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griffac's comments:
on Battling Over Birth?
wow! thanks for that neat comparison.
posted 4 years ago
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on Battling Over Birth?
This is not the 18th century. Midwives have emergency supplies on hand, such as oxygen and fluids. What's more, the most significant risk to mom and baby in the 18th century was secondary infection, and we have antibiotics for that now.
It's great that you know what you want, but the increased risk of maternal and infant death you are imagining isn't what you think it is.
posted 4 years ago
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on Battling Over Birth?
"Home delivery with a direct entry midwife is a sensible choice only for those mothers who put their personal birth experience above the safety of their children"
Even if you had some statistical data to back up the idea that the hospital setting is safest for baby, there would still be no support for this statement. You have no insight into the motivations of a mother who is looking for a safe home delivery. A home delivery is one without narcotics that will interfere with her child's breathing, one that avoids unnecessary c-sections that can damage the reproductive system, endangering future children and causing breathing difficulty for baby, one that places significant weight on the imprinting period at the end of birth that is missed in cesarians, when natural childbirth causes a cocktail of hormones to be administered to baby. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that mothers are choosing home births for their children, not selfishly for their own benefit as you suggest.
Perhaps you need to believe that they are being selfish in order to overcome some anguish associated from a terrible hospital birth you had experience with?
posted 4 years ago
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on Battling Over Birth?
An OB's office takes all the elective cesarians and also handles the cesarians for midwives, so they have a much higher rate.
And although the CPM handles primarily low risk women, she also handles multiples, breeches, and VBACs, so there is that to consider.
In the 1980s, the risk of a cesarian was only 5% altogether in the United States. That is in general, in hospital births. I wish I could have that, even in a hospital, but due to the way healthcare has evolved in this country, I cannot.
Regarding epidurals, I was not left with the impression that I would be drugged against my will. I was left with the impression that the administration would be so rapid upon my suggestion of it that there would be little time or room for discussion or clarification with my husband. Again, this is the impression I was given by a nurse who practices in a hospital birthing center who suggested that I share a safe word with my husband. I did not make this up.
posted 4 years ago
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on Battling Over Birth?
and I think you are sadly misinformed. a midwife is not an untrained loony with no materials at hand and zero experience in handling emergency situations.
posted 4 years ago
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on Battling Over Birth?
A CPM does not come to a birth unaided, but with an entire emergency medical kit including fluids, oxygen, and pitocin, among other things. I would certainly imagine she could handle a collapsed lung without a problem.
posted 4 years ago
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on Battling Over Birth?
I'm pregnant with my first, and I am trying to decide currently between certified professional midwife care, nurse midwife care, and obstetrics. I have found that in interviewing doctors and nurses, the varying opinions on risk are so different, even among doctors in the same practice, that making the decision is absolutely maddening.
I have been by three different obstetricians from the same practice that, as a generally low-risk patient, my risk of c-section with could be 10%, 15%, or 25%, respectively. The doctor who put the risk at 25% estimated that as many as 90% c-section calls he makes from fetal monitoring may have been fine naturally, but refused to take the risk.
Meanwhile, the CPM I spoke with put my risk closer to 2 or 3%, as that was the c-section rate of her entire practice. The c-section rate of my obstetricians office is 40%.
The nurse midwife I met seemed so overworked that she had trouble putting sentences together, and though her care may be more caring and attentive, her statistics varied little from the obstetricians I spoke with.
Furthermore, if I go to the hospital, I have been told by a nurse that I should have a safe word with my husband to avoid an epidural. It seems that without protecting myself ahead of time, if I do so little as cry out the word 'epidural' when I am in the throws of labor pain, they are required to administer one, and with hospitals automatically giving mothers an IV upon admission, it is no surprise then that the epidural rate for my OB's patients is nearly 80%.
What's more, regarding breech births, my mother was extremely surprised to hear that breeches aren't even attempted anymore. One of my cousins was natural breech in the '70s and was absolutely fine, and she shared with me another breech birth anecdote with the same result. I talked to my CPM about breech, and she claims that the problems with statistics that doctors see is that they do not differentiate between the breech birth performed by someone with direct experience with breech births, who can call a breech requiring c-section, and those breech deliveries performed with no option for c-section by an inexperienced provider. Additionally, the obstetrician who actually has had any experience with a natural breech delivery is a nearly extinct creature.
posted 4 years ago
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