chookie wrote:
>
>> > Of course, I have a particular attitude because I was "low-risk" right up
>>> until the moment I had eclampsia. Even fifty years ago, I probably would have
>> > left the hospital in a box :-/
>>
>> There are certainly things that happen, though
>> I think people often underestimate the ability of midwives
>> to spot trouble and transfer as needed.
>
>Mine missed the onset of my preeclampsia altogether, and I had to catch
>the symptoms myself. By the time I transfered, I was *really* sick,
>with a pressure of 220/116 and well into kidney and liver failure.
>
>Granted, not all women with a rise of 40/20 and trace proteinuria are
>going to develop severe preeclampsia, but she scheduled my next
>appointment two weeks out and sent me on my merry way. It has
>convinced me that some midwives do not spot that particular sort of
>trouble very well.
Wow - those were pretty much exactly my symptoms (as well as general malaise),
and, as soon as my BP was taken, the nurse turned me to my left side and ran for
my O.B.
Banty
Anne Rogers
> not you can have one. I mean, seriously. If that's all you have to
> worry about, you've got it easy. "Oh woe is me! I can't birth at
> home! Whaaaa!!!!!" Please - spare me.
It's not incidental, babies die because they are born in hospital. If you
can't have a homebirth because of medical circumstances, maybe that
sometimes comes across of bemoaning the inability to have a homebirth, when
it's more the women bemoaning her own body and the loss of trust she has
maybe had in it, so let them have their woe is me moment, they may follow it
up with "I can't birth at home", though the deeper meaning may well be very
different. But if the inability to homebirth is due to lack of provision and
so on, then I'm all for a jolly good moan, if a healthy women can't choose
what she feels is the safest environment to have her baby for whatever
reason, they I jolly well think they should get on their high horse and make
a fuss.
Anne
cjra
Cathy Weeks wrote:
> -L. wrote:
> > Cathy Weeks wrote:
>
> > I don't believe any of it - you (generic) can make stats say what you
> > want. I did it for years.
>
> Here's something for you ...
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/12/19/hospital.bacteria.ap/index.html
That germ is particularly notorious for running rampant through nursing
homes. Horrible that it's hit a NICU. While I was glad my daughter was
receiving stellar care when in NICU, I lived in constant fear that
she'd acquire some opportunistic infection. Fortunately I knew that
hospital's infection control team well, which calmed my fears a bit.
In any case, that bacterium in particular is not likely to harm a
healthy mother or child, at least not significantly. Its greatest
morbidity and mortality is in immunocompromised patients. For that
reason, I'm not sure it's the *best* example to illustrate your point,
if I get your point correctly. Something like C.difficile, which
commonly infects healthy people - and is very common in C-sections -
may be a more apt example. Staph aureus is another good one.
cj...@yahoo.com
> > Mine missed the onset of my preeclampsia altogether, and I had to catch
> > the symptoms myself. By the time I transfered, I was *really* sick,
> > with a pressure of 220/116 and well into kidney and liver failure.
> >
> > Granted, not all women with a rise of 40/20 and trace proteinuria are
> > going to develop severe preeclampsia, but she scheduled my next
> > appointment two weeks out and sent me on my merry way. It has
> > convinced me that some midwives do not spot that particular sort of
> > trouble very well.
>
> hang on, you had a rise of 40/20 and trace protein? and she took no further
> action? I realise that rise could still put you in normal blood pressure
> zone, say 140/80, from 100/60 but isn't that why they take bp each time.
Formally the criteria say that you have to hit 140/90 and that women
with a rise of over 30/15 should be watched carefully. I was at 130/80
from my baseline of 90/60.
> Shouldn't trace protein always be investigated, I don't think that vaginal
> discharge causes a positive on that, in the same way it does on white cells,
> so the only explaination other than there actually is protein there is
> amniotic fluid.
UTIs can also cause you to spill protein, and trace protein doesn't
really seem to worry anyone. +1 does, though.
> Maybe she was right to not do anything that day, but just a
> regular appointment 2 weeks later seems incredibly lax, I don't know whether
> the bp was taken at an office visit or not, but the very least I'd expect
> would be a 2nd bp reading a day later and if possible doing it at home in
> case of white coat hypertension, and education about what signs to watch out
> for and when to call etc. Did you follow up afterwards what the course of
> action should have been with the changes you mentioned?
The OB to whom I transferred care called her, I believe while he was
debating whether or not to send me to ICU and was trying to get a
better feel for my history, and told me he'd informed her that all
protein merited a 24-hour catch and that I should have been scheduled
for followup more promptly. Wish I'd been a fly on the wall for that
conversation!
On the topic of midwives who are lax about PE symptoms "because a bit
of elevated bp and a touch of protein are normal in late pregnancy" see
this link at the Preeclampsia Foundation forums from last week:
http://www.preeclampsia.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=20142
I hope most midwives *are* aware that a bit of elevated bp and a touch
of protein mean the pregnancy has turned very high risk indeed, that
they are officially out of their league, and that a MFM needs to be
involved in oversight of the rest of the pregnancy. It is not under
any circumstances tenable to be going into multiple organ failure
during pregnancy with only midwife oversight, and since it happens in
one of twenty pregnancies I'd expect the vast majority of midwives know
this perfectly well.
But the ones who don't scare me.
--
C
cj...@yahoo.com
> >Granted, not all women with a rise of 40/20 and trace proteinuria are
> >going to develop severe preeclampsia, but she scheduled my next
> >appointment two weeks out and sent me on my merry way. It has
> >convinced me that some midwives do not spot that particular sort of
> >trouble very well.
>
> Wow - those were pretty much exactly my symptoms (as well as general malaise),
> and, as soon as my BP was taken, the nurse turned me to my left side and ran for
> my O.B.
Sensible of her. :-)
--
C
Chookie
"-L." <Monke...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think it's silly and incidental enough not to make a fuss whether or
> not you can have one. I mean, seriously. If that's all you have to
> worry about, you've got it easy. "Oh woe is me! I can't birth at
> home! Whaaaa!!!!!" Please - spare me.
Well, you have a baby now. Why are you still whingeing about infertility?
"Oh woe is me! I can't have a baby myself! Whaaaa!!!!!" Please - spare me.
Think about it.
--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)
"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue
Donna Metler
<cj...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1166574159.4...@80g2000cwy.googlegroups.com...
Still, it happens with OB care too. I have a friend who went through almost
two months of pregnancy with HELLP symptoms. Her BP would go up, she'd go in
the hospital, it would go down, they'd send her home. Never did any
bloodwork to notice the hemolysis and liver enzyme levels. The only reason
it got caught, and her daughter delivered, was because her OB wasn't
available one night and the OB on call caught it. I also have heard of
another HELLP patient who had her HELLP ignored entirely in late
pregnancy-the result being that her liver ruptured, and she's still in
critical condition, while her baby is at home with her husband and older
daughter. Her OB said that the borderline PE wasn't anything to worry about
since she was in late pregnancy-unfortunately, it seems that HELLP is about
as often missed as it is caught.
In my case, I had a rise of 30/15, but it was before 20 weeks of pregnancy,
and I'd never seen the same OB twice in a row, so it wasn't caught. At 22
weeks, I was in severe PE and Class I HELLP. I have to believe that having
one continuous caregiver, as I had in my second pregnancy, would have made a
difference. In my 2nd pregnancy, my BP rise was noticed, trace protein was
monitored, and by 22 weeks I was on bedrest, on medication, and being very
closely monitored indeed-which, I feel, made all the difference.
Cathy Weeks
cjra wrote:
> In any case, that bacterium in particular is not likely to harm a
> healthy mother or child, at least not significantly. Its greatest
> morbidity and mortality is in immunocompromised patients. For that
> reason, I'm not sure it's the *best* example to illustrate your point,
<LOL> you are probably right. However, I saw the news piece - and my
sorrow goes out to the parents - but the timing was right to use it
here.
Even if the bug that killed those babies in the NICU isn't one that is
likely to harm a full-term healthy infant, it's still something to
consider - that babies can and do get sick in hospitals, and that
hospitals ARE NOT perfectly safe.
Yes, they are best places to give birth if you are high risk. And they
MIGHT be the best places to give birth even if you aren't. (Just
feeling safer and more comfortable at the hospital is a plenty good
reason, in my opinion). But people ought to know the risks so they can
make an informed decision - thereby taking responsibility for their own
actions.
Cathy Weeks
Anne Rogers
>> further
>> action? I realise that rise could still put you in normal blood pressure
>> zone, say 140/80, from 100/60 but isn't that why they take bp each time.
>
> Formally the criteria say that you have to hit 140/90 and that women
> with a rise of over 30/15 should be watched carefully. I was at 130/80
> from my baseline of 90/60.
so you'd had the rise that should lead to careful watching, but often
doesn't (cf Donna's first pregnancy)
>
>> Shouldn't trace protein always be investigated, I don't think that
>> vaginal
>> discharge causes a positive on that, in the same way it does on white
>> cells,
>> so the only explaination other than there actually is protein there is
>> amniotic fluid.
>
> UTIs can also cause you to spill protein, and trace protein doesn't
> really seem to worry anyone. +1 does, though.
unless you had white cells present the chances of a UTI would be slim, in
the absence of the blood pressure changes you noted above, I can see why
midwives to discount trace protein, if they didn't, they'd just end up
transferring too many patients unnecessarily and noone would trust them when
they did transfer a patient requiring urgent attention, a bit like the boy
who cried wolf, but you weren't just exhibiting trace protein.
> The OB to whom I transferred care called her, I believe while he was
> debating whether or not to send me to ICU and was trying to get a
> better feel for my history, and told me he'd informed her that all
> protein merited a 24-hour catch and that I should have been scheduled
> for followup more promptly. Wish I'd been a fly on the wall for that
> conversation!
well I'm glad someone followed up with her
>
> On the topic of midwives who are lax about PE symptoms "because a bit
> of elevated bp and a touch of protein are normal in late pregnancy" see
> this link at the Preeclampsia Foundation forums from last week:
>
> http://www.preeclampsia.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=20142
>
> I hope most midwives *are* aware that a bit of elevated bp and a touch
> of protein mean the pregnancy has turned very high risk indeed, that
> they are officially out of their league, and that a MFM needs to be
> involved in oversight of the rest of the pregnancy. It is not under
> any circumstances tenable to be going into multiple organ failure
> during pregnancy with only midwife oversight, and since it happens in
> one of twenty pregnancies I'd expect the vast majority of midwives know
> this perfectly well.
>
> But the ones who don't scare me.
I think I'm going to ask some questions about this on a midwifery list I'm
on, it is a tough call, but the distinction here is the gestation it's
happening at, for you it was pre 34 weeks, for this lady on this board it's
35 weeks, that's not in my mind, late pregnancy, and midwifes do have to be
careful with ladies who are around the 40 week mark and have any changes in
bp and urine, because if they send them into the hospital, they will almost
certainly be induced, rather than waiting for other tests to be ordered,
then you end up with 20% or something having a c-section because the
induction failed and it may all have been unnecessary, so maybe it's fair to
behave differently with symptoms like yours at 41 weeks than it is at 33
weeks, at 33 weeks those symptoms probably have a much higher chance of
developing into PE than at 41 weeks, simply because of the underlying rate
of having such symtoms at that gestation.
Cheers
Anne
-L.
Cathy Weeks wrote:
> -L. wrote:
>
> > I think it's silly and incidental enough not to make a fuss whether or
> > not you can have one. I mean, seriously. If that's all you have to
> > worry about, you've got it easy. "Oh woe is me! I can't birth at
> > home! Whaaaa!!!!!" Please - spare me.
>
> Spare you? Well, you *did* jump into the conversation.
Chick asked for opinions - I gave mine.
>If you don't
> like the discussion then why did you take part?
Chick askedfor opinions - I gave mine. It's an open, unmoderated
forum.
>Just because the topic
> causes you pain
It doesn't cause me pain - au contraire. I'll take my kidlets clean,
well fed and dressed in Carter's over shitting out a football anyday,
LOL...
>due to your own situation, doesn't mean it should be
> discussed at all, or that people should strive to make their situation
> better.
Why do you think I said it shouldn't be discussed? I merely said it's
a trivial problem.
>
> > I don't believe any of it - you (generic) can make stats say what you
> > want. I did it for years.
>
> Uh, ok. Your point is what? That anyone can make the stats say
> whatever they want? Doesn't that work borth ways? The hospitals (and
> you) can make it look dangerous (even if it's not?). Or are you just
> not willing to accept anything that doesn't jibe with your
> pre-conceived notions?
Look - it's not rocket science. You have a major complication and a
widwife can't do diddly shit to help you or your baby.
>
> > Hummm....Maybe - just maybe - because if something does go wrong you
> > have a team of well-trained medical professionals seconds away and not
> > minutes or hours away? It's not rocket science.
>
> Hmmmmm... it may not be rocket science, then why do as many babies die
> every year in the hospital as they do at home? (This is after
> controlling for high-risk pregnancies). Those teams of well-trained
> medical professionals cannot prevent hospital-caused infections. They
> cannot prevent those occasional women who have complications from
> anesthesia, and become paralized from the epidural, they cannot prevent
> the occasional epidural from not taking so that the mother can FEEL her
> abdomen being cut open (Just google Sophie Macgehee over at
> misc.kids.pregnancy about that one).
No, YOU go Google Megan What's-her-name too whose baby came out DEAD at
home.
> Hospitals aren't panaceas for
> birth. They do not save all babies no matter what.
Well no shit, Sherlock. But if your baby has a major neurological
problem, what kind of diagnostic equipment do you have at home? Is
your husband a neurosurgeon or a neonatal specialist? That's just one
example.
> I very recently met
> a baby whose scalp was cut so badly during his c-section birth that it
> required stitches. Fortunately, it was in his hair, so it will not be
> permanantly disfiguring.
And at home he may have died in the birth canal.
> In the end, he'll be fine. But hospitals are
> NOT without risks to either mother or baby.
never said they were.
>So your rocket science
> comment was just plain silly.
nope. Hospitals have a ton of trained specialists to call upon should
a problem arrive. You have yourself, your kiddie pool, a
granola-crunching midwife who fancies herself a doctor and your husband
who probably couldn't find the clitoris without a map.
>
> > So you want the tax payer to fund a "whole 'nother" level of birthing
> > "professional" which is redundant. I see.
>
> No, I don't think you do. You see, home birth is CHEAPER than hospital
> birth. In 2001, when I had my daughter, the cost of my home birth was
> $3850 (normally only $3500, but I had a non-stress test at one point).
> Your average hospital birth costed $7000, and considerably more for
> C-sections - beginning at $10,000. Midwives have a c-section rate of
> 10% or less, and many hospitals have c-section rates approaching 40% -
> the national average is now over 25%. You can do the math if you wish.
It would still require funding another level of birth that is
unnecessary.
>
> One of my midwives did her thesis on how homebirth saves money for the
> insurance industry (her practice alone had millions of dollars for the
> insurance industry).
LOL...especially if it isn't covered.
>And in low-income neighborhoods, where midwives
> practice (and have the same good outcomes as doctors despite lack of
> prenatal care) they save the taxpayers lots of money too.
Ditto above.
>
> So it's cheaper, often safer, and gives a better level of care.
> Midwives usually spot complications earlier in the process than do
> doctors, and give more choices. But, I guess nobody ought to have more
> and even better, choices. I see.
I don't want to pay for your quackery.
-L.
-L.
Chookie wrote:
> In article <1166510899....@n67g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
> "-L." <Monke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I think it's silly and incidental enough not to make a fuss whether or
> > not you can have one. I mean, seriously. If that's all you have to
> > worry about, you've got it easy. "Oh woe is me! I can't birth at
> > home! Whaaaa!!!!!" Please - spare me.
>
> Well, you have a baby now. Why are you still whingeing about infertility?
> "Oh woe is me! I can't have a baby myself! Whaaaa!!!!!" Please - spare me.
That's not what I said at all. I simply have little sympathy for
people for whom this is a major issue in their lives.
-L.
-L.
Cathy Weeks wrote:
> -L. wrote:
> > Cathy Weeks wrote:
>
> > I don't believe any of it - you (generic) can make stats say what you
> > want. I did it for years.
>
> Here's something for you ...
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/12/19/hospital.bacteria.ap/index.html
>
> If you don't believe this article, then don't bother reading any
> further.
>
> These were very sick babies (premature) who shouldn't have been born
> anywhere but at the hospital - they were in the neonatal intensive care
> ward.
Then I guess your example - and point - is moot then.
And by the way, Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a gram-negative bacteria
which can be controlled by a number of classes of antibiotic - but not
in immunocompromised patients. It's often found in swimming pools and
spas - the same swimming pools you birth-at-home types like to use. :)
>However what they died from was a virulent infection that would
> have been dangerous to ANY infant despite being healthy at birth. You
> cannot truely separate the germs and the sick from the healthy in a
> hospital envrironment.
And you can't at home, either. You have P. aeruginosa in the soil in
your plants at home, dearie. You probably have some - or did at one
time - on your skin as well.
-L.
Ericka Kammerer
> Ericka Kammerer wrote:
>> Chookie wrote:
>
>>> Of course, I have a particular attitude because I was "low-risk" right up
>>> until the moment I had eclampsia. Even fifty years ago, I probably would have
>>> left the hospital in a box :-/
>> There are certainly things that happen, though
>> I think people often underestimate the ability of midwives
>> to spot trouble and transfer as needed.
>
> Mine missed the onset of my preeclampsia altogether, and I had to catch
> the symptoms myself. By the time I transfered, I was *really* sick,
> with a pressure of 220/116 and well into kidney and liver failure.
>
> Granted, not all women with a rise of 40/20 and trace proteinuria are
> going to develop severe preeclampsia, but she scheduled my next
> appointment two weeks out and sent me on my merry way. It has
> convinced me that some midwives do not spot that particular sort of
> trouble very well.
True--by no means would I claim that all midwives
are great midwives (just as I wouldn't claim that all doctors
are great doctors). My first midwives jumped all over a
much smaller rise in BP along with trace proteinuria for
me. They were highly motivated to distinguish incipient
pre-eclampsia from something more benign in plenty of time
to make appropriate plans. They even came by my home
frequently to check my BP, rather than waiting until my
next visit (which would have only been a week out by
that point), and my rise was no where near 40/20.
> Within a few years everyone we send to midwife care in first world
> countries, i.e. 95% of the population, is going to have a stamp on her
> chart reading "sFlt-1/sEng PASSED" so it probably doesn't matter all
> that much.
Isn't it so exciting all the progress they're making
on this front? To make this kind of progress on one of the
leading killers is just amazing in my book.
Best wishes,
Ericka
Ericka Kammerer
> I hope most midwives *are* aware that a bit of elevated bp and a touch
> of protein mean the pregnancy has turned very high risk indeed, that
> they are officially out of their league, and that a MFM needs to be
> involved in oversight of the rest of the pregnancy.
I think that statement is a bit strong. While slightly
elevated BP and trace protein can be an indication of trouble,
it can also be benign. I think appropriate tests and careful
monitoring are essential, but I don't think a transfer of care
is required until and unless tests or monitoring show that
there actually *is* pre-eclampsia (or at least significant
movement in that direction).
Best wishes,
Ericka
Cathy Weeks
Sigh... you really don't get it do you? YES there are sometimes
complications that might end up with a dead baby or mother.
FORTUNATELY those are very, very, rare. And in the hospital you have
OTHER RISKS, and they sometimes end up with a dead baby or mother. MOST
OF THE TIME, the complications that occur, happen in plenty of time to
get to the hospital, where trained specialists can be found.
Home births do not wind up with lots of dead babies. It's not
particularly risky.
And at home, dearie, you are at almost NO risk of iatongenic infections
as you ARE in the hospital.
> No, YOU go Google Megan What's-her-name too whose baby came out DEAD at
> home.
Ah, I'm very familiar with her story. Maybe you aren't? Her baby would
have died at the hospital, too. He was born with an underdeveloped
repiratory system, and even with oxygen, and all the trained
specialists at the hospital couldn't revive him. They assured her, that
the homebirth made zero difference in the outcome. She went on to have
another baby, at home.
And why are you against looking up Sophie McGehee's story? How she
felt her entire c-section? Does that risk not exist in your book?
> > Hospitals aren't panaceas for
> > birth. They do not save all babies no matter what.
>
> Well no shit, Sherlock. But if your baby has a major neurological
> problem, what kind of diagnostic equipment do you have at home? Is
> your husband a neurosurgeon or a neonatal specialist? That's just one
> example.
Well, no he's not. But does my husband carry germs that are likely to
give my baby an illness the way a doctor would? Nope. Iatrogenic
infections ARE a real risk in the hospital and are not at home.
> > I very recently met
> > a baby whose scalp was cut so badly during his c-section birth that it
> > required stitches. Fortunately, it was in his hair, so it will not be
> > permanantly disfiguring.
>
> And at home he may have died in the birth canal.
And you know this how? Maybe at home, his birth wouldn't have required
a c-section in the first place. We don't know his story, or why he was
born by c-section. And I'll tell you a little secret. When
complications occur, midwives advise us to go to the hospital. Women
generally don't stay home, when our midwife says "I think you and your
baby are in danger. We need to get to the hospital asap."
> nope. Hospitals have a ton of trained specialists to call upon should
> a problem arrive. You have yourself, your kiddie pool, a
> granola-crunching midwife who fancies herself a doctor and your husband
> who probably couldn't find the clitoris without a map.
Those tons of specialists can't do diddly squat much of the time. They
are unnecessary most of the time. And as midwives are direct
competitors to doctors and hospitals, they WANT you to rely on them.
> > No, I don't think you do. You see, home birth is CHEAPER than hospital
> > birth. In 2001, when I had my daughter, the cost of my home birth was
> > $3850 (normally only $3500, but I had a non-stress test at one point).
> > Your average hospital birth costed $7000, and considerably more for
> > C-sections - beginning at $10,000. Midwives have a c-section rate of
> > 10% or less, and many hospitals have c-section rates approaching 40% -
> > the national average is now over 25%. You can do the math if you wish.
>
> It would still require funding another level of birth that is
> unnecessary.
So, you want all births to cost $7000 minimum, instead encouraging the
low-risk births to cost $3500 instead?
> > One of my midwives did her thesis on how homebirth saves money for the
> > insurance industry (her practice alone had millions of dollars for the
> > insurance industry).
>
> LOL...especially if it isn't covered.
Mine was covered at 100%. Most insurance companies covered them at
80%. At least according to them.
> >And in low-income neighborhoods, where midwives
> > practice (and have the same good outcomes as doctors despite lack of
> > prenatal care) they save the taxpayers lots of money too.
>
Ditto above.
So the taxpayers shouldn't pay less money for similar outcomes?
> > So it's cheaper, often safer, and gives a better level of care.
> > Midwives usually spot complications earlier in the process than do
> > doctors, and give more choices. But, I guess nobody ought to have more
> > and even better, choices. I see.
>
> I don't want to pay for your quackery.
No one asked you to. So, let me ask you this... why should *I* pay for
*your* quackery? Why should my tax dollars and insurance monies go
toward covering a MORE expensive method of care that has NOT been
proven safer for low-risk pregancies? And, given that you think it's
not rocket science, why don't you back it up? Provide us with data.
I'd be happy to provide you with links, but you said you'd never
believe any of them. <shrug>
Cathy Weeks
cj...@yahoo.com
I don't think care necessarily needs to be transfered, but I think the
MFM should be called in for oversight according to the NIH Working
Group guidelines and that testing should follow those recommendations.
--
C
cj...@yahoo.com
> cj...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > Within a few years everyone we send to midwife care in first world
> > countries, i.e. 95% of the population, is going to have a stamp on her
> > chart reading "sFlt-1/sEng PASSED" so it probably doesn't matter all
> > that much.
>
> Isn't it so exciting all the progress they're making
> on this front? To make this kind of progress on one of the
> leading killers is just amazing in my book.
It is completely freaking cool. :-)
--
C
Cathy Weeks
Ok... you did mention your status as a primary infertile, which made it
SOUND like you were whining.
But either way - accept for a moment that not everyone agrees with you
about the "safety" of all hospital births. Stop thinking of us as
nutcakes, and just accept it for a moment. I don't like hospitals. I
don't like how they smell, and I don't like having the janitor outside
my room while I'm stalking around naked. And I don't like having nurse
after nurse whom I don't know, come in and stick her fingers in my
vagina every hour (another practice that has been shown to increase the
chances of infection). And then, when my legs are spreadeagled, I'm in
pain, and in THE MOST vulnerable situation in my life, and some doctor,
whom I've never met comes in and catches my baby for me, and before
that decides to cut my vagina (episiotomies are considered the most
common unnecessary surgery in america, and the ACOG now recommends
against their routine use, not that the OBs actually go by their
recommendations) whether *I* like it or not (that happened to my
stepson's mom, and my husband had nightmares about that for years).
So your "little sympathy" seems incredibly... well wierd. It's like
saying that I shouldn't have the choice of what doctor to go to, what
dentist, what school my child attends. Where to give birth is similar.
I think hospitals are GREAT place to go when you are sick, or when you
do have a complicated birth, or if you are dying. But birth? I wasn't
sick.
Cathy Weeks
Ericka Kammerer
Hmmm...I agree that the testing should be done.
I don't know that I think MFM oversight should be required
in all such situations (depending on what you mean by
"oversight"). I'm not sure what oversight would be
required. If guidelines are clear on the indications
for testing, and the tests are done, I wouldn't think
it would be necessary to bring in a specialist until
and unless the test results move into the realm where
they're at least suggestive of a problem that would
benefit from a specialist considering the results.
Otherwise, you've all of a sudden got a whole lot of
unnecessary demand for specialists. As long as the
test results and monitoring suggest that there is no
pre-eclampsia, a midwife should be capable of continuing
to order appropriate tests and performing appropriate
monitoring. As soon as test results support a diagnosis
of pre-eclampsia (or if the results are in a gray area),
I would agree with oversight. I just don't see why
oversight would be beneficial (especially given the
cost) prior to that point.
Now, one might argue that there's a problem
if some caregivers don't respond well enough to
early indicators, but when that's the case, there's
a bigger problem. *Someone* has to notice indicators
and run tests before the appropriate care can happen.
That can only be dealt with via education, regardless
of the type of caregiver or the setting, unless we're
going to send everyone to a specialist. Still, as you
point out elsewhere, we should soon have a good
screening test that will allow us to send virtually
all of the at-risk women to a specialist plenty early
for appropriate oversight.
Best wishes,
Ericka
Anne Rogers
> home.
then go look at her website and her subsequent birth decisions, she believes
homebirth was the right thing, she fears that had she been in hospital, due
to a long 2nd stage, she may well have had a c-section and instead of the
brief hours she had with her son whilst she was well, she'd have had them in
pain post op, she may have also been left blaming herself as we know there
is greater incidence of respiratory problems following c-section, it's
possible she may have been left wondering if a vaginal birth would have
given him the stimulation he needed to breath. She had her 2nd son at home
20ish months later. What I understood was that there was only the slimest of
chances that Seoras would have survived if born in hospital, he was born
alive, but failed to take a breath, even instant intubation may not have
been able to trigger that reflex, essentially he had an undetectable, but
fatal birth defect.
Cheers
Anne
-L.
Cathy Weeks wrote:
>
> Sigh... you really don't get it do you?
No, I just don't buy your argument.
> YES there are sometimes
> complications that might end up with a dead baby or mother.
> FORTUNATELY those are very, very, rare.
It only takes once.
>And in the hospital you have
> OTHER RISKS, and they sometimes end up with a dead baby or mother. MOST
> OF THE TIME, the complications that occur, happen in plenty of time to
> get to the hospital, where trained specialists can be found.
You don't know that. You have no idea whether or not you can get to
the hospital in time or not.
>
> Home births do not wind up with lots of dead babies. It's not
> particularly risky.
>
> And at home, dearie, you are at almost NO risk of iatongenic infections
> as you ARE in the hospital.
...which are extremely rare as well. You can't have it both ways.
>
>
> > No, YOU go Google Megan What's-her-name too whose baby came out DEAD at
> > home.
>
> Ah, I'm very familiar with her story. Maybe you aren't? Her baby would
> have died at the hospital, too.
She doesn't know that. He never had the chance.
> He was born with an underdeveloped
> repiratory system, and even with oxygen, and all the trained
> specialists at the hospital couldn't revive him.
By that time he was already dead.
> They assured her, that
> the homebirth made zero difference in the outcome.
Who assured her? The doctor that did the necropsy? What the hell do
you think they would tell her? "You killed your baby, Dumbass?" Of
course they are going to tell her not to blame herself.
>? She went on to have
> another baby, at home.
She still has a dead baby.
>
> And why are you against looking up Sophie McGehee's story?
Why do you think I'm "against" looking it up?
> How she
> felt her entire c-section? Does that risk not exist in your book?
I don't have time nor do I care. One story does not a case make. I
merely threw out Megan to you as a rebuttal.
>
> > > Hospitals aren't panaceas for
> > > birth. They do not save all babies no matter what.
> >
> > Well no shit, Sherlock. But if your baby has a major neurological
> > problem, what kind of diagnostic equipment do you have at home? Is
> > your husband a neurosurgeon or a neonatal specialist? That's just one
> > example.
>
> Well, no he's not. But does my husband carry germs that are likely to
> give my baby an illness the way a doctor would? Nope. Iatrogenic
> infections ARE a real risk in the hospital and are not at home.
Oh, please! Doctors scrub *way* better than any midwife or layman
could. An acquired infection is most likely acquired through the air -
not from a doctor's hands. An acquired infection can happen anywhere.
Don't be stupid. Of course sick people are going to acquire infections
in hospials - they are immunocompromised to begin with, and MORE sick
people reside in hospitals than at home. If you had equal numbers of
births at home as in hospitals the acquired infection rate would
probably be similar. The bacterial infection you cited - P. aeruginosa
is a prime example. It's mainly seen in cystic fibrosis patients -
presenting as pneumonia.
>
> > > I very recently met
> > > a baby whose scalp was cut so badly during his c-section birth that it
> > > required stitches. Fortunately, it was in his hair, so it will not be
> > > permanantly disfiguring.
> >
> > And at home he may have died in the birth canal.
>
> And you know this how? Maybe at home, his birth wouldn't have required
> a c-section in the first place. We don't know his story, or why he was
> born by c-section.
Exactly. So you can't use that as an example - you have no idea of
whether or not a home birth attempt would not have had the same
outcome. At least in the hospital there are medical staff tained in
MANY SPECIALTIES available to help you.
>And I'll tell you a little secret. When
> complications occur, midwives advise us to go to the hospital. Women
> generally don't stay home, when our midwife says "I think you and your
> baby are in danger. We need to get to the hospital asap."
And it may be too late. Sometimes all you have are minutes. No
thanks - not a risk I would take with my life or my kid's life.
>
> > nope. Hospitals have a ton of trained specialists to call upon should
> > a problem arrive. You have yourself, your kiddie pool, a
> > granola-crunching midwife who fancies herself a doctor and your husband
> > who probably couldn't find the clitoris without a map.
>
> Those tons of specialists can't do diddly squat much of the time.
Oh, please. They are far better trained than anyone else to do
*something* vs. a midwife who is trained in *no specialty* beyond
birth. They aren't doctors, they have no access to meds, they have no
diagnostic tools - need I go on?
>They
> are unnecessary most of the time. And as midwives are direct
> competitors to doctors and hospitals, they WANT you to rely on them.
As they should - it's two lives you are dealing with here.
<snip>
>
> So the taxpayers shouldn't pay less money for similar outcomes?
Tax payers shouldn't pay anything for unqualified medical care, period.
>
> > > So it's cheaper, often safer, and gives a better level of care.
> > > Midwives usually spot complications earlier in the process than do
> > > doctors, and give more choices. But, I guess nobody ought to have more
> > > and even better, choices. I see.
> >
> > I don't want to pay for your quackery.
>
> No one asked you to.
You're the one saying it should be covered by insurance.
> So, let me ask you this... why should *I* pay for
> *your* quackery?
You think all doctors are quacks? Really? Man, I feel sorry for you.
>Why should my tax dollars and insurance monies go
> toward covering a MORE expensive method of care that has NOT been
> proven safer for low-risk pregancies? And, given that you think it's
> not rocket science, why don't you back it up?
Um, because it's my OPINION....? Look - you can put your kid and your
self at risk all you want - knock yourself out and kill yourself, both.
But don't go stomping your feet and throwing a wobbly when I tell
you A) you're fucking nuts and B) that I don't want to pay for your
quackery. I'm not the one lobbying for midwifery to be recognized by
insurance compaines and other healthcare programs - you are.
> Provide us with data.
> I'd be happy to provide you with links, but you said you'd never
> believe any of them. <shrug>
You don't care any more than I don't care about what you believe.
"Data" is only as reliable as the people who fund it and publish it.
-L.
-L.
Anne Rogers wrote:
> > No, YOU go Google Megan What's-her-name too whose baby came out DEAD at
> > home.
>
> then go look at her website and her subsequent birth decisions, she believes
> homebirth was the right thing,
Of course she does - she isn't going to blame herself. The website is
in poor taste - dead baby photos are disgusting. That aside, there is
nothing on that website that discusses his condition other than the
fact that she had a long labor, had trouble "getting pushing", etc -
sounds like a classic case of shitty birth to me. The kid essentially
went without oxygen so long that by the time they got him to breathe,
it was too late.
> she fears that had she been in hospital, due
> to a long 2nd stage, she may well have had a c-section
And her kid may have been alive....
>and instead of the
> brief hours she had with her son whilst she was well, she'd have had them in
> pain post op, she may have also been left blaming herself as we know there
> is greater incidence of respiratory problems following c-section, it's
> possible she may have been left wondering if a vaginal birth would have
> given him the stimulation he needed to breath.
>She had her 2nd son at home
> 20ish months later. What I understood was that there was only the slimest of
> chances that Seoras would have survived if born in hospital,
Any chance at all is enough for me. You proved my point exactly.
>he was born
> alive, but failed to take a breath, even instant intubation may not have
> been able
May not have been able - but also may have been able, you mean.
> to trigger that reflex, essentially he had an undetectable, but
> fatal birth defect.
You mean undetectable prior to birth? Or undetectable, period? Of
course they are going to tell her it wasn't her fault.
-L.
-L.
Cathy Weeks wrote:
> Ok... you did mention your status as a primary infertile, which made it
> SOUND like you were whining.
Oh, p-fucking-lease. It's like comparing someone who is blind to
someone who can't decide what lens frames to buy. Get it? There is no
comparison. Excuse me if I have no sympathy for you. I'm not whining
- I have *no* desire to have pregnancy or birth at all - that desire
left me shortly after we brought DS home. My point WAS that this
argument falls on many deaf ears - it's simply NOT an important issue
in the grand scheme of reproduction. If all you have to worry about is
whether or not you can birth your child at home, then your life is
pretty damn sweet.
>
> But either way - accept for a moment that not everyone agrees with you
> about the "safety" of all hospital births.
Stop putting words in my mouth. No where did I say all hospital births
are, by default, safe.
> Stop thinking of us as
> nutcakes, and just accept it for a moment. I don't like hospitals. I
> don't like how they smell, and I don't like having the janitor outside
> my room while I'm stalking around naked. And I don't like having nurse
> after nurse whom I don't know, come in and stick her fingers in my
> vagina every hour (another practice that has been shown to increase the
> chances of infection). And then, when my legs are spreadeagled, I'm in
> pain, and in THE MOST vulnerable situation in my life, and some doctor,
> whom I've never met comes in and catches my baby for me, and before
> that decides to cut my vagina (episiotomies are considered the most
> common unnecessary surgery in america, and the ACOG now recommends
> against their routine use, not that the OBs actually go by their
> recommendations) whether *I* like it or not (that happened to my
> stepson's mom, and my husband had nightmares about that for years).
<eyeball roll> It sounds like to me that you have never had a major
medical problem, nor a major medical procedure. I had my ass up in
those stirrups at least twice a month, every month for two and a half
years - with a metal speculum and a god damn huge dick-shaped
ultrasound probe shove up my butterfly, not to mention every other
invasive procedure I went through at the time. One day of exposure and
embarassment sounds trivial to me, when the reward is a baby to take
home.
>
> So your "little sympathy" seems incredibly... well wierd. It's like
> saying that I shouldn't have the choice of what doctor to go to, what
> dentist, what school my child attends. Where to give birth is similar.
Where did I ever say you shouldn't have the choice? AlI have ever said
is that you are fucking nuts and that I don't want to fund them - via
insurance or medicaid.
-L.
Penny Gaines
[snip]
> nope. Hospitals have a ton of trained specialists to call upon should
> a problem arrive. You have yourself, your kiddie pool, a
> granola-crunching midwife who fancies herself a doctor and your husband
> who probably couldn't find the clitoris without a map.
[snip]
That goes back to Chookie's point about different countries varying
in the way homebirths take place.
In my country, the difference between a planned homebirth and a planned
hospital birth is ...well, a planned homebirth starts with the
medically trained midwife coming to your house when you are in labour,
and with a planned hospital birth, you go to the medically trained
midwives in hospital when you are in labour. The pre-labour
monitoring etc are the same.
--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three
Banty
Yep, Cathy, it's a whine. A big melodramatic whine.
Banty
cjra
-L. wrote:
> Cathy Weeks wrote:
> > Well, no he's not. But does my husband carry germs that are likely to
> > give my baby an illness the way a doctor would? Nope. Iatrogenic
> > infections ARE a real risk in the hospital and are not at home.
>
> Oh, please! Doctors scrub *way* better than any midwife or layman
> could. An acquired infection is most likely acquired through the air -
> not from a doctor's hands.
Oh how wrong you are! This is the bane of hospital infection control
staff everywhere: getting doctors to *wash* their hands!!!
I can't find it at the moment, but in the spring there was a great
research article in which doctors were asked to put their hands on a
culture plate. And then see what grew. You'd be *shocked*.
The hospital ICs have been asking us for recommendations on how to
*force* doctors to wash their hands for the sake of infection control,
but it's hard to force anyone to do anything.
Don't believe what you see on TV. I'm sure surgeons scrub more when
they're going into surgery, but docs going into rooms? Nope.
Nan
>Oh how wrong you are! This is the bane of hospital infection control
>staff everywhere: getting doctors to *wash* their hands!!!
>
>I can't find it at the moment, but in the spring there was a great
>research article in which doctors were asked to put their hands on a
>culture plate. And then see what grew. You'd be *shocked*.
>
>The hospital ICs have been asking us for recommendations on how to
>*force* doctors to wash their hands for the sake of infection control,
>but it's hard to force anyone to do anything.
>
>Don't believe what you see on TV. I'm sure surgeons scrub more when
>they're going into surgery, but docs going into rooms? Nope.
Hah, I have to agree 100%. In the 4 times I was hospitalized in the
last 2 years I never saw a Dr. wash his/her hands when coming to my
room. I know there was not a sink for them to use outside my room,
and I know they did not wash their hands upon leaving my room before
going to the next patient.
And there was a container of hand gel right near the door for their
use. Now the nurses used it each and every time they came in.
Nan
cjra
In the Netherlands, the figures I've seen have been more than 50% of
births are at home, and approx. 90% of births are midwife attended. Yet
their infant mortality rate is much lower than in the US. (I don't have
the articles handy, perhaps someone else does, to give the references,
but infant mortality is easy to look up)
Clearly, the 'quacks' who homebirth are doing something right.
Cathy Weeks
So, let me get this straight.
1. You don't think hospitals are by default safe.
2. But home births are by nature SO unsafe, that you have to be fucking
nuts to do it.
3. But taking ANY chance that your baby might die is unacceptable,
depsite the fact that hospitals have their own set of risks where your
baby might die, simply BECAUSE you are in the hospital.
4. You've come to these decisions without doing one shred of research,
nor will you consider ANY research that shows that for low-risk
pregnancies, home birth is as safe as the hospital.
5. You don't want to give birth and prefer to adopt.
6. You tried to get pregnant for years, and suffered many indignities
in the process, despite preferring not to have to squeeze him out.
7. You think that women who do not wish to go through said indiginties
are whiners because they'd rather NOT have strangers shove speculums,
fingers, etc into their vaginas.
8. You assume that midwives are untrained quacks, despite the fact that
the average midwive has had 6 years of medical training, and more than
2 years more OB training than family practice physicians. Certifiied
Nurse Midwives have 4 years of college, and usually 2-4 more years of
specialty OB training. They are trusted by the medical and
pharmaceutical boards to write prescriptions that are honored at any
pharmacy, yet you boil them down to quackery.
9. You don't think taxes or insurance dollars should pay for midwifery
care, despite their having A) lower rates of C-sections, B) lower rates
of maternal mortality, C) similar rates of infant mortality, and being
cheaper to the taxpayers and insurance companies
9. But you don't believe the above statement, despite having done no
research one way or the other to see if it's true.
I see.
I might also add, that if you DID find research that proves your side
of things, I WOULD change my mind. But you also have to find the
studies that are well constructed and without serious methodological
flaws (you do know how to spot those, right?)
But, I doubt you are up to such research, because you aren't interested
in anything that doesn't suit your pre-conceived notions.
Cathy Weeks
Cathy Weeks
-L. wrote:
> You don't care any more than I don't care about what you believe.
> "Data" is only as reliable as the people who fund it and publish it.
Interesting. What else is there for us to make decisions about the
relatively safety of anything?
How can anyone reasonably make ANY informed choice about anything at
all?
And when a doctor hands you a form that says you have a 1-in-X chance
of having this complication, why would you believe it, given what you
believe about data?
Cathy Weeks
cj...@yahoo.com
Ah, that's probably because you're thinking I'm worried about "a touch
of high bp". :-) I'm worried about women who hit two readings of
140/90 plus a dipstick of +1 not being sent for a 24-hour because their
bloodwork came back good -- when bloodwork is only diagnostic in severe
PE, and mild is dxed with a 24-hour of 300 mg/dL. I'm also worried
about women who aren't followed up on assiduously when they show a rise
of 30/15 or a trace dipstick. Women who call in worried about their bp
and are told that they're probably anxious and they shouldn't take
their bp so often (raises hand.)
> Now, one might argue that there's a problem
> if some caregivers don't respond well enough to
> early indicators, but when that's the case, there's
> a bigger problem. *Someone* has to notice indicators
> and run tests before the appropriate care can happen.
> That can only be dealt with via education, regardless
> of the type of caregiver or the setting, unless we're
> going to send everyone to a specialist. Still, as you
> point out elsewhere, we should soon have a good
> screening test that will allow us to send virtually
> all of the at-risk women to a specialist plenty early
> for appropriate oversight.
Exactly. I think we will still need good education for the rare cases
-- what about a woman with a clean test at 20 weeks, and 4 previous
spontaneous vaginal deliveries with no change in her bp, whose
umbillical artery clots off at 34 weeks and infarcts three quarters of
the placenta, for example -- but we should be able shortly to eliminate
this whole problem. I am inclined to think it might eliminate the need
for OBs, actually -- we'd need midwives, and MFMs, and why would we
need OBs?
--
C
Anne Rogers
> in poor taste - dead baby photos are disgusting. That aside, there is
> nothing on that website that discusses his condition other than the
> fact that she had a long labor, had trouble "getting pushing", etc -
> sounds like a classic case of shitty birth to me. The kid essentially
> went without oxygen so long that by the time they got him to breathe,
> it was too late.
his cord was attached and pulsing and oxygen was given as soon as they were
aware their was a problem, which was just as soon at home as it would have
been at hospital, where it's entirely possible the cord would have been cut
and brain damage occured sooner. The only difference would be that once
resus started in the home/ambulance situation there would have been longer
bagging before intubation and venilation, but either way the damage had
already been done and would have been done in hospital.
I think you overestimate the politeness of doctors in keeping their mouths
shut when they thing something is someones fault, many women who have
transferred from homebirths have suffered bullying from doctors, when there
has been absolutely no justification for it.
Megan is an educated and intelligent women, whatever doctors said to her,
she will have worked past that to get the truth, had she gone on to have a
hospital birth, or even an elective c-section, no one would have judged her,
but they could have happily brushed aside her thoughts about the previous
birth, but the fact she went the same route again, I think with the same
midwife, confirms everything she said about making the right decision, would
she really have birthed at home again if she had even the slightest belief
that that choice first time round killed her baby. Homebirth does, rarely,
cause babies to die, but you're using a bad example here.
Anne
Irene
Ericka Kammerer wrote:
> enigma wrote:
> > Ericka Kammerer <e...@comcast.net> wrote in
> > news:v56dnU84UapGlxvY...@comcast.com:
> >
> >> Grahame wrote:
> >>> Thats true, Im sure if my child died, I would blame myself
> >>> anyway, beyond reason.
> >>> But to me thats more of an unlikely situation, than
> >>> complications of childbirth.
> >> However, *statistically*, that's not true. If you
> >> start
> >> from the baseline of normal, healthy women having normal,
> >> healthy pregnancies, then the vast majority of
> >> complications can either dealt with at home just fine or
> >> give enough time to transport to deal with appropriately.
> >
> > out of curiousity, how much time *is* 'time to deal with
> > appropriately'?
>
> The general recommendation is that it's best to
> be able to transport within 30 minutes.
>
> > on a related note, is it really that uncommon here in the US
> > to go into a hospital birth with a birth plan spelling out
> > exactly which interventions you will not allow, or things you
> > want done? i don't remember everything on mine, except no
> > drugs, no cutting the cord until all the blood drained, & that
> > i wanted Tom to help with the delivery. it had a whole page
> > worth of stuff though.
> > the OB nurse looked it over, said i could have everything
> > except Tom helping & it was fine. in the end though, the
> > doctor overrode the nurse & let Tom help. they did install a
> > hep lock after 17 hours of labor because i was dehydrating &
> > they are supposed to give an antibiotic 16 hours after the
> > water breaks... but the fluids & antibiotic were delivered by
> > robot & didn't show up until after the birth anyway
> > (apparently the poor robot got stuck on an elevator).
> > the point being that delivering in a hospital doesn't mean
> > you have to give up control.
>
> Many hospitals in the US are exerting more control.
> Many people find that their birth plans are not allowed
> or are disregarded when the time comes. Many people don't
> have enough flexibility in hospital or provider choice
> (because of limited availability or insurance limitations)
> so it's not always possible to ditch a provider if you
> don't like the limitations.
> By far, the overwhelming reason most women who
> choose home birth choose it is to maintain more control.
>
> Best wishes,
> Ericka
Fortunately, not *every* US hospital is that control-happy. Even
though I *knew* that home births could be safe, my subconscious wasn't
ready. Plus, even though I was considered low-risk, the closest
hospital was 30 minutes away in good traffic, 45 minutes or more in
rush hour. I was very lucky that the closest hospital was very
progressive - I was allowed to walk around and move, no continuous
monitoring, no pressure for meds, heplock instead of IV, food and drink
allowed, etc.
Plus, while my goal was to go med-free, I wasn't sure how I'd feel at
the actual time, so wanted to leave my options a little more open.
That is part of the decision for hospital vs home birth that hasn't
been discussed - the easy availability of meds. I think that is a
large part of the decision for women - they won't even consider a home
birth if they have already decided they want an epidural.
I will say, my OB wasn't necessarily supportive of the idea of a birth
plan, I think because he had seen too many detailed ones that talked
about a lot of stuff that didn't apply. Instead, we discussed
everything ahead of time. I realize I was unusual - my OB had his own
practice, not a group. And for dd, I had some narrow timing where I
could've ended up with Joe Random Backup OB - my OB had a death in the
family and had to fly out of town right after dd was born. So in that
way, my OB experience had more continuity than a group midwife practice
would have had, tho I did have the risk of a stranger attending my
birth.
Oh, and my birth plan was pretty loose. Basically, 4 goals - 1)
healthy baby, 2) best start for bf, 3) easiest recovery for me, and 4)
less pain for me (I forget how that last one was worded exactly). The
implications were for a med-free vaginal birth w/out episiotomy, if you
are trying to read between the lines, fwiw.
Irene
Ericka Kammerer
Ahhh, okay, then we're on the same page. I do think
that pre-eclampsia is serious enough that any significant rise
in BP should trigger some careful monitoring, but I think the
midwives can handle the monitoring between the "oh, we should
watch this" phase and the "looks like we're starting to meet
criteria for pre-eclampsia here." I think my last midwives
had some ridiculously low cutoff for transfer due to BP,
which I think is silly (fortunately, that was the one pregnancy
where I didn't really have much of any rise in BP). I'd say
shame on them, but I don't think it was really their choice.
So, I do think there are those who are on too much of a hair
trigger to call someone pre-eclamptic and start inducing or
whatever. But, that's just another reason for why it's so
great that we'll hopefully soon have a real screening test.
>> Now, one might argue that there's a problem
>> if some caregivers don't respond well enough to
>> early indicators, but when that's the case, there's
>> a bigger problem. *Someone* has to notice indicators
>> and run tests before the appropriate care can happen.
>> That can only be dealt with via education, regardless
>> of the type of caregiver or the setting, unless we're
>> going to send everyone to a specialist. Still, as you
>> point out elsewhere, we should soon have a good
>> screening test that will allow us to send virtually
>> all of the at-risk women to a specialist plenty early
>> for appropriate oversight.
>
> Exactly. I think we will still need good education for the rare cases
> -- what about a woman with a clean test at 20 weeks, and 4 previous
> spontaneous vaginal deliveries with no change in her bp, whose
> umbillical artery clots off at 34 weeks and infarcts three quarters of
> the placenta, for example -- but we should be able shortly to eliminate
> this whole problem. I am inclined to think it might eliminate the need
> for OBs, actually -- we'd need midwives, and MFMs, and why would we
> need OBs?
Who else is going to perform all those elective
c-sections? ;-)
Best wishes,
Ericka
-L.
Cathy Weeks wrote:
>
> So, let me get this straight.
>
> 1. You don't think hospitals are by default safe.
> 2. But home births are by nature SO unsafe, that you have to be fucking
> nuts to do it.
> 3. But taking ANY chance that your baby might die is unacceptable,
> depsite the fact that hospitals have their own set of risks where your
> baby might die, simply BECAUSE you are in the hospital.
Never said that.
> 4. You've come to these decisions without doing one shred of research,
> nor will you consider ANY research that shows that for low-risk
> pregnancies, home birth is as safe as the hospital.
Never said that either. You assume a lot of things.
> 5. You don't want to give birth and prefer to adopt.
> 6. You tried to get pregnant for years, and suffered many indignities
> in the process, despite preferring not to have to squeeze him out.
After having adopted I felt no desire for a biological child.
> 7. You think that women who do not wish to go through said indiginties
> are whiners because they'd rather NOT have strangers shove speculums,
> fingers, etc into their vaginas.
It's a mere inconvenience for the reward.
> 8. You assume that midwives are untrained quacks, despite the fact that
> the average midwive has had 6 years of medical training, and more than
> 2 years more OB training than family practice physicians.
How many family practice phycians routinely deliver babies?
>Certifiied
> Nurse Midwives have 4 years of college, and usually 2-4 more years of
> specialty OB training. They are trusted by the medical and
> pharmaceutical boards to write prescriptions that are honored at any
> pharmacy, yet you boil them down to quackery.
They are not the preferred profession to deliver a baby, IMO. Got it?
> 9. You don't think taxes or insurance dollars should pay for midwifery
> care, despite their having A) lower rates of C-sections, B) lower rates
> of maternal mortality, C) similar rates of infant mortality, and being
> cheaper to the taxpayers and insurance companies
> 9. But you don't believe the above statement, despite having done no
> research one way or the other to see if it's true.
Never said that. You assume way too often. What I said is "data" can
be contrive to report whatever finding it is you want to prove.
>
> I see.
>
> I might also add, that if you DID find research that proves your side
> of things, I WOULD change my mind.
What makes you think I am trying to change your mind? It's obvious you
are trying to change mine. I have no intention, nor have I ever had
any intention, of changing anyone's mind.
> But you also have to find the
> studies that are well constructed and without serious methodological
> flaws (you do know how to spot those, right?)
Obviously better than you do.
>
> But, I doubt you are up to such research, because you aren't interested
> in anything that doesn't suit your pre-conceived notions.
You are under the mistaken presumtion that I feel a need to prove a
point, or back my opinions with research. I don't. I don't care
enough about it, honestly - I have bigger fish to fry at the moment.
There is nothing pre-conceived about my "notions." I came to the
conclusions I did for a reason - I feel no need to "convince" you of
anything. You can't seem to get it through your thick head that this
is my opinion - one I have the right to hold and put forth on an open,
unmoderated newsgroup. Why that chaps your ass so badly, I'll never
know, but you sure as hell aren't going to change my mind any time soon
and I don't have any desire to change yours - not did I ever have any
desire to do so. So you might as well quit getting yourself so worked
up and quit babbling.
-L.
Ericka Kammerer
> Plus, while my goal was to go med-free, I wasn't sure how I'd feel at
> the actual time, so wanted to leave my options a little more open.
> That is part of the decision for hospital vs home birth that hasn't
> been discussed - the easy availability of meds. I think that is a
> large part of the decision for women - they won't even consider a home
> birth if they have already decided they want an epidural.
Sure, although it's always possible to transfer and
get an epidural if you change your mind. That's part of the
"all or nothing" fallacy. I certainly went into my planned
homebirths knowing that if I felt like I needed an epidural,
I'd go get one.
> I will say, my OB wasn't necessarily supportive of the idea of a birth
> plan, I think because he had seen too many detailed ones that talked
> about a lot of stuff that didn't apply. Instead, we discussed
> everything ahead of time. I realize I was unusual - my OB had his own
> practice, not a group. And for dd, I had some narrow timing where I
> could've ended up with Joe Random Backup OB - my OB had a death in the
> family and had to fly out of town right after dd was born. So in that
> way, my OB experience had more continuity than a group midwife practice
> would have had, tho I did have the risk of a stranger attending my
> birth.
Well, that's hardly unusual. A fairly substantial
minority of women have their births attended by someone
they've never met or have only briefly met. You had a
slightly higher risk that someone in a group practice,
but even choosing a group practice doesn't guarantee that
you'll get a known care provider.
Best wishes,
Ericka
-L.
cjra wrote:
>
> Oh how wrong you are! This is the bane of hospital infection control
> staff everywhere: getting doctors to *wash* their hands!!!
>
> I can't find it at the moment, but in the spring there was a great
> research article in which doctors were asked to put their hands on a
> culture plate. And then see what grew. You'd be *shocked*.
No, I wouldn't. Everyone's hands are covered by bacteria. That's a
first-grade science experiment.
>
> The hospital ICs have been asking us for recommendations on how to
> *force* doctors to wash their hands for the sake of infection control,
> but it's hard to force anyone to do anything.
>
> Don't believe what you see on TV. I'm sure surgeons scrub more when
> they're going into surgery, but docs going into rooms? Nope.
I have seen three doctors this year - one FP and two specialists - one
a surgeon. All three washed their hands in front of me. I cannot
believe a doctor who is going in to deliver a baby doesn't a) scrub and
b) wear gloves. Maybe it does happen, but rarely, I suspect. Doctors
going into rooms is a different story altogether, and moot in terms of
what we were discussing - neonatal infection, which *is* most likely
airborne.
-L.
-L.
Cathy Weeks wrote:
> -L. wrote:
>
> > You don't care any more than I don't care about what you believe.
> > "Data" is only as reliable as the people who fund it and publish it.
>
> Interesting. What else is there for us to make decisions about the
> relatively safety of anything?
You have to weigh everything. Sometimes what is not said is as
important as what is said.
>
> How can anyone reasonably make ANY informed choice about anything at
> all?
You have to be smart, make your own decisions and not trust data
blindly.
>
> And when a doctor hands you a form that says you have a 1-in-X chance
> of having this complication, why would you believe it, given what you
> believe about data?
I don't. I don't blindly trust anything anyone publishes - everyone
has an agenda.
-L.
Cathy Weeks
>
> Fortunately, not *every* US hospital is that control-happy. Even
> though I *knew* that home births could be safe, my subconscious wasn't
> ready. Plus, even though I was considered low-risk, the closest
> hospital was 30 minutes away in good traffic, 45 minutes or more in
> rush hour. I was very lucky that the closest hospital was very
> progressive - I was allowed to walk around and move, no continuous
> monitoring, no pressure for meds, heplock instead of IV, food and drink
> allowed, etc.
That's excellent. My own experiences with hospital birth haven't been
all that bad, actually. I've only had one kid, and she was born at home
(and healthy). But I'm much older than either of my brothers, and was
present for their births. Oldest brother was born in a hospital 40
minutes from my parent's home, because my mother didn't trust the local
(VERY small town) hospital, so we went to the university hospital
instead. Baby was born 13 minutes after we got to the hospital,
delivered by the nurse, before the OB could get there. Labor was only
about 90 minutes from start to finish. The nurse did perineal support
and massage, and Mom had no episiotomy. There was no need for walking
around or an IV because everything happened so quickly. This was back
in 1983, before having siblings present was commonplace, and because it
was in the middle of the night, she let me stay (I was 14). She was
also put MUCH more at ease with the idea of me staying, since i'd been
to the childbirth classes with my parents. My second brother was born
at the local hospital, because Mom was worried about birthing in the
car, after the previous short labor. Ironically, she had an 8 hour
labor. She was attended by two doctors actually, who acted like a
couple of midwives. They hung out with us, did perineal massage and
support, chatted, etc. The birth was slightly higher risk, due to her
having early signs of preecclampsia, and the only "intervention" was
they did attach a scalp monitor for awhile. So all in all, my mother
had really good hospital births.
My mother-in-law had my husband at a US Army hospital in Germany,
during the Vietnam war, and her experience was TERRIBLE. Like if she
tried to get out of bed to walk around, they would literally push her
back onto the bed. Stuff like that. Then, when my stepson was born,
they decided to do an episiotomy without consulting either his mom, or
my husband. Doc just said "I'm cutting now!" and did it with no
anesthesia whatsoever. She screamed and lifted her hips off the bed in
response, and my husband said blood squirted everywhere. This was all
due to mild shoulder distocia. They did it because a) the doctor was
an intern doing his OB rotation and was inexperienced, and b) he didn't
think to change her position and c) had her in the classic lithotomy
position and should have had her change position and do the... can't
remember the manuver that helps open things up. What was most
upsetting was that the baby was NOT in distress, and there was time for
them to have at least discussed the options with them.
When my daughter was born, we of course had a backup plan should
something go wrong. We had two hospitals relatively nearby - Princeton
Medical Center was 25 minutes away, but is very very mother-unfriendly
with a 40% c-section rate, a 60% epidural rate and a 75% episiotomy
rate. The other hospital was Mercer Medical Center in Trenton and was
slightly further away - 30 minutes instead of 25. The advantage to
Mercer was that it was midwife-friendly (my midwives had delivery
rights there) so even if I transferred, my midwives could continue
leading my care, unless we decided an OB was called for. The OBs that
my midwives trusted (and who backed up the midwives) were also based
there. And they had a level 3 nursery, which was more advanced than in
Princeton. So we decided that the extra 5 minutes was worth it.
As for your being uncomfortable with homebirth - I completely
understand it, especially given your distance. For us, 30 minutes was
the MAX it would take to get there. Homebirth really isn't for
everyone. My stepson's mom, when she had her second kid, decided
against homebirth herself, despite my recent home birth, and despite
the fact that her mother had assisted in several homebirths (with a
trained midwive leading things, of course!). Teresa just laughed and
said "I don't want to clean up the mess" (my midwives took care of most
of that). I suspect that her husband wasn't comfortable with the idea
either. But what she did do, was choose a midwife practice that did
in-hospital births. She did go to Princeton Medical Center, and I
warned her of their stats, and she laughed and said "I know so much
more now - I've picked the right caregiver." Then she told me who her
midwife was and I had to laugh- Ursula was well-known in the area for
being willing to butt heads with the hospital staff, so that her
patients can walk around, have a hep-lock instead of an IV, use the
birthing pool (only for labor though - the hospital wouldn't budge on
water births - which Mercer Medical did allow), and to get the nurses
to quit suggesting a "little short of something to take the edge off"
every 5 minutes. She also let her patients eat during labor, if they
wanted. Her daughter was born with no pain medication, and without the
need for an episiotomy (she flipped onto her hands and knees). Etc.
One of the things that I realized while I was in labor, that being able
to relax is KEY to making it through an birth without pain meds (if
that's a goal for you). If you can't relax, then it HURTS more.
Despite my having practiced my bradley relaxation exercises through
pregnancy, well... I still found myself tensing up during contractions.
It wasn't until I was in transition that I was starting to get the
hang of relaxing fully. Now in retrospect, I think that if you are
scared of your surroundings, then being able to relax would just fly
right out the window, thus lengthing labor, and possibly even causing
complications.
So unless you are really confident of birthing at home or in a
free-standing birth center and have a backup plan in place, then
birthing out of the hospital is just not a good idea.
Cathy Weeks
Irene
Ericka Kammerer wrote:
> Irene wrote:
>
> > Plus, while my goal was to go med-free, I wasn't sure how I'd feel at
> > the actual time, so wanted to leave my options a little more open.
> > That is part of the decision for hospital vs home birth that hasn't
> > been discussed - the easy availability of meds. I think that is a
> > large part of the decision for women - they won't even consider a home
> > birth if they have already decided they want an epidural.
>
> Sure, although it's always possible to transfer and
> get an epidural if you change your mind. That's part of the
> "all or nothing" fallacy. I certainly went into my planned
> homebirths knowing that if I felt like I needed an epidural,
> I'd go get one.
True, it's not all or nothing - but it certainly adds another layer of
things you have to do in order to get the epidural. Which can be both
a good and bad thing, of course - you have to really want that epidural
in order to get it!
> > I will say, my OB wasn't necessarily supportive of the idea of a birth
> > plan, I think because he had seen too many detailed ones that talked
> > about a lot of stuff that didn't apply. Instead, we discussed
> > everything ahead of time. I realize I was unusual - my OB had his own
> > practice, not a group. And for dd, I had some narrow timing where I
> > could've ended up with Joe Random Backup OB - my OB had a death in the
> > family and had to fly out of town right after dd was born. So in that
> > way, my OB experience had more continuity than a group midwife practice
> > would have had, tho I did have the risk of a stranger attending my
> > birth.
>
> Well, that's hardly unusual. A fairly substantial
> minority of women have their births attended by someone
> they've never met or have only briefly met. You had a
> slightly higher risk that someone in a group practice,
> but even choosing a group practice doesn't guarantee that
> you'll get a known care provider.
>
I know - I was mainly pointing out that since I think single OB
practices are relatively rare, that my continuity of care with an OB
was correspondingly rare. But since some people (I forget who) were
implying that midwives gave better continuity of care, that perhaps at
least some of that depends on whether it is a single or group practice.
Irene
cjra
-L. wrote:
> cjra wrote:
> >
> > Oh how wrong you are! This is the bane of hospital infection control
> > staff everywhere: getting doctors to *wash* their hands!!!
> >
> > I can't find it at the moment, but in the spring there was a great
> > research article in which doctors were asked to put their hands on a
> > culture plate. And then see what grew. You'd be *shocked*.
>
> No, I wouldn't. Everyone's hands are covered by bacteria. That's a
> first-grade science experiment.
Except doctors are supposed to be washing their hands.
Annonymous surveys have been done where docs have *admitted* to not
following strict infection control guidelines such as regular hand
washing. Infection control, and the difficulty with getting doctors to
follow it, is a big issue for most hospitals. That's why there's an
entire department dedicated to it in most places.
>
> >
> > The hospital ICs have been asking us for recommendations on how to
> > *force* doctors to wash their hands for the sake of infection control,
> > but it's hard to force anyone to do anything.
> >
> > Don't believe what you see on TV. I'm sure surgeons scrub more when
> > they're going into surgery, but docs going into rooms? Nope.
>
>
> I have seen three doctors this year - one FP and two specialists - one
> a surgeon. All three washed their hands in front of me. I cannot
> believe a doctor who is going in to deliver a baby doesn't a) scrub and
> b) wear gloves. Maybe it does happen, but rarely, I suspect. Doctors
> going into rooms is a different story altogether, and moot in terms of
> what we were discussing - neonatal infection, which *is* most likely
> airborne.
Ignorance is bliss eh? Your suspicions would be incorrect. This is an
enormous problem in hospitals. I work with the infection control staffs
of all our area hospitals and it's something we are combatting *daily*.
The best place to acquire an infection is in a hospital.
cjra
Anne Rogers wrote:
>
> I think you overestimate the politeness of doctors in keeping their mouths
> shut when they thing something is someones fault, many women who have
> transferred from homebirths have suffered bullying from doctors, when there
> has been absolutely no justification for it.
Definitely overestimating the politeness of doctors.
Cathy Weeks
-L. wrote:
> Cathy Weeks wrote:
> > 8. You assume that midwives are untrained quacks, despite the fact that
> > the average midwive has had 6 years of medical training, and more than
> > 2 years more OB training than family practice physicians.
>
> How many family practice phycians routinely deliver babies?
Don't have the numbers handy, unfortuantely, but FP physicians deliver
babies in small towns all the time. Small town hospitals often do not
have OBs on staff, so it's pretty common, actually.
>
> >Certifiied
> > Nurse Midwives have 4 years of college, and usually 2-4 more years of
> > specialty OB training. They are trusted by the medical and
> > pharmaceutical boards to write prescriptions that are honored at any
> > pharmacy, yet you boil them down to quackery.
>
> They are not the preferred profession to deliver a baby, IMO. Got it?
I got it. Your opinion is that you'd never trust a CNM to deliver a
baby, either at home, in a hospital, or a birth center, because you
consider them quacks. So... the University of Missouri school of
Nursing has a CNM program (and the midwives at the university hospitals
work hand-in-hand with the OBs there), as does the University of
Pennsylvania, as well as many others. These women can write
prescriptions legally, are trusted by physicans to handle
non-complicated births, and are covered by many insurance and medicaid
programs. They have extensive medical training in one birth, and
usually know more about birth than the average FP Physician. In other
countries such as Britian and the Netherlands, which have lower rates
of infant mortality than in the US, they (with similar training) handle
the majority of births, both in and out of the hospital. But... they
are merely quacks.
> > But you also have to find the
> > studies that are well constructed and without serious methodological
> > flaws (you do know how to spot those, right?)
>
> Obviously better than you do.
Oh, and you know this how? Because I've come to a different conclusion?
>. Why that chaps your ass so badly, I'll never
> know, but you sure as hell aren't going to change my mind any time soon
> and I don't have any desire to change yours - not did I ever have any
> desire to do so. So you might as well quit getting yourself so worked
> up and quit babbling.
I'll tell you what "chaps my ass" is that I was offended at being
called "fucking nuts" (oh, I know; you didn't call *me* that
specifically, just all homebirthers in general), and at having a
respected professional called "Quacks." I was also offended by the
idea that "it's not rocket science" to make the decision that you would
have- that it's the only one that makes sense, that all women who make
a different decision are stupid. So, you might not have been out to
change my or others minds, but you DID go into this whole discussion in
an incredibly offensive way.
How would it have hurt you to have said "I would NEVER have been
comfortable with the idea of birthing away from a team of specialists
who could be there in case somethign went wrong. I tried for too long
to get pregnant, and wanted a baby so badly, that if something went
wrong because I wasn't near a hospital, I would never have forgiven
myself." Instead, you said chosing homebirth was "fucking nuts". You
automatically went with the perjorative description.
But, you are right - there's no reason to keep talking about this, so
I'll drop the arguement (with you at least)
Cathy Weeks
cjra
Irene wrote:
> Ericka Kammerer wrote:
> > Well, that's hardly unusual. A fairly substantial
> > minority of women have their births attended by someone
> > they've never met or have only briefly met. You had a
> > slightly higher risk that someone in a group practice,
> > but even choosing a group practice doesn't guarantee that
> > you'll get a known care provider.
> >
> I know - I was mainly pointing out that since I think single OB
> practices are relatively rare, that my continuity of care with an OB
> was correspondingly rare. But since some people (I forget who) were
> implying that midwives gave better continuity of care, that perhaps at
> least some of that depends on whether it is a single or group practice.
My initial OB was single practice, I saw only her during all of my
visits, but I saw her for only a brief time. We talked, but I don't
feel she really 'knew' me. While she likely would have been present to
deliver my baby, she would have only showed up at the *end*, which,
IMO, is not the most significant in the whole process. Well, it's
obviously significant, but the 12+ hours of labor before was a bigger
part of the process than the last 20 mins (and at those 20 mins I could
have cared less who caught the baby). My midwife, OTOH, worked
independently but had a team of assistants whom I met frequently. The
likelihood she wouldn't have been available was extremely small, but I
knew her assistants and backup. She *knew* me, she spent a hour with me
every appt, she was available to talk to with questions at all times.
During labor, she was with me from start to finish, so that when we did
transfer to hospital, she was able to discuss with the OB on call (who
happened to be great, but that was luck) every detail of what had
happened over the past 10+ hrs. Had I been in hospital, the OB would
have been dependent upon the chart, and the rotation of nurses (would
not have been the same nurse throughout) who didn't know me. My
midwife, knowing me, had deeper sense of what was happening. The OB on
call, fortunately, recognised that and valued my midwife's opinion. But
that is not common.
So tho I had 'continuity of care' with my first OB (I left her care at
20 wks), I felt the care provided by my midwife was more than just
continuous, it was in depth, which made a lot of difference.
Nan
<kath...@weeksfamily.net> wrote:
>But, you are right - there's no reason to keep talking about this, so
>I'll drop the arguement (with you at least)
On the contrary, I think there is a very good reason to talk about it.
There are lurkers that read these groups and the thought that any of
them would make a decision based on Lyn's mis-information is pretty
scary.
So instead of seeing it as arguing with her, you could see it as
correcting her ;-)
Nan
Cathy Weeks
Irene wrote:
>
> I know - I was mainly pointing out that since I think single OB
> practices are relatively rare, that my continuity of care with an OB
> was correspondingly rare. But since some people (I forget who) were
> implying that midwives gave better continuity of care, that perhaps at
> least some of that depends on whether it is a single or group practice.
I think that *in general* midwives do give better continuity of care.
My midwife practice had only two midwives, and they alternated me
between the two of them throughout my prenatal care, because we
wouldn't know who was on call when I gave birth, and they both wanted
to be equally family with my case. Toward the end, I also was cared
for by their apprentice (she was just completing her CNM training at
the University of Pennsylvania, which requires a ... period of time,
can't remember how long, that they work with practicing midwives for
awhile). She had been an L&D nurse for several years prior to going
back to midwifery school, so I felt in good hands with her too, and in
the end, we liked her better than our midwives (though was glad the
senior midwife was there, too!).
Cathy Weeks
Irene
Cathy Weeks wrote:
>
> As for your being uncomfortable with homebirth - I completely
> understand it, especially given your distance. For us, 30 minutes was
> the MAX it would take to get there. Homebirth really isn't for
> everyone. My stepson's mom, when she had her second kid, decided
> against homebirth herself, despite my recent home birth, and despite
> the fact that her mother had assisted in several homebirths (with a
> trained midwive leading things, of course!). Teresa just laughed and
> said "I don't want to clean up the mess" (my midwives took care of most
> of that). I suspect that her husband wasn't comfortable with the idea
> either. But what she did do, was choose a midwife practice that did
> in-hospital births. She did go to Princeton Medical Center, and I
> warned her of their stats, and she laughed and said "I know so much
> more now - I've picked the right caregiver." Then she told me who her
> midwife was and I had to laugh- Ursula was well-known in the area for
> being willing to butt heads with the hospital staff, so that her
> patients can walk around, have a hep-lock instead of an IV, use the
> birthing pool (only for labor though - the hospital wouldn't budge on
> water births - which Mercer Medical did allow), and to get the nurses
> to quit suggesting a "little short of something to take the edge off"
> every 5 minutes. She also let her patients eat during labor, if they
> wanted. Her daughter was born with no pain medication, and without the
> need for an episiotomy (she flipped onto her hands and knees). Etc.
Very cool. :)
>
> One of the things that I realized while I was in labor, that being able
> to relax is KEY to making it through an birth without pain meds (if
> that's a goal for you). If you can't relax, then it HURTS more.
> Despite my having practiced my bradley relaxation exercises through
> pregnancy, well... I still found myself tensing up during contractions.
> It wasn't until I was in transition that I was starting to get the
> hang of relaxing fully. Now in retrospect, I think that if you are
> scared of your surroundings, then being able to relax would just fly
> right out the window, thus lengthing labor, and possibly even causing
> complications.
>
> So unless you are really confident of birthing at home or in a
> free-standing birth center and have a backup plan in place, then
> birthing out of the hospital is just not a good idea.
Good points! I'm sure another factor is also that the only people I
knew who had had home births were online - no one IRL. Plus, I
would've had to convince dh - and not mention it to MIL unless I wanted
a big argument. You can call it excusifying, or just a matter of not
wanting to go too much against the tide when I was fairly sure that the
hospital I was planning to use would help me with what I wanted,
anyhow.
I'm not planning on having any more, but I'm not sure what I'd do if I
did. One factor that *has* changed is that we are now only about 15
minutes from that same hospital. ;)
Irene
Banty
says...
>
>But, you are right - there's no reason to keep talking about this, so
>I'll drop the arguement (with you at least)
>
>Cathy Weeks
>
Pearls on a pig wrestling with swine.
Cheers,
Banty (>grunt, snort<)
Cathy Weeks
Irene wrote:
> Good points! I'm sure another factor is also that the only people I
> knew who had had home births were online - no one IRL. Plus, I
> would've had to convince dh - and not mention it to MIL unless I wanted
> a big argument. You can call it excusifying, or just a matter of not
> wanting to go too much against the tide when I was fairly sure that the
> hospital I was planning to use would help me with what I wanted,
> anyhow.
One thing about planning a non-hospital birth, you MUST have the spouse
on board. If the spouse isn't behind you 100%, then it just won't
work, as much as anything because you need them to be calm and
supportive during the process, and not freaking out. :-)
If my husband had been totally against home birth, and if the studies
hadn't convinced him of their relative safety, then we wouldn't have
had a home birth.
Cathy Weeks
Cathy Weeks
Well, certainly. But she was right about one thing - I *was* trying to
convince her (only that it's not a crazy or quacky choice), and I
couldn't change her mind, so why continue to argue with her?
Cathy Weeks
Cathy Weeks
Banty wrote:
> Pearls on a pig wrestling with swine.
>
> Cheers,
> Banty (>grunt, snort<)
<LOL>, who is the pearl, the pig, and the swine in this scenario? I'm
reminded of the scene in When Harry Met Sally, when she asked him
furiously "Who is the dog in this scenario?".
Cathy Weeks
npa...@indiana.edu
Cathy Weeks wrote:
> Jeff wrote:
.
>
> Yes, and those midwives are bound by the rules of the hospital.
> Continuous fetal monitoring, constant IVs, rules against laboring women
> walking the halls, or moving about their rooms, prohibiting food and
> drink during labor, no water births, etc. These are all rules that
> have not been shown to help, and in many cases have been shown to
> actually LEAD to complications.
>
Are there really hospitals that forbid laboring women from walking
around? (And require constant IV's and continuous EFM?) 15 years ago
the ONLY rule in this list that my hospital had was no food and drink.
(And that rule went out the window years ago ...) One would have to
think that a hospital that still had all those rules wouldn't HAVE
midwives (in any capacity) since they would go completely against the
hospital's philosophy.
Naomi
cjra
It's a perfectly valid "excuse". No one needs to justify a hospital
birth, IMO, just as they don't need to justify a homebirth. You choose
what's right for you.
If my DH wasn't 100% on board, I would not have done it. Now, at first
he wasn't thrilled with the idea - I first mentioned it before we were
even married. Over the course of a year+, with some research and
meeting my midwife once I was pg, he agreed. And now is not only
supportive but a firm believer. When DD was born with complications,he
wasn't sure initially if he'd want to do it again, but after some time
he's re-convinced.
OTOH, I avoided discussing it with any of my family members (DH did
tell his but he knew that if not supportive, at least wouldn't give us
grief) and only told a few friends because I didn't want an argument.
Events after the fact proved my concern on that front correct.
Cathy Weeks
Yes, my family practice physician ranted at me when she heard what I
was planning, because "You don't have a proven pelvis". I loved her as
my family doctor, but she was not at all up-to-date in her knowledge of
childbirth (hadn't delivered a baby since med school, and she'd been
practicing for nearly 20 years by the time she was my doc). They
didn't even do well-women gynecology.
To her credit, when my daughter showed signs of jaundice a few days
after birth, she TOTALLY trusted the judgement of my midwife and
relaxed completely (my FP doctors tended not to see newborns until they
were 2 weeks old or so - Kivi was 2 *days* old when they started seeing
her). My doctor was reassured in part because I was having daily
visits from my midwife, to help me get breastfeeding going, my milk was
*starting* to come in, and Kivi was being monitored on a daily basis by
a healthcare professional. And when the midwife saw that Kivi's
jaundice was resolving (she had me put her in a sunny window in just a
diaper for a couple of hours each day) she called my doctor, who took
the call right away, and noted Pam's observations in Kivi's chart.
Cathy Weeks
Cathy Weeks
> Are there really hospitals that forbid laboring women from walking
> around? (And require constant IV's and continuous EFM?) 15 years ago
> the ONLY rule in this list that my hospital had was no food and drink.
> (And that rule went out the window years ago ...) One would have to
> think that a hospital that still had all those rules wouldn't HAVE
> midwives (in any capacity) since they would go completely against the
> hospital's philosophy.
Yes. Well... as I'm not shopping around for childbirth options, I'm
about 5 years out of date. I've seen a couple of articles that lead me
to believe that it's still a problem. But Princeton Medical Center in
NJ, which was my nearest hospital (by a slight margin) at the time my
daughter was born 5 years ago was like this.
They had one midwife practice who did work there, and they butted heads
regularly with hospital staff about stuff like that. That was the
practice that my stepson's mother used when had her second baby there,
18 months after my daughter was born. The nurse who worked there, and
assisted the midwife for most of the time, had given birth at home
herself (When a L&D nurse choses to birth at home .... hmmmm) and told
Teresa that if she hadn't been on duty, that she doubted she would have
had such a trouble-free birth, because Teresa DID walk the halls in
labor, and the nurses and hospital, while not prohibiting it, STRONGLY
discourage it, and strongly encourage the use of painkillers. And they
do typically did do continuouis fetal monitoring. I don't know their
rules about eating and drinking, or if they've changed in the 3.5 years
since she birthed there.
But, as I mentioned in another note - their c-section rate was 40%.
Their episiotomy rate was 75%, and their epidural rate was around 60%.
There is certainly nothing wrong with chosing an epidural (it's what I
would have chosen if I had decided I needed pain relief, though the
idea of a needle in my spine freaks me out more than a little!) if the
mother wants it, but PMC ENCOURAGED it.
Cathy Weeks
Cathy Weeks
> OTOH, I avoided discussing it with any of my family members (DH did
> tell his but he knew that if not supportive, at least wouldn't give us
> grief) and only told a few friends because I didn't want an argument.
> Events after the fact proved my concern on that front correct.
Yes, I remember your situation - your MD sister is not on board,
despite the fact that the meconium aspiration would have happened
regardless of location, and that you transferred and did birth your
baby in the hospital.
Cathy Weeks
Banty
says...
:)
I'm furiously smashing together idioms - casting pearls before swine, wrestling
with pigs.
You're the wrestler and caster. I'll leave the pig-swine identity as an
exercise for the reader.
Banty
cjra
Cathy Weeks wrote:
> cjra wrote:
> > Anne Rogers wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I think you overestimate the politeness of doctors in keeping their mouths
> > > shut when they thing something is someones fault, many women who have
> > > transferred from homebirths have suffered bullying from doctors, when there
> > > has been absolutely no justification for it.
> >
> > Definitely overestimating the politeness of doctors.
>
> Yes, my family practice physician ranted at me when she heard what I
> was planning, because "You don't have a proven pelvis". I loved her as
> my family doctor, but she was not at all up-to-date in her knowledge of
> childbirth (hadn't delivered a baby since med school, and she'd been
> practicing for nearly 20 years by the time she was my doc). They
> didn't even do well-women gynecology.
My initial OB, who was up to date, whom I generally liked overall, and
had delivered lots of babies, basically said the same thing. She didn't
rant at me, but close enough.
Then there's my sister the MD :(
The docs in the NICU didn't say anything, and our neonatalogist was
supportive, but I know some of the nurses were barely containing
themselves.
Pologirl
-L. wrote:
> I cannot
> believe a doctor who is going in to deliver a baby doesn't a) scrub and
> b) wear gloves.
I birthed a baby in September of this year, in a major teaching
hospital. Literally dozens of people came into the L&D room during the
hour (!) I was there. Those who touched me were, as far as I noticed,
good about washing hands and putting on gloves. But most of those who
did not expect to touch me did not wash. Okay so far. The problem is
that there was far too much handling of objects in the room, by people
with and without gloves. Particularly my "chart", which was a fat
3-ring binder. Handling that chart pretty much eliminated any benefits
of washing hands and wearing gloves. And there was also a computer
terminal in the room, that several people used. Few things are as
filthy as keyboards used by many people.
In general, hand washing does little good if, immediately before
washing, the person transfers an object from hand to somewhere else
(eg, under their arm), washes the hand, then immediately grips the
object again.
And the problem goes even deeper than that. There is something about
wearing gloves that makes some people behave as if the whole world were
a clean room. Their hands may be clean, yet they may still contaminate
everything they touch. Eg, standing in cafeteria food lines, now and
then I have seen food preparers, wearing gloves, wipe down their prep
counters with utterly filthy rags. Had their hands been bare, I doubt
they would have *touched* those rags.
Marie
news:1166648884....@t46g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Are there really hospitals that forbid laboring women from walking
> around? (And require constant IV's and continuous EFM?) 15 years ago
> the ONLY rule in this list that my hospital had was no food and drink.
> (And that rule went out the window years ago ...) One would have to
> think that a hospital that still had all those rules wouldn't HAVE
> midwives (in any capacity) since they would go completely against the
> hospital's philosophy.
Yeah, only 4 years ago at 2 hospitals in my area, I know of moms who weren't
allowed to walk around in labor, because it disrupted the monitor. Not much
has changed since I last had a baby in a hospital 10 years ago.
Marie
Marie
news:1166628337.7...@f1g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> In the Netherlands, the figures I've seen have been more than 50% of
> births are at home, and approx. 90% of births are midwife attended. Yet
> their infant mortality rate is much lower than in the US. (I don't have
> the articles handy, perhaps someone else does, to give the references,
> but infant mortality is easy to look up)
>
> Clearly, the 'quacks' who homebirth are doing something right.
It's funny that stats like that are...overlooked. There's no reason the US
should have such a high infant mortality rate if the hospitals there are so
great.
Marie
Pologirl
-L. wrote:
> You have no idea whether or not you can get to
> the hospital in time or not.
Now that's an argument *for* home births. Because no one ever knows if
there will be time to get to the hospital. Nor is there any guarantee
that once you get there, an appropriate caregiver will be available.
I delivered my first child in a municipal hospital only because I lived
too far from any homebirth midwifery practice and I was not prepared to
deliver without experienced help. But at the hospital that night there
was no OB, no anesthesiologist, no neurosurgeon, no neonatologist. The
L&D nurses called my midwife to come in. She came just in time. Had
things gone really badly, I expect she would have performed an
emergency C section on me, with my consent. (It would not have been
her first. Her first was in a major hospital, when by chance demand
for OBs briefly exceeded supply.) This municipal hospital transfers a
lot of patients to other hospitals. Had I planned a home birth, my
plan would have included provisions for transfer directly to one of
those other hospitals.
Most hospitals are not tertiary care hospitals. When you advocate
delivery in a hospital, I thinh you really mean delivery in a tertiary
care hospital. On that point, I tend to agree with you. Except I
delivered my second child in a tertiary care hospital, and I can say
that for most women giving birth that hospital presents more risks than
benefits, more minuses than plusses.