holding baby's head in - delay delivery?

[TCA2008]

I heard a midwife speaking about a mom who was delivering (at home) and the midwife wasn't there yet. She was on the phone with the husband who saw the baby's head crowning. The midwife told him to hold the baby's head in until she arrived. I was horrified to hear her say that. Is that right? Is it really okay to push against a baby to keep the baby in as the mother is trying to push the baby out?
Are there any good references about the possible damage to the baby if delivery is actively delayed?

[etsdtm99]

i don't know anything about the right or wrong here, but i have heard that a lot about hospital births and waiting for the doctor..

[fruitfulmomma]

Yeah, I've heard of nurses doing that years ago. Never heard a midwife say it and frankly I would not hire her again. She should have guided the husband through checking the neck for the cord as the baby was coming out.

[Smithie]

Agree with the PP. Assuming a normally progressing birth, a decent midwife should know better than to pull that kind of 1950s torture.

I had a hospital birth with my last child (#3), and as I'd had an epi and the baby's vital were excellent I was not worried about waiting a minute or so for the doctor, but when the nurse checked me and then asked me to push and then FREAKED OUT and made me pinky swear not to move a muscle until she'd gotten the doctor in there and then she dashed out the door, part of me was very tempted to push dd out right then and let my husband catch her just to see the looks on their faces. It was just ridiculous. It was medical pageantry.

[Baby~Braatens~Mama]

Originally Posted by Smithie

It was medical pageantry.

I feel the same way when I hear about many procedures. It just seems so unreal to me, the liberties that hospitals seem to take with the natural process of birth!
I thought the point of having a midwife was to avoid these kinds of things!

[earthmama369]

That was a practice done in the 1950s, and it resulted in brain damage and neonatal deaths in a number of cases. Bad, bad idea.

[eclipse]

The nurse tried to do this when my youngest was born (hospital birth). She was waiting for the neonatal resuscitation team and OB (slightly preterm birth, so I got to have the whole freaking hospital thunder into the delivery room). We're very lucky nothing bad happened - and it was what only seemed to be a few seconds - I wasn't pushing and ds wasn't having any part of staying inside.

[babycatcher12]

That was a practice done in the 1950s, and it resulted in brain damage and neonatal deaths in a number of cases. Bad, bad idea.

It is not an acceptable standard of practice, either in the hospital or at home. period.
If a nurse can't handle a baby being born without the doctor, then she/he shouldn't be working in L&D.

[caned & able]

Absolutely it can cause a baby to suffer brain damage. A baby that is ready to be born, is ready to breathe, and holding the baby back is bad practice.

[Wonton]

My youngest dd was held in by a nurse and went from having no signs of distress to needing major help. She is four now and spent the first several months of her life on oxygen, an apnea monitor, and until last summer a 24 hr a day feeding tube/pump. She has neurological problems that no one can explain. Were they caused by being held in? My gut feeling says yes.

[MsBlack]

That midwife needs to be brought to peer review on this issue. Yes, what she advised was very dangerous in so many ways, and she needs to be made aware of it!

Acting to restrain the forces of labor that way can turn a perfectly normal, healthy birth into a tragedy. And even if it doesn't have that extreme of ill-effect, there is FAR greater chance for harm in holding back birth, than there is in the baby being born with the mw still on her way there.

I've talked a fair few families through birth while on the road to them...and that phone support primarily helped the parents stay calm and trusting...because a birth happening that smoothly and straightforwardly most often indicates a perfectly safe, healthy, normal birth in progress!

Again--that mw needs peer review and further education. She has some pretty clear misunderstandings of the forces of birth and also of the importance of her role. In the case of a birth like that, even if she was *hired* as a 'primary attendant', in fact she was only *needed* as an 'auxillary helper'. It is so important for a mw to know the difference, and to be flexible with the circumstances that birth presents.

[TCA2008]

Originally Posted by earthmama369

That was a practice done in the 1950s, and it resulted in brain damage and neonatal deaths in a number of cases. Bad, bad idea.

Can anyone provide some references about this, or about what could go wrong - I intent to follow up with this midwife and her supervisor, but want to have all the facts straight about the danger.

[SubliminalDarkness]

Family friends of my parents have a daughter that this happened to when she was being born back in the 80s. The baby was crowning and the nurse freaked out, and shoved a rolled up towel in between the mom's legs and then held her legs together.
The baby suffered significant brain damage, and is now only the maturity level of about a 6 year old despite being in her mid 20s. It's very, very sad. The doctor got a slap on the wrist for not being available, and the nurse I think only lost her position at that hospital, but not her nursing license.

[MsBlack]

I'm not sure you'd need any research references for this. I would think just mentioning what the mw said would be enough. If the person you speak to wants to know why you think this is a problem, then you could just say that your understanding is that holding a baby's head back can cause brain and nerve damage. Seems to me that the supervisor might be more inclined to question you instead about the comments you heard--try to make sure that you heard what you think you did, ask about the context, etc. Try to verify or deny the reality of those comments, IYSWIM, so as to figure out if action needs to be taken w/that mw.