Mothering Forum banner

They are killing us...literally

9K views 39 replies 15 participants last post by  Tiffa 
#1 ·
Wasn't sure where to post this but would sure like to have a discussion about it:

http://qz.com/400530/american-mothers-die-in-childbirth-at-twice-the-rate-they-did-in-2000/

I'm also reading a book by Mary Daly and apparently in the 1800s obstetrics was so dangerous that women would literally chose giving birth in a street unassisted than go to be tortured/killed at the hands of doctors. Are we going back to that? In situations like these (ie with such appalling systemic issues where more women are DYING) why would anyone with a normal, healthy pregnancy risk themselves and their baby by going to the hospital to give birth??? I made the mistake of thinking they'd help with my first...NEVER again. All they have is policies and protocols, made by insurance companies, and brutal heartless enforcers that think it's ok to do things to labouring women that we would never do to prisonners or anyone else.

It is so disgusting...i just want to barf.

My second was unassisted and was 100% perfect and FREE from violence. Had I only known with my first what i did with my second, going to the hospital is truly the biggest mistake i've made as a mother, i let my son down, and I should have known better. Healthy pregnancies do not belong in the hospital. Period.
 
See less See more
#2 ·
I honestly don't think that this is due to healthy woman with healthy pregnancies dying in childbirth.

there are so many women with serious diseases who can and will get pregnant, and get into trouble down the road.
i know at least three women personally that were told they could die from pregnancy/childbirth who chose to have fertility treatment anyway.
plus the woman get older and than the risk goes up as well.

i do agree tat a lot of bad stuff can happen in hospitals, and you don't HAVE to go to a hospital to deliver.
i chose to do it and am quite happy with it. but than, i am used to hospitals and feel quite at home there ...
 
  • Like
Reactions: sillysapling
#5 ·
I honestly don't think that this is due to healthy woman with healthy pregnancies dying in childbirth.

there are so many women with serious diseases who can and will get pregnant, and get into trouble down the road.
i know at least three women personally that were told they could die from pregnancy/childbirth who chose to have fertility treatment anyway.
plus the woman get older and than the risk goes up as well.

i do agree tat a lot of bad stuff can happen in hospitals, and you don't HAVE to go to a hospital to deliver.
i chose to do it and am quite happy with it. but than, i am used to hospitals and feel quite at home there ...
'

This is a very sad example of blaming the victim that allows the torture to continue unabated. The reality is that the massive increase in interventions and the slice-em and ask questions later is having a toll. In countries where maternal/infant mortality is lower there is generally lower use of interventions, not just skinnier mothers.

Really sad that we continue to blame women for obvious examples of systemic misogyny.

For anyone who's interested in a little critical thinking on the subject, i would recommend Mary Daly's Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism as a potential starting point. There is, thankfully, a growing body of literature on this subject but Daly's book is a good place to start.
 
#3 ·
Please don't make the mistake of scaring people off of hospital birth because you had a horrible experience.

I gave birth in a "birth center" that was just a separate floor of a hospital. I was attended by midwives and a doula and my husband and parents were there as well. The nastiest, most dismissive, controlling person over my 71.5 hours of labor was one of the midwives. Everyone else, including the anesthesiologists and surgeons were polite and respectful. Every person who entered our room before the birth (a c-section due to multiple organ failure) looked over our birth plan and treated us as informed adults.

Were there some hiccups in the process? Sure there were, but had I not been in a hospital I would likely have been dead, as my kidneys started bleeding (250cc of frank blood in my catheter bag) and my liver was shutting down.

There were a few people who encouraged me to choose a hotel birth, including my husband and doula, but I was not comfortable with that idea. My pregnancy was healthy and trouble free. There were zero issues that were keeping me from having a home birth or hotel birth... except the tiny voice telling me that it was a bad idea.

I don't know what they did to you that you consider brutal and heartless, but I'm sorry that you experienced so much trauma. I hope that you can find providers in the future that respect you and your body.
 
#4 ·
I hope that you can find providers in the future that respect you and your body.
I did - me!!

For every woman who is "saved" by a hospital there is another who is traumatized, injured, or killed because of hospital policies/mistakes. The infant/maternal mortality rate in the US has been going up and up and up right along side all the *mandatory* interventions. Sometimes correlation does equal causation.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/deadlydelivery.pdf

Before you scare people into going unnecessarily to a hospital, please consider the potential consequences.
 
#7 ·
I was fortunate to be in a good hospital when I gave birth to my son. I had an idyllic pregnancy, but still experienced an alarming post-partum hemorrhage. I have real concerns about the idea that a woman is the ideal health care provider for her own pregnancy, because if things go critically wrong, there is often close to nothing that the patient herself can do to improve the situation. (In particular, cases of blood loss tend to involve loss of cognitive function.) Scaring people OUT of going to the hospital also has some pretty awful potential consequences.

There's a lot of variation in the relationship between rates of obstetrical procedures and rates of maternal/infant mortality. Some countries with low intervention rates have horrible maternal mortality rates (sometimes a low c/s rate is an indication of a critical lack of resources, which is sometimes due to systemic misogyny), some with high interventions have low maternal mortality (Singapore).

I'm alive today because of a high-level L&D unit with dedicated surgical facilities and 24/7 staffing. One way that societies can demonstrate a belief in the importance of women's lives is to invest in obstetrics.
 
#8 ·
Fact is: hospitals can be life saving in times of emergency. I support a woman's decision to birth wherever SHE feels most comfortable. But I think rather than scaring a woman out of a hospital birth, it'd be much more productive to teach women to be their own advocates and to choose a care provider with a history of minimal interventions who she feels safe and secure with.

Things can go wrong in any setting; hospital or home. What makes a difference is whether the people involved know how to handle the situation should it arise.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
  • Like
Reactions: Nemi27
#9 ·
I had a completely healthy, uneventful pregnancy with my daughter. Not a single complication. But had I not given birth in the hospital there is a very good chance that my daughter may not have survived birth. My doctor saved her life. Was I traumatized by her birth? Absolutely. Was it my doctor's fault? Not in the least. None could have predicted that the cord would be tightly wrapped around her neck. So tight that she couldn't descend through the birth canal, and with each and every contraction the cord was pulling tighter.
I believe that women who so choose to birth in locations other than a traditional hospital should absolutely have that choice, but to paint all hospital births as death traps is inaccurate and dangerous.
 
#11 ·
I believe that women who so choose to birth in locations other than a traditional hospital should absolutely have that choice, but to paint all hospital births as death traps is inaccurate and dangerous.
EXACTLY.

I birthed in a birth center that was part of a hospital. We found care givers who would support our choices and respect us. We had a well researched and thought out birth plan that covered every contingency that we could think of. We hired a doula to protect our interests.

As I said earlier, we did have some problems. Some that we had planned for, some that we didn't. We sure didn't have any hint that I would be bleeding from my kidneys.

I'm not scaring anyone away from a home birth, or to a hospital. You must be comfortable with your choices. But it is VERY possible to have a hospital or birth center birth that is NOT ruled by interventions that you don't want.
 
#10 ·
A lot of minor and a few major complications arise from the standard intervention at a hospital, but most of those they can correct with further intervention. Some hospitals and care providers are getting better at leaning a bit toward a mother friendly, baby friendly, midwifery style of attending births, my SiL just had a baby in one of the good ones. Others still are belittling and traumatizing women unfortunately. If home, whether unassisted or with someone, is where you are most comfortable by all means get informed, get prepared, and have your baby there. We are so blessed that is still an option.
 
#12 ·
A very sad truth is that hospitals scare women into going there to give birth by saying "what if..." over and over. There isn't a lot of support for women who birth at home or unassisted. Instead there is a lot of fear mongering aimed at scaring women into going to hospitals unnecessarily.

I had one hospital birth and it was awful. It was all coercion, abuse, drugs, drugs, drugs. It was DANGEROUS. My baby would have been born healthier if i had just stayed at home. In my heart of hearts i know this.

My other birth was unassisted and it was perfect.

You can be killed in a hospital (which is a real risk) or you can risk dying naturally at home. Same outcomes are possible for babies. The second time around i made the decision that i would much prefer to die naturally at home, or have my baby die naturally at home, then to have either of us be tortured to death in a hospital. That is a choice i made and i am 100% happy that i made it.

I agree that every woman should have the right to make her own choice. I strongly disagree that pointing out the dangers in going to a hospital is immoral or wrong, especially when this is just a tiny counterpoint in a culture that brow beats women into believing that they probably will die if they don't give birth in a hospital. Mine is one tiny voice in sea that say otherwise.

There is a war going on against women and pregnancy and childbirth are the battleground. It is hopelessly naive to think that you can be empowered in an institution whose policies and procedures are made by those who want to oppress you. That's the reality of it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/opinion/pregnant-and-no-civil-rights.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
 
#13 · (Edited)
I agree that every woman should have the right to make her own choice. I strongly disagree that pointing out the dangers in going to a hospital is immoral or wrong, especially when this is just a tiny counterpoint in a culture that brow beats women into believing that they probably will die if they don't give birth in a hospital. Mine is one tiny voice in sea that say otherwise.

There is a war going on against women and pregnancy and childbirth are the battleground. It is hopelessly naive to think that you can be empowered in an institution whose policies and procedures are made by those who want to oppress you. That's the reality of it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/08/opinion/pregnant-and-no-civil-rights.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0
I have had 3 births - 2 in hospital, 1 at home.

1st birth - hard on me and hard on the baby. Hospital.
2nd - a little hard on me, easy on the baby. Hospital.
3rd birth - easy on me, easy on the baby.

I have to say that I am a big fan of homebirths if you are low risk and have well qualified attendants. Hospitals do have polices and procedures, they are set up for the masses and smooth running - not for you. When you are in labour you are very busy having a baby and very vulnerable- it is no time to be arguing over policies you do not like. Never mind the scariness of MSRA and the like.

I firmly support a womans right to give birth where she chooses, but I do wish homebirth were seen as less fringe-y and scary. It is a great option for many, many women.

ETA: My oldest is a bit ADHD - y, for lack of a better word. I am fairly certain some of it is iatrogenic and stems from an unnecessarily difficult birth.
 
#16 ·
The article itself states that a lot of the reason is because people are less healthy now than they were before. There's also a serious problem with our social safety net: No paid maternity leave and no paternity leave can cause significant stress. Being underinsured can make it hard to get proper pre-natal care. A lot of employers will discriminate against pregnancy and demand workers do unsafe tasks while pregnant. (which is illegal- but does happen) A lot of new parents don't have a proper support network, either.

There are doctors who mistreat patients, and there are hospitals that have bad policies- but people are working to change them and many people are only alive because a doctor was able to act quickly when things went wrong. Sometimes a perfectly healthy pregnancy can go bad fast. People die. There are a lot of babies who died during home births that would've lived if they'd been born in hospital.

In a healthy pregnancy, those sorts of complications are very rare: but if they happen at home, you are in a far worse state than if it happens in a hospital. I support home birth, but you cannot ignore that fact. When we choose home birth, we take that risk.
 
#17 · (Edited)
I agree with everything you said i think. I even agree that there are risks at home that would be minimal and non fatal if they happened in a hospital. It's just that i also believe that there are risks in a hospital that don't exist at home and that some people die only because they are in a hospital. The stats on the safety of hb/hospital birth have consistently shown that the overall risk of mortality is the same in healthy pregnancies. I personally would far rather die (or have my baby die) of natural causes than be tortured to death in a hospital. That's what it comes down to. That's a fact.

There is no great advantage to being in a hospital in a normal pregnancy. Except that if there was a death in a hospital no one would blame the mother - if it was caused by the hospital i guess the benefit is possibly monetary compensation and the abdication of responsibility that comes with that. I personally was very comfortable taking 100% responsibility for whatever happened at home with my second. I guess i understand why some women would rather take the less difficult path because social acceptance isn't a small thing really.

There are babies and mothers that die only because they were in a hospital.
 
#18 ·
There's at least one country where homebirths are the default, attended by respected and well-trained midwives who easily recognize warning signs and know when to transfer to a hospital. I think that's the best way to do it.
 
This post has been deleted
#22 ·
Or should we not discuss this very real, very terrifying data for fear of--how was it worded?--"scaring people off of hospital birth?"
This is the Healing Birth Trauma forum which I always understood to be a support forum and not a debate forum - personally I think that this should be a safe place where moms can come to ask questions, share experiences, find people who understand what they've been through.

The type of thread you are describing, in my opinion, would be a better fit in the Birth and Beyond forum. Most of the people in this forum have been scared in one way or another bad enough and don't need to be made to feel as if their choosing to birth in a hospital makes them somehow responsible for what may have occurred.
 
#21 ·
I had amazing naturals births at a hospital with my trusted CNM catching. Was home each time by hour 18 or so and back in my own bed nursing. Not an Iv, a cut or any complications at all.

The three out of five women I personally know who have homebirthed have memories instead of babies.

You need to trust your team, you need to be in a birth friendly hospital and you need to have done your literal and physical homework. And even still, two lives are involved and birth doesn't always go as planned. In my case, I'm the "squat in the fields"type. I could have birthed at home BUT I'm married to a "just in case" man that I adore. We gave birth with a highly rated NICU down the hall for "emergency contingencies". That was what was best for my family. Please don't dis it.
 
#23 · (Edited)
Viola P said:
It is so disgusting...i just want to barf.
I understand AND YOU ARE RIGHT!!!!

All the garbage in food now in this country....... UN-NEEDED ADDITIVES!!!!!

Maltodextrin and carregean WHICH IS NOT NEEDED IN THINGS!!!!!!!!!

Caramel Colour is also garbage and gives me headaches most times I have anything with this in it!! (Plus the stuff tastes like crap)

I USED TO LOVE LIPTON LEMON ICED TEA UNTIL A FEW YEARS AGO THEY STARTED ADDING MALTODEXTRIN TO IT!!!!! -- WHY THE HELL?

IT WAS FINE FOR YEARS W/O THIS GARBAGE!!!!! -- AND IT DOESNT TASTE THE SAME WITH THIS IN IT!!!!!!

So after 20+ years I stopped drinking it..... I found another Iced Tea @ Aldis that did not have it..... WELL AFTER A YEAR OF LOVING THIS STUFF THEY CHANGED IT AND ADDED CARAMEL COLOR AND VEGETABLE JUICE POWDER!!!!!! -- Totally disgusting!!!! (The sheeple idiots keep drinking it though which is why those of us WHO DO CARE suffer)

NOW I HAVE NO ICED TEA!!!!!!! (I loved Lemon Iced tea)

IT ALL TASTES LIKE GARBAGE!!!!!!!!! (Everyone of them has CARAMEL COLOUR NOW and the ones that do not,HAVE MALTODEXTRIN!! (Which Im not comfortable consuming))

I AM SO PI$$ED OFF ABOUT ALOT OF THINGS I CANT TELL YA'LL!!!!!!!
 
#24 ·
Oh Gosh. This is giving me a horrifying flash back to my labour. They move you to various places: The triage, the early labour place, the labour ward, the scary delivery room, the recovery room and then place in you in shared room. They had a nonsensical no-screaming policy. There was a nurse that would burst in your room and just yell at you. They were trying to speed everyone up because they felt we were taking too long and other people needed rooms. They positioned me in front of a mirror when it came time to push. I hear that is an option, but an option I would rather decline. The nurse tore my hand from my common-law husbands and yelled at me for wanting to hold his hand.
When I was in my room and it came time to feed my daughter, I was told I had to feed her every 2 hours for 45 minutes or they would take her away from me. When she didn't want to feed one ornery forced my nipple roughly into her mouth. I think it should be criminal with how some of these nurses treat their patients and new moms. If you don't want to be a nurse or doctor or someone in the medical field, then do everyone a favor and just don't. Seriously, don't.
I remember, I think it was in Calgary or somewhere in Alberta, there was a nurses strike. Instead of attending to people who are in urgent care and needs, they felt it would be better to stand around outside the hospital and shout at cars and protest about something. Volunteer student nurses were brought in on a bus and as they were coming off the bus and into the hospital, the strikers started booing at them. Seriously. These nurses come in, volunteer without pay, to fill in for a bunch of selfish, whining, inconsiderate experienced nurses who weren't happy with not getting a simple raise or lessened hours or something. They were so loud, too. I'm sure it wasn't comfortable for the patients to have to listen to that.
 
#25 ·
Thank you for being brave enough to share your story in a society that only wants to hear about how awesome hospitals are for giving birth and how homebirth will kill you and the baby.

I agree, the abuse should be treated the way any other treatment like that would. For example, confining someone and refusing to let them eat for 2 days - well that's clearly criminal in any other context. Why do nurses/hospitals get to torture people with impunity? Why is it ok to force a labouring mother who is begging and crying for food for hours to go without for days? It is beyond DISGUSTING.

I actually had a counsellor post baby trauma who confided in me that she used to be an obstetrical nurse. Apparently she had some kind of epiphany at some point that challenged everything she'd been trained to believe and suddenly she understood that it wasn't ok to treat people like that. She was having flashbacks herself of all the birth rapes she participated in. If it feels wrong, it probably is. I wish more people in this field would stop acting like Nazi soldiers "just following orders" and start to think objectively about their behaviours.

The original article I posted hasn't really been discussed here. I think we need to be very concerned about the rising maternal mortality rate. I think this is a serious discussion that women need to be having. In order to have a good discussion on this it would probably be necessary to say no personal stories or anecdotes, otherwise the whole thing will get thrown off and we will never get to actually talk about it.

Turquesa, thank you so much for your support. Thank you.
 
#31 ·
Wow. On first glance the data (from WHO) seems correct.

I thought this was interesting:

"Priya Agrawal, obstetrician and director of Merck for Mothers, identifies three leading causes of maternal death in the US: postpartum hemorrhage (heavy bleeding after giving birth), preeclampsia (high blood pressure during pregnancy), and complications arising from pre-existing health conditions. Women getting pregnant are increasingly less healthy, she says. "This year, one in five women [in the US] who become pregnant are obese," said Agrawal ...."Then there's diabetes and hypertension."
While it's hard to understand what exactly changed since 1990 to cause such a surge of maternal deaths, Agrawal says significant blame can be put on a general worsening of the health of American women.
Good health care isn't always available to mothers before and after giving birth, says Monica Raye Simpson of Sister's Song, a non-profit group promoting reproductive rights for women of color."The first barrier is access," Raye Simpson told Forbes. "The second barrier is racial discrimination." The black community is particularly affected by maternal mortality, with black American women being over four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than white peers.
Perhaps the biggest barrier to improving the maternal mortality is the silence that surrounds it, said Agrawal. US hospitals aren't required to keep detailed records deaths during childbirth, and there are no reliable data on their causes (the data available in the WHO report is an estimate triangulated from a slew of sources)."

I wonder if we are sicker or more obese than in 2000.

Off to data search!

Viola - please do not be too hard on yourself. I was hard on myself for a long time over my first birth. I felt such guilt. I was the mother - it was my job to protect him from unnecessary birth trauma and I failed. That is hard to get over. I now see, though, that the way women give birth is hospitals is typically messed up. I was not supported at all. Hospitals are the default, some women do fine in them, and I thought that if I just had a birth plan and read enough books everything would be fine. I did not understand (with my first) how vulnerable I would be. I guess I am trying to say you don't know what you don't know....and that when we know better, we do better.
 
#32 · (Edited)
Looked up Canada for kicks.
Canada went from 6 to 11 per 100 000 since 1990, while the USA went from 12 to 28 per 100 000.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/maternal-death-rates-rose-in-canada-u-s-over-20-years-1.2633940

Looked up obesity rates, and they are higher now than in 1990 or 2000 - but enough higher (especially since 1995 when the trend for higher mortality started to climb upward, or from 2000, a reference point for this article) to account for a huge mortality surge?

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/health_glance-2011-en/00/02/index.html;jsessionid=1uibfe19505od.x-oecd-live-02?contentType=&itemId=%2Fcontent%2Fchapter%2Fhealth_glance-2011-2-en&mimeType=text%2Fhtml&containerItemId=%2Fcontent%2Fserial%2F19991312&accessItemIds=%2Fcontent%2Fbook%2Fhealth_glance-2011-en

USA:
1990: 23
2000: 31
2009: 34
 
  • Like
Reactions: applejuice
#33 ·
I think the thing that the corporate birth complex doesn't want to admit and often overlooks is that c-sections may be playing a signficant role. With my first they literally told me that there were NO risks with a c-section. They really wanted me to have one because it had been more than an hour with no dilation, and if you don't do 1cm/hour that's failure to progress. I refused. That's what caused all the abuse. Hours later i dilated fully and they were all shocked. I was disgusted. How many women did they cut open for nothing? C-sections carry extra risks. Using them because it's more efficient puts dollars ahead of mothers and babies, and it's just plain wrong. I think the overuse of c-sections and other medical interventions play a part in the increasing mortality rate. In the 50's less than 5% of births were by c-section, now it's basically a third where i am.

I know a few women who have given birth the last few years. One ended up with a hysterectomy after her uterus ruptured in a second pregnancy (from 1st c-section). Another one had fourth degree burns all up her legs because she was given too many pain killers and was also given hot water pads for her legs, which burned all of her skin off. She had to get extensive reconstructive surgery. Oh yeah, and they also bullied her into letting 15 students watch, and they cut her so bad she pooped herself for a year and had to wear diapers. Another woman i know just had a baby and her normal birth was diagnosed FTP (failure to progress). She is very mild mannered and definitely not the type to disagree with a doctor, so she just readily agreed to the c-section. A few days after the surgery they told her that they accidentally cut her cervix and she will never be able to give birth vaginally. Another woman i know was accidentally given a pain med a 400x the max dose for humans - and her baby was dead for two minutes before being revived. I know one woman who had a positive hospital experience - ONE - and her husband is a manager at the hospital where she gave birth. They let her eat freely, they LET her do whatever.

My own personal experience, and that of pretty much everyone i know, says that hospitals are dangerous places that should only be entered with reason and careful forethought.

My own personal experience has changed me so much. It made me really consider my end of life as well and i now know i don't ever want to die in a hospital. Maybe that's the good that came out of it!
 
#38 ·
I think there are 2 separate issues here. I don't think the correlation/ causation issue is very clean cut.

Your birth experience was terrible. I'm sorry you were at frankly a shitty hospital with shitty providers. I know they exist, I don't know how common it is, but I know it's not the issue in my area as it is elsewhere. This is not "Hospitals" pushing women to choose home birth- it is shitty hospitals. And, good. Their business model sucks, they will be proven wrong with time (research and ACOGguidelines are already against their policies), hopefully decisions like your will force change. That is an issue of lack of respect, and I agree that there are some bad outcomes associated with it. Home births are obviously much more empowering and satisfying for many people.

But maternal mortality is a huge other issue IMO. I don't think things like for example preeclampsia related deaths are tied to lack of respect from an OB provider, but from the way women and families are marginalized in a systemic way in our culture. Not just birth trauma but a full traumatic life. Our priorities, our social supports, our governmental policies around healthcare are the things that make our birth outcomes so much worse, just as it makes our overall health as a country worse. The WHO says location of birth doesn't matter and I agree. Home birth won't make us healthier, or specifically decrease mortality, unless our greater culture, and the social determinants of health, are addressed.

So, essentially, IMO, when it comes to maternal death, it matters less that your OB is an asshole, and more that your congressman is. But in either case, it is someone else inflicting their irrational views on your body.
 
#39 ·
Not just birth trauma but a full traumatic life. Our priorities, our social supports, our governmental policies around healthcare are the things that make our birth outcomes so much worse, just as it makes our overall health as a country worse. The WHO says location of birth doesn't matter and I agree. Home birth won't make us healthier, or specifically decrease mortality, unless our greater culture, and the social determinants of health, are addressed.
I agree completely. Before I gave birth, my life as a privileged person had insulated me from the systemic misogynistic violence of our culture (I'm in the US so can't speak for Canada). After being so callously raped in the hospital, and being told by everyone to just get over it because my baby and I were alive, though damaged, I am now seeing evidence of disregard for women's personhood everywhere. From blocks to accessing contraceptives, VBAC, abortion and other health care, to lack of maternity policies, to pervasive workplace sexism, to the wage gap, to the media's rape victim-blaming... I now realize that these things are not just inconvenient, annoying or disadvantaging - they are KILLING people. Women more than men, women of color more than white women, non-conforming people of all genders most of all.

It's important to connect the dots and understand that our society's systemic sexism and racism do lead to death, the ultimate effect of our society's disregard for the bodies of "others" be they women, minorities, trans people, etc. In this context it's hardly surprising that the increasing application of obstetric technologies of control (C-section, Pitocin) is resulting in an increasing number of deaths.
 
#40 · (Edited)
I had a very healthy pregnancy and a smooth hospital delivery. The nurses were kind and supportive, and my doctor was easy going but professional. I attribute a lot of my success to laboring at home as long as possible. By the time I got to the hospital there wasn't time for any intervention. I had already been eating and drinking all night at home, with no one to tell me I was "not allowed" to do so. I moved about as I wished, and took a bath to relax. No time for an i.v. and if there had been I just would have said 'no'.

During the birth I did have one nurse who kept trying to get me to lay back and hold my legs back. I simply pushed the button on the bed myself and sat up the way I wanted to. She kept counting through contractions and pushes, but I just ignored that and listened to my husbands gentle encouragement instead. And she was kind and meant well. She was just doing what she had been taught. If I had the time or presence of mind to explain myself I am sure she would have stopped. There was one cranky nursery nurse who didn't approve of my two hours of skin to skin with Baby, but I just ignored her, kept baby with me, and didn't send him to the nursery at all.

I would recommend anyone planning a hospital birth take the prenatal class the hospital offers to learn about the attitudes and procedures at that particular hospital. Ask lots of questions, learn as much as you can about the birthing process so that you can be as calm and informed as possible during labor. And when it comes down to it hospital policy is not law. They can not MAKE you do anything with your body or your baby that you do not want. If someone tries to push something you don't want, firmly refuse and do what you want. Remember that you are paying them for their services, so technically you are the boss, not the other way around. They don't own you, you aren't a prisoner, and you do not have to obey.

I admit that I was pretty lucky in my circumstances. GOod nurses, good doctor, and good hospital. I totally understand wanting a home-birth and have considered it myself. But I don't think women should be afraid of birthing in a hospital if that's what they feel they should do. Either way just be very prepared.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top