A few more really good posts/articles I’ve read about birth/VBAC/labor, etc:
(VBAC – Vaginal Birth After Cesearean. A HUGE issue in the birth world. The c-section rates in this country are through the roof and often done unnecessarily. Unfortunately, once a woman has ONE c-section, many ob/gyns will REFUSE to let her deliver the next one vaginally. Read this, about a woman who had to fight HARD to have a vaginal birth and was threatened with a court order if she tried to do so. I kid you not. Hers is not a unique case, either. The reason for all this controversy is that ob/gyns will claim there are dangers of uterine rupture if you attempt to deliver vaginally after a c-section. The risks are actually not that high – PLUS, the reason for all this trouble is that they used to use what’s called a double layer suture, to sew the uterus up after a c-section. Well, someone brilliantly invented the single layer suture, which isn’t as good as the double layer, but it’s a little bit faster. Insurance companies love the single layer suture because it means less time in the operating room and they PREFER that doctors use this method. You can request a double layer, but most doctors aren’t even trained in this anymore. So, if you actually think that decisions are made based on what’s best for you, you’re sorely mistaken. Nowhere is this more obvious than in birth and labor. SO. If you or someone you know has had a c-section, and you’re fighting for a VBAC, read on…)
Why is VBAC a viable option? : “I’m excited about ICAN’s blog carnival, “Why is VBAC a vital option?” There are so many reasons that I long for change in the attitude of modern obstetrics toward VBAC, that it is difficult to decide which reasons to write about. Since I’m sure there will be many bloggers writing about the abundance of good reasons for promoting and supporting VBAC, I’d like to approach the topic from the point of view of the provider.”
_____
Rachael Ray’s Dr Ian: VBAC Should Be a Woman’s Choice
_____
** I hate Rachael Ray, but YAY! Good for her. Also – I want to point out this link is from ICAN – International Cesarean Awareness Network. Again, if you or someone you know wants to fight for a VBAC, this is a GREAT resource. It’s what they do. And there’s an ICAN VBAC Carnival and NIH VBAC Consensus Conference coming up.
_____
_____
Why VBACs Should Be the Norm, Not the Deviant Care Pattern: “There are so many problems with the “best standard of care” according to obstetricians. My experience is so typical. I assumed that my medical care was evidence-based, and that the advice given to me by my OB was based on what was best for ME & MY BABY, not what was best for HER. I was dangerously uninformed, assuming that my doctor had my best interests at heart…I WAS WRONG. And it happens every day to so many women. It doesn’t matter what level of education or socioeconomic status a woman holds—the minute she entrusts her care to an OB following the “best practice” model, she signs away her right to her intelligence, her possession of her own body, her health, and the best interests of her family.”
_____
Minimizing Negative Effects of Too Many Interventions – “I’m Connected to So Many Things!”– “When asked why they did not move around more in labor, the majority of women who responded to the Listening to Mothers survey said they were connected to too many things to move easily.¹ Ideally, all women would be encouraged to move about freely during labor. Most women who are restrained by various monitoring devices don’t actually need to be, but there are times that closer monitoring of mother and/or baby is needed.”
_____
Minimizing Effects of Interventions: “I’m Overdue!” – “What options are there for the woman who is overdue and being pressed to agree to induction?”
_____
More on Interventions for Overdue Pregnancies
_____
Fetal Kick Counts – Are they Really Useful?
_____
ACNM Issues Statement Supporting Use of Nitrous Oxide in Labor: The American College of Nurse-Midwives has posted a new position statement on nitrous oxide for labor analgesia [PDF], stating:
“It is the position of the American College of Nurse‐Midwives that women should have access to a variety of measures to assist them in coping with the challenges of labor.”
The ACNM notes that a blend of inhaled nitrous oxide and oxygen is used for pain relief in labor in many other countries, but it not typically available in the United States, where epidural anesthesia and systemic opioids are more common.
_____
NYT RES Midwives a Model for US Health Debate: In today’s New York Times, Section A, a story about a tiny, impoverished Navajo hospital in Tuba City, AZ, doing birth better than anyone: “this small hospital in a dusty desert town on an Indian reservation, showing its age and struggling to make ends meet, somehow manages to outperform richer, more prestigious institutions when it comes to keeping Caesarean rates down, which saves money and is better for many mothers and infants.”
_____
How to Get a Father On Board with Your Birth Plans
** Too bad I hadn’t read this one BEFORE Felix was born. If you choose to have a home birth, you might need to read this. Men are notoriously protective and most likely will be terrified at the idea. Mr Nikki took some convincing and we even fought about it one night before he came around. I handed him all the research & evidence I could find, showing how safe it was, reminded him that I was about as low risk as a person can be, gave him the freedom to voice his concerns to my Doula, and gave him all the time he needed to ask questions with the midwife. Ultimately, he also saw how incredibly important it was to me, and that made a lot of difference. Now, of course, he’s thrilled that I made the decision and that we had a home birth and seems to enjoy bragging about it to everyone he knows. He spoke to a couple guys at work, whose wives had babies a few weeks ago and who wound up getting c-sections. They all decided, after talking to Mr Nikki, that they’re doing home birth next and have lots of questions for us. Needless to say, I am THRILLED to know that I might have anything to do with even one person choosing to have a home birth.
_____
Hollywood Meets the Fishy Pool: I’ve done lots of ranting about Hollywood depiction of birth. Oh – and I have a WHOLE POST devoted to my feelings about The Office baby episode. I chuckled, I was please & surprised, and I was annoyed as hell.
_____
A post about epidurals and then a post on afterthoughts on epidurals.:
“When I was a PhD student, I was chatting with an acquaintance about pregnancy and birth. She had four children. She said something that was really hard for me to wrap my mind around. “I just love it when I go into labor and get an epidural,” she said. “I feel so empowered!”Epidural + empowerment are two words that don’t always get put together in the same sentence, even among women who gladly choose epidurals for pain relief. For me–huge caveat that I’m speaking about my own thought processes here, not generalizing myself onto all women–an epidural is the opposite of empowerment. Not just emotionally or psychologically, but in the literal sense, too, because an epidural causes full or partial paralysis from the waist down. The thought of losing sensation, of literally being unable to walk or move, isn’t something I would look forward to in labor. To me, labor = movement. I cannot imagine having a contraction without moving in response to it.
I imagine that many people have reacted the same way to my choices (giving birth at home, having an unassisted birth, foregoing pharmacological pain relief) as I did when I was talking with my acquaintance. A sense of curiosity, a bit of the exotic other that feels genuinely foreign, the push-pull of one’s own values and preferences at odds with another’s.”
_____
Why Can’t We Be Proactive Instead of Reactionary?: “Maternal care is a feminist issue. ALL women should take the time to research and question what is being offered or even forced. Women are using the “choice” banner to defend the choice to give up choice. When the chips are down, who is really going to argue with personal choice? It makes my head spin. My worry is that most women, in majority, will not stand up for their right to control what happens to their body during pregnancy and birth until we have no control. It is going there and we see it every day. Women being imprisoned in hospitals, ordered by the court to undergo surgery, refused vaginal delivery because of a policy made by strangers counting dollars. Women being confined to beds and their bodies forced into hard labor with chemicals under the threat their doctor will “drop them” or their “baby will die”. Women feeling the only choice is to labor at home without an attendant because it is illegal for a midwife or doctor to attend them at home, where they feel safest. To me this is an echo of women hiding in their bathrooms with a knitting needle. You know of what I write.”
This last one was a good post to read, particularly the bit about choice. I’ve often thought, but rarely say out loud that I really feel like “feminism” has ruined a lot of things – especially birth. It was feminists that railed against the idea that women had to be in pain during birth – it was a reaction to religious zealots saying it was our “punishment” for that whole Adam & Eve thing. I kid you not. That’s what really started the wave of pain medication and interventions. Instead of empowering themselves and owning the experience, women began to become completely detached and eventually lost control of their own bodies. Now decisions about our health and the well-being of our children is being made BASED ON COST. Our experience is being written by insurance companies.
Again, I reiterate. I don’t think that anyone is making a bad decision if they CHOOSE to have interventions or pain medication, so long as your decision is FULLY INFORMED. We SHOULD be able to trust our doctors, but we can’t. Again, the reason I switched, last minute, from a hospital birth was because I realized that, even though I was seeing people who were called “midwives,” their hospital policy would always take precedence. Hospital policies that were based on fear of litigation.
So keep reading, keep talking, and keep thinking. Arm yourself with information & research, stand strong and FEEL FREE to challenge your ob/gyn if that’s the route you’re taking. They aren’t always right and you have the right to go against their word. Stand strong, don’t be intimidated. By ANYONE. The truth is that, yeah, we do actually know better than doctors sometimes.