The gloves are coming off
10:19 AM Edit This 3 Comments »
Disclaimer: These are my opinions. I just want to write and get things off my mind. I am not an expert; these are just things I have learned from friends, blogs, and doing my own research over the past year or so. If you would like to argue, please find a nice way to say it. I may choose not to respond simply because sometimes I don't feel like defending my opinions. From now on, though, I'm not going to try to protect peoples' feelings because I don't want to offend them. If you don't like what I'm writing, you have the option to stop reading. Thank you and have a fantastic day!
If you are a low-risk, healthy woman without a prior condition that could affect your baby (like diabetes, for example, or a car accident where you broke your pelvis), there is NO REASON why you should not be able to either have a natural birth in a hosptail or to birth at home safely. The hospitals obviously do not view it this way. They want (and you want) you to be there "just in case." Well, the "just in case" is the problem. If you're not allowed to walk around "just in case" of a cord prolapse, your labor is probably going to be longer because walking around helps your labor progress. If you don't give your body nourishment during this marathon of labor "just in case" you have to be put under general anesthesia and you aspirate from the food you ate, then your labor may slow down because your body (and the baby) are hungry. Who wants to "run a marathon" when they are have no food in their stomachs, yet women are forced to. If the doctor forces you to have pitocin in your IV "just in case" you "fail to progress" (according to? why is there a time limit?) or you have reached THE DUE DATE and your baby could be too big, then your contractions will be stronger, you cannot adjust to them slowly, you may want pain medication, and your baby's heart rate may dip from the strength of those contractions; then the doctor will want you to have a c-section ... even though if he had just let you labor on your own time (or let you go into labor on your own) without pitocin, everything would have been just fine. Also, pushing while on your back is the LEAST effective way to get a baby out; squatting or on hands and knees allows the pelvis to open up farther in order to push that baby out. So people wonder why they had to push for 3 hours and then have a c-section because the baby wouldn't come out. It's not because their body made a baby that was too big for the woman to push out. If they'd been allowed to bear down spontaneously and if they had not had drugs that were numbing the entire lower half of their body so they had no other option but to be on their back, then they could have pushed the baby out and not had people holding their legs wide open with a bunch of strangers staring at her vagina while she pushed so hard she broke blood vessels in her face. It is VERY RARE that a baby is too big to fit through a mother's pelvis.
Living life based on "just in case" is not my idea of living. If I did, I'd never leave the house "just in case" I get killed in a car accident on the highway. So, what do I do - I wear my seatbelt, I use two hands on the steering wheel, I go the speed limit, and I say a prayer. That's how I see childbirth. You can say that you don't want a c-section, but unless you actually do research, take classes, and know all of your options and about all the interventions that do not help to progress your labor, then you may be one of the over 30% that ends up with one. Of course, there are always circumstances ... and there are those people who just don't care (which is a different post altogether), but in general, 30% of women today (1 in 3) can take measures to avoid a c-section. A lot of those 30% of c-sections are repeats because doctors these days refuse to do VBACs. You pretty much have to have a homebirth if you want to avoid a repeat c-section. Why are they afraid of VBACs? "Just in case" of uterine rupture ... which occurs in less than 1% of VBACs.
I know that there are those women that do want to be in the hospital "just in case," and that there are sometimes unforeseen circumstances, but if more women were educated about what goes on in a labor and delivery unit of a hospital (where so much of it is routine these days because no one questions it anymore, though so much of it is unnecessary) and how to get your body to deliver your baby in the most natural way possible, you would see that it doesn't always have to be painful, and it doesn't have to be traumatic, and it doesn't have to end in a c-section. It's so sad that doctors and nurses these days will use scare tactics to get you into the operating room to avoid a lawsuit. More than sad - it's a tragedy. Birth is a natural event - it is not supposed to be a medical event, and it doesn't have to be.
If you are a low-risk, healthy woman without a prior condition that could affect your baby (like diabetes, for example, or a car accident where you broke your pelvis), there is NO REASON why you should not be able to either have a natural birth in a hosptail or to birth at home safely. The hospitals obviously do not view it this way. They want (and you want) you to be there "just in case." Well, the "just in case" is the problem. If you're not allowed to walk around "just in case" of a cord prolapse, your labor is probably going to be longer because walking around helps your labor progress. If you don't give your body nourishment during this marathon of labor "just in case" you have to be put under general anesthesia and you aspirate from the food you ate, then your labor may slow down because your body (and the baby) are hungry. Who wants to "run a marathon" when they are have no food in their stomachs, yet women are forced to. If the doctor forces you to have pitocin in your IV "just in case" you "fail to progress" (according to? why is there a time limit?) or you have reached THE DUE DATE and your baby could be too big, then your contractions will be stronger, you cannot adjust to them slowly, you may want pain medication, and your baby's heart rate may dip from the strength of those contractions; then the doctor will want you to have a c-section ... even though if he had just let you labor on your own time (or let you go into labor on your own) without pitocin, everything would have been just fine. Also, pushing while on your back is the LEAST effective way to get a baby out; squatting or on hands and knees allows the pelvis to open up farther in order to push that baby out. So people wonder why they had to push for 3 hours and then have a c-section because the baby wouldn't come out. It's not because their body made a baby that was too big for the woman to push out. If they'd been allowed to bear down spontaneously and if they had not had drugs that were numbing the entire lower half of their body so they had no other option but to be on their back, then they could have pushed the baby out and not had people holding their legs wide open with a bunch of strangers staring at her vagina while she pushed so hard she broke blood vessels in her face. It is VERY RARE that a baby is too big to fit through a mother's pelvis.
Living life based on "just in case" is not my idea of living. If I did, I'd never leave the house "just in case" I get killed in a car accident on the highway. So, what do I do - I wear my seatbelt, I use two hands on the steering wheel, I go the speed limit, and I say a prayer. That's how I see childbirth. You can say that you don't want a c-section, but unless you actually do research, take classes, and know all of your options and about all the interventions that do not help to progress your labor, then you may be one of the over 30% that ends up with one. Of course, there are always circumstances ... and there are those people who just don't care (which is a different post altogether), but in general, 30% of women today (1 in 3) can take measures to avoid a c-section. A lot of those 30% of c-sections are repeats because doctors these days refuse to do VBACs. You pretty much have to have a homebirth if you want to avoid a repeat c-section. Why are they afraid of VBACs? "Just in case" of uterine rupture ... which occurs in less than 1% of VBACs.
I know that there are those women that do want to be in the hospital "just in case," and that there are sometimes unforeseen circumstances, but if more women were educated about what goes on in a labor and delivery unit of a hospital (where so much of it is routine these days because no one questions it anymore, though so much of it is unnecessary) and how to get your body to deliver your baby in the most natural way possible, you would see that it doesn't always have to be painful, and it doesn't have to be traumatic, and it doesn't have to end in a c-section. It's so sad that doctors and nurses these days will use scare tactics to get you into the operating room to avoid a lawsuit. More than sad - it's a tragedy. Birth is a natural event - it is not supposed to be a medical event, and it doesn't have to be.
3 Observations or Opinions:
My thought is that yes, you do have to have individual responsibility, but what about all the medical professionals that have failed to provide the best possible care in the face of 'just in case' or even worse.. for the almighty dollar? My problem, was a classic case, "You don't know what you don't know" so you do what you've seen in the past or trust the advice of a doctor. It's so sad that we have to know our options independantly of the options presented by most doctors.
I usually lurk and don't post but did want to mention that even if you have had a broken pelvis (I did in high school) you can still have a wonderful, unmedicated birth to a big baby - it just takes a long time for the baby to navigate their way through the pelvis.
That is very good to know, Ashley. Thank you!
I had no idea you broke your pelvis!
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