On natural childbirth. - Page 2

[cottonwood]

Greaseball said, "I don't know anyone who would not have a c/s that was truly life-saving." It's pretty hard for me to believe that you would not have had a c/s if you *believed* it would truly make a difference. But you apparently weren't given enough information to make you believe that your baby was in serious danger. In your situation you did the best you could with what information you were given. That's all any of us can ever do. Plenty enough of us have made decisions based on the information we had, and our support people didn't know any better, and our care providers didn't know any better, and the recommended intervention (or lack of intervention, as in your case) based on that information caused damage or death. As many others have pointed out, it goes both ways. I don't think you're suggesting that anytime a doctor suggests a cesarean we should say 'yes' -- even the most trusted doctor is sometimes wrong -- you're saying that we need to be educated and have the ability to make clear-headed decisions, through a support person if need be. Right? Good advice. But the unfortunate fact of the matter is that no matter how much information we have, we can't know everything, and we can't predict anything.

[Red]

Blueviolet, that's jsut what I'm saying. Have someone there who can help you digest the important information. Your dh may be a great guy, but faced with YOUR possible death (dh thought I was a goner, just froze, for hours) may not be capable of making the best decisions.

And to those of you who showed me some sympathy, thanks. But I want to explain. I don't feel guilty, I feel responsible. It's different. I didn't make the right choice, irregardless of why.

I don't mean to immply that anyone else should ever have a c-sec. I just thought my story might help someone else.

[Electra375]

Stacy, it is amazing how many woman have had the same experience. My first was extremely similar except I dilated and pushed for 2 1/2plus hours to no avail. The fortunate ones come full circle and do VBAC successfully.

I am turned off by the medical community at this point in my life. I have had nothing but grief from them. And they continue to inflict grief upon my family members. (a little annoyed right now for my Grandpa, but anyway.)

Just wanted to input my regards to Stacy and the original poster. Bad things do sometimes happen and hind sight is 20/20. Always remember we made the best decision at the time with the information that we had at that time and no one can be faulted for that!

[obnurse]

Pumpkinhead..what would you have liked the OB to do? Drag her to the OR and cut her open against her will? That would be called assault. It sounds as if poor Red's situation escalated from a case of the OB seriously recommending a c/s. (at which point if she had agreed and IF [big if] the baby came out with high apgars, most of you ladies here would be calling that an unecessary c/s) to a life threatening emergency for the baby. I applaud you Red for presenting your case. I am so sorry that things did not turn out well for you and your babe. I do however want you to know that you CANNOT be sure that things would have been better with a c/s. Typically babies swallow MORE fluid in utero because they don't get the squeeze of the birth canal to get out some of the fluid in the lungs. However, if you were hemorraging that bad, I am glad that you are alright!
I think that your message was clear.. Find someone (either an OB, MW or whoever) that you trust exclusively. If an emergency were to arrise.. YOu need to be sure that they are not feeding you a line of crap. I just hate when some OB's perform c/s because women have not progressed. GIVE THEM TIME!! But, emergencies do arrise.. and that is when we are lucky to have life saving procedures. However, that is what they should be used for. IF they were not so overused for stupid reasons.. then many women wouldn't have such an innate fear of hospitals and doctors in general!

[Kiki Runs]

Originally Posted by obnurse

It sounds as if poor Red's situation escalated from a case of the OB seriously recommending a c/s.

I'm not sure where you got this. Red said her doc said "maybe" a c/s. That doesn't sound like a "serious" recommendation to me.

My OB said "maybe" a c/s 1/2 an hour into pushing. I pushed for 2.5 MORE hours before giving up. Clearly NOT an emergency! Which I knew, but was backed up by the "maybe" from the OB.

And, yeah, my c/s WAS unnecessary (and DS had high Apgars, which he would have had if I'd birthed him vaginally!).

Kinsey

[obnurse]

Kinsey, You are right, her post doesn't say 'serious recommendation', but it also doesn't say 'maybe' either. She does state that she was HEMORRAGING. This is not a trickle of blood. This is a flood! YOu can only bleed like that for a short while before the baby AND you are in need of some serious help. Pushing with no fetal distress for 3 hours (as you did) and almost bleeding to death are two different things. If she was bleeding this badly, I am SURE that the OB did not say 'well maybe if we did a c/s it would be better'. NO WAY. If bleeding like that is allowed to go on forever, there is no way that a c/s WOULDN"T be a better choice. Red choose to wait it out. The doctor could not force her.
In your situation, that was YOUR decision to throw in the towel. Who is to say that the baby would, or would not have had good apgars after who knows how long more of pushing? It could have taken 7 more hours...who knows? HIndsight IS 20/20. I think you made the right decision for yourself and your baby at the time. There is a difference between unecessary, and emergency for sure. Your c/s was not necessarily unecessary, but certainly not an emergency! You must have felt it was necessary AT THE TIME, or you wouldn't have agreed to it! Don't beat yourself up about a decision you made under a time of great stress on your body!

[Electra375]

Women want a good birth experience and every case is so different. B/c there is no "absolute" standard by which all mw and ob follow, each situation is treated according to how the attending mw or ob feels would be best. We are not robots so this won't change. The trick is to find someone with similar philosophies in regards to when to intervene and trust them.

From my own experiences, I think that had my OBs known more about fetal positioning, I would not have had my c-sections. They can't be faulted for what the medical community doesn't know and isn't taught. And I can't feel any guilt for not knowing myself.

The midwife I found was great. She was experienced in VBAC (#1 of importance) and she was very forth coming that sometimes doctors are needed and that is what they are there for. She explained what her few transfers were for. I felt comfortable with her and I trusted her. When she said it was time for this baby to come out "now", the only intervention she ever did, I trusted that she knew it needed to come out. And we were fine.

It's hard to know if you've picked the right attending person until you are in the moment, unless you are very familiar with their practices and even then maybe not.

I can't believe that in today's age of lawsuits that an OB let Red labor with a Hemorrage at all. Where I live that would have been an emergancy c/s. My sympathy for you and your child. The medical community is in a sad state in my opinion. Some want to not push c/s other want all c/s and somewhere inbetween the well fair of their patients has become hidden for statistic sake.

[Raven]

Im not sure if this is pertinent to this threa, but it just kept hittng me - WHY do women feel as though they have to trust the doctor more than they trust themselves? IMO, to get an answer you must remember how childbirth was moved from the home into the hospial.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, there were many, many deaths involved during childbirth. This ws b/c there was no knowlege of germs, bacteria and how they caused disease. In those days too, sanitary conditions were poor and housing was also inadequate. Upper-class woman began having Doctors attend their births and this became a common thing - asociated with Upper Class and nobilty.

Then when Charity hospitals began offering the service of Doctor-led births it became accessible to all women. The lack of knowledge concerning germs, bacteria and the need for sanitary conditions, led to many complications. Thus the need for intervention arose and who was there to save the day? Doctors of course....

Midwives were banned from attending medical school and they were not allowed to perform surgical procedures or even carry relevent equipment. This mae it impossible for midwives to practice and more and more woman sought the "safe" alternative.

Childbirth became a business and to this day it is treated lke such by many many doctors and many many hospitals around the world.

Women are told (in many ways) that the pain of childbirth is an outdated and unnecessary burden. Why bother enduring all that pain when you can just have [insert looong list of drugs]?! They were also scare sh*tless of dying during childbirth or their babies dying. The staus of the Doctor was revered as he saved lives and made birth a bearable and easy experience for the mother... this is the picture that was painted.

The 50's saw the era of "knock 'em out drag 'em out" obstetrics - or Twilight Sleep where countless women were knocked out using very harmful drugs. Opiates, Morphine an other dangerous drugs, to name but a few...

And in any business, the businessman wants one thing - you guesse it ... MONEY. And they dont want to take unecessary risk either....

Now we have generations and generations of women who have had their births taken away from them by the "well meaning" medical world.

Many women still believe in the myth that birth is safer in a hospitsl - with all the bells and whistles.

The truth is that doctors should've worked WITH midwives to make birth safer. Instead they took over and basically screwed it up for billions of women an their babies.

Now we are living in a techno-craving world where a lot of women still believe that it is a blessing to be able to birth in an environment where they have the latest technology on their side.

There are more factors to consider, like the fact that we no longer believe in our bodies capabilities to birth our own children. It scares us. We no longer have mothers, aunts, grandmothers, sisters or friends to encourage us and teach us the joys of childbirth. All we have is the doctor - who is in it for the money.....

And those of us who are warriors for gentle births in which the mother and child are the focus of attention - are struggling desperately to define a line between when we should hand ourselves over to the medical doctors and when we should continue.

Its the beginning - we are the future mothers, aunts, friends, sisters, that will extend love, wisom and comfort to future gentle birthers. We need to learn - as Red has done - thru many painful and conflicting experiences in order for us to restore every womans birth right.

I really hope this makes sense to you all!

[pumpkinhead]

Originally Posted by obnurse

Pumpkinhead..what would you have liked the OB to do? Drag her to the OR and cut her open against her will? That would be called assault. It sounds as if poor Red's situation escalated from a case of the OB seriously recommending a c/s. (at which point if she had agreed and IF [big if] the baby came out with high apgars, most of you ladies here would be calling that an unecessary c/s) to a life threatening emergency for the baby. .....

With respect, obnurse, Red did not give the impression that the OB informed her of the ramifications or the consequences of *NOT* having a c/s!!!!! Her words were:

THe doc recommended a medication to mellow me, and maybe a c-sec.

If *I* was hemmorhaging, one would hope that my OB would say to me 'if you don't have a c/s there is a serious risk of your child aspirating blood and having SERIOUS problems at birth that could result in DEATH. 'Maybe a C section' isn't really cutting it in my book.


Is there not currently an ongoing case where they are trying to charge a lady with manslaughter for refusing a c/s? When it is a life or death situation, OB's tend to be a bit more on the insistant side, or at least explain all of the possible outcomes. It doesn't appear to me that this was the case in Red's situation, and that IN MY BOOK is NEGLIGENCE.

(at which point if she had agreed and IF [big if] the baby came out with high apgars, most of you ladies here would be calling that an unecessary c/s) to a life threatening emergency for the baby

This is an unfair assumption at best. Most of the ladies I've had the pleasure of meeting here realize that there are reasons when c/s's are warrented. The prob here is that they are used to nonchalantly and the 'dead baby' card is played so often, it's a bit like trying to figure out when the boy is crying wolf and when he isn't! Most of us aren't Doctors, but we have made it a priority to inform ourselves about these procedures, how they are implemented and when they are needed and when they are not. For our safety and for the safety of our children. It's the arrogance of the medical community that has made this a necessity. Please don't make these kinds of character assumptions. They are unwarranted and unsubstantiated.

With respect,

pumpkinhead.

[pumpkinhead]

Raven

Well said, Mama!!

[Kiki Runs]

Originally Posted by obnurse

Kinsey, You are right, her post doesn't say 'serious recommendation', but it also doesn't say 'maybe' either.

Actually, her post DOES say "maybe". IMO, (and like pumpkinhead says above) this is not cutting it!!

Originally Posted by obnurse

Pushing with no fetal distress for 3 hours (as you did) and almost bleeding to death are two different things.

ITA, and that was my point. Both our docs used the same words: "maybe a c/s". Which, IMO, is NUTS!! In my case, like we established, there was no fetal distress, so I was able to tell the doc to step off the first couple of times he mentioned the c/s. I KNEW it wasn't an emergency situation, but the doc's laid-back attitude and wording cemented that for me. I truly think that if I were in Red's situation and the doc said "maybe", I'd probably refuse the c/s, too. I mean, why is he saying "MAYBE" if it's SOOOO important, YK?

Originally Posted by obnurse

In your situation, that was YOUR decision to throw in the towel. Who is to say that the baby would, or would not have had good apgars after who knows how long more of pushing? It could have taken 7 more hours...who knows? HIndsight IS 20/20. I think you made the right decision for yourself and your baby at the time. There is a difference between unecessary, and emergency for sure. Your c/s was not necessarily unecessary, but certainly not an emergency! You must have felt it was necessary AT THE TIME, or you wouldn't have agreed to it! Don't beat yourself up about a decision you made under a time of great stress on your body!

You're right, it WAS my decision, ultimately, but I want to point out that *I* would never have arrived at that decision without the doc and nurse's "help". They kept pushing and pushing for it (and the interventions that created the "need" for it). However, had the doc said it was an emergency or been very insistent that it had to be done immediately, I HOPE I would have kept my head on straight and asked why, but I suspect that there are certain words which would have made me LEAP onto that surgical gurney. "Maybe" is not one of them, though.

Kinsey

Oh, and Raven: That was beautiful (well, actually it was sad and disgusting, but YKWIM)!

And pumpkinhead, ITA especially your last paragraph.

[pumpkinhead]

However, had the doc said it was an emergency or been very insistent that it had to be done immediately, I HOPE I would have kept my head on straight and asked why, but I suspect that there are certain words which would have made me LEAP onto that surgical gurney. "Maybe" is not one of them, though.

WEll said Kinsey, and exactly my point. They are the one's with the training and the clear head, not the labouring woman and certianly not her anxious partner. If this isn't why they are there, then I don't know what their purpose is.

Something else you touched on: Most C/S *are* necessary at the time they are reccomended. Most of the medical interventions that have brought on this 'necessity' are not. In some situations, this is not the case at all, but there you have it. Every situation and every labouring Mama are unique! It irritates me to no end that hospital policies try to assume that every woman and every labour and every baby IS THE SAME, when they just aren't.

[Greaseball]

All doctors say "maybe a c/s" for every woman! 26% of women deliver by c/s; it really is a maybe for everyone. My doc suggested a c/s after I had been pushing for 3 hours. Luckily it was only a suggestion.