Just a small vent

[mamato3cherubs]

I had to hear, 3rd party, about another hospital birth horror story over the weekend. As it was unfolding long distance even. SOOOO hard. I am sooooo sad for her and baby. and there was/is absolutely nothing i can say or do.

I really hate this. I have to find a way, fighting and screaming if i have to, to get more involved in the birth community. I cant stand to sit idol anymore. I know i will not be able to help even the smallest of percentage of women who are getting screwed out of what they need and deserve every minute of the day, but if i can help ANYONE I will be able to live and die in peace.


Sorry, i had to get some of that off my chest. And i usually write a book, but am proud of myself for not making you suffer through reading all the details just to get to the bottom of the post

[HopelessPoet]

Me too!!

[dewi]

Well, I will join you in ranting!!!

I want to believe we are getting to a tipping point!
Have you read that book "Tipping Point"? If not, it is a must read!

For a couple having a baby it takes a lot of education and changing their minds about birth for a couple to recognize what is happening at the hospital is not a normal birth. It is what is happening to all their friends and neighbors and on TV, it has become the norm, this is what birth is looking like that it takes all those interventions.

It is getting so bad, worse and worse every year that it has to reach the tipping point where all the insanity of hospital policies that are defensive practices in how they manage births, will change.

As hospital policies changed away from drugging women and tying them down to give birth in the 50's and 60's. Along came the early 1970's woman empowered with Lamaze natural births and their partners at the birth, they demanded a change.

I'm forever the optimist and feel it! The tipping point is coming it is just too atrocious what is happening now to women at hospital births, to not believe it will change again. The culture has to change and It must come from from the birthing women demands, the consumers change things!

I find the most difficult part is that lovely clients, smart healthy women think they can go to have a baby in a hospital and rightly believe they should be able to have an uncomplicated natural birth with their OB and at the hospital.

It then always turns into the most harrowing experience in their life, instead of the most transcendence, and they are made to feel grateful that the hospital averted a catastrophe waiting to happen with the cascading medical interventions. It's the great American Lie to birthing families.

Unsuspecting couples are just having a baby and the medically managed American birth clobbers them. Then they go home with all types of breastfeeding, and emotional complications and they do not realize it is because of the birth.




Well, off my soap box for today!
Have a sunshiny day!
Keep on plugging along.

Dew

[mamato3cherubs]

Originally Posted by dewi

I find the most difficult part is that lovely clients, smart healthy women think they can go to have a baby in a hospital and rightly believe they should be able to have an uncomplicated natural birth with their OB and at the hospital.

It then always turns into the most harrowing experience in their life, instead of the most transcendence, and they are made to feel grateful that the hospital averted a catastrophe waiting to happen with the cascading medical interventions. It's the great American Lie to birthing families.

Unsuspecting couples are just having a baby and the medically managed American birth clobbers them. Then they go home with all types of breastfeeding, and emotional complications and they do not realize it is because of the birth.



Dew

Perfectly stated. This is exactly what happened. talked into induction at 40 wks 5 days, leads to epidural, then that leads to an episiotomy during delivery, that ultimately ends in a 4th degree tear. 36 stitches for repair, hemorrhaging from what sounds like a premature removal of the placenta. Mom begins to get a fever during 2nd stage and therefore her AND baby are placed on an iv, of course interfering with nursing, so baby doesn't nurse for nearly 36 hours after birth, then they wonder why baby begins to look jaundis.............. yeah. and then my boyfriends SIL (its his daughter, well step daughter who had the baby) has the nerve to look at me and say
" She should not have delivered that baby, she wasn't big enough, she needed a c/s!"
I removed myself from the room

[dewi]

Originally Posted by mamato3cherubs

Perfectly stated. This is exactly what happened. talked into induction at 40 wks 5 days, leads to epidural, then that leads to an episiotomy during delivery, that ultimately ends in a 4th degree tear. 36 stitches for repair, hemorrhaging from what sounds like a premature removal of the placenta. Mom begins to get a fever during 2nd stage and therefore her AND baby are placed on an iv, of course interfering with nursing, so baby doesn't nurse for nearly 36 hours after birth, then they wonder why baby begins to look jaundis.............. yeah. and then my boyfriends SIL (its his daughter, well step daughter who had the baby) has the nerve to look at me and say
" She should not have delivered that baby, she wasn't big enough, she needed a c/s!"
I removed myself from the room

It feels good to commiserate.
What you describe is a variation of what happens to almost every women giving birth in an American hospital.

I own a postpartum doula service and we have about 15-20 clients a month and almost all of them have a birth story with a similar theme as you describe your SIL went through.

It is hell for women. They are sold a bill of goods that this is what birth is all about.

We are helping a mom now whose baby was so overly suctioned the baby is still not nursing normally because it acts defensive with its tongue by pulling back the tongue to protect its airway when anything goes into it's mouth. This is a ten day old still not happy nursing without a lot of assistance and gadgets.

The poor baby is really working though all the aggressive overzealous suction and intubation. If they let the mom go into to labor and not give her a cesarean without a medical reason, maybe the baby would have had an opportunity during labor to get rid of the mucus in it's airway, and not have to be put in NICU intubated to suck out the excess mucus.

As a feminist I see it as a backlash against women, it controls women to have all these interventions, and prevents us from believing our bodies work perfectly to give birth and breastfeed. We are too powerful for them when we give birth normally!


It all makes my crazy x a million!


Dewi

[dewi]

duplicate post

[dewi]

duplicate post

[mamato3cherubs]

Originally Posted by dewi

As a feminist I see it as a backlash against women, it controls women to have all these interventions, and prevents us from believing our bodies work perfectly to give birth and breastfeed. We are too powerful for them when we give birth normally!


It all makes my crazy x a million!


Dewi

I have to agree completely. This poor girl was all excited, thought she could have a natural hospital birth, took private CBE classes, hired an experienced Doula, lives in the Seattle area of all places. Normal healthy girl, 22, baby was 7lbs 4oz. yeah. just another statistic.
I just hate it