Midwives & Home birth vs. an OB & hospital ?

LSU Grad of '89 wrote:
|| OK, this really bothered me so I will share it in hopes that I am
|| just too used to the "modern" way. A woman at work is having hr
|| first child, she's ~5months and has had no visits to an OB or
|| Doctor. She is completely relying on a midwife. She will have a
|| natural birth at home with the midwife and husband in attendance.
||
|| I just can't identify with it. I LIKE knowing I've done tests and
|| ultrasounds and stuff to make sure - with modern technology - that
|| my baby is progressing fine. I just don't believe that a midwife can
|| catch everything - right ?
||
|| Hope this isn't a flame starter, I just cannot identify with the
|| natural at home no doctors thing. Give me an epidural, no
|| problem...Mother hood is demanding enough without being a hero when
|| you don't need to. Vicki is right - no one hands you a medal after
|| labor and says "you get a gold medal for having the most pain !"
||
|| However, I completely understand that each person has a right to
|| their own method, and just because I cannot identify with this, it
|| doesn't mean it's wrong. I just have this nagging feeling that if it
|| were me, I'd be concerned that I wasn't doing the best I could do
|| for my baby. I can't help worrying for her but I don't know why...I
|| guess I can't imagine going through an entire pregnancy without ever
|| seeing a doctor when one has insurance and access (can mid wives
|| write prescriptions for prenatal tablets ?) My friend works where I
|| do and has excellent insurance...
||
|| L.
|| DS, 5-25-01 & EDD 4-28-04

Instead of commenting on everything since others have already done it so
*very* well already, I'll tell you my overall view......

I've had two children in hospital with fantastic *prenatal* OB care. My doc
and nurses treated pregnancy like a simple natural occurrence. Although I
had the normal battery of tests I never felt like it was treated like a
'sickness'. He also made it very clear that most tests do very little for
the outcome of the baby. In hind sight and having the opportunity of
helping friends through their pregnancies my OB and his nurses seem to
behave much more like midwives than 'regular' OBs. I had appointments as
long as I needed them, I had any and all questions answered etc etc

vent on/
Once the delivery of my first occurred I was able to see the 'hospital
scenario in full swing. To my horrible dismay my OB was on holidays :-( You
have to understand my hospital was a *teaching* hospital so I was in
attendance of 2 OBs, 1 intern, four students and countless nurses all with
the same idea of what delivery and labor *should* be. I have to say I have
NEVER felt so out of control and treated like a lab rat that had no right to
do anything but follow their rules for the 'gods' knew better than I!
Phhaaa! For god's sake all I was doing was having a baby and I was treated
like an infirm with no cognitive ability to make any decisions! The answer
for all was more drugs, more monitoring, stuck to the bed etc etc To this
day I still do not understand how not any of them with all of their
technology and training could not know enough about labor and delivery to
have suggested changing positions to ease the pain appose to pumping full of
drugs(that did not work) to get rid of the pain caused by his posterior
position. NTM to try to get him to turn! They knew his position hours and
hours before they told me even with my begging to find out what was going
on!

So all in all having the *safest* medical birth with so many 'doctors' in
attendance I had 3rd degree tears that began from the huge cut they made (
could not sit down for FOUR weeks on my bottom), a baby with facial bruises
from their forceps and missed a csec by a hair. /vent off

I had nothing but apologies from my OB when he found out what had happened.
His was so dismayed with their performance! When I got pregnant with my
second but was not yet comfortable to deliver in my own home so taught
myself everything I could about labor and delivery because of my fear of a
repeat performance. My OB was 100% behind me. I refused to be monitored
internally, I refused drugs, I basically told them in no uncertain terms
that I was to be left alone! I was having a baby not ill! My OB came in on
his day off to be there for the delivery of my daughter and it was a
wonderful experience! Dr. Ivey I hope you are enjoying your retirement!

The next time (barring any problems) I will *definitely* be delivering at
home with a midwife, my DH and my children. I do believe that of pregnancy
with complications we should have OBs but for reg healthy pregnancies I
really do not see the point.


Apparently needing to vent,
Jenn
WAHM
DS11
DD6
TTC#3
1st 2ww

"LSU Grad of '89" wrote in message
...
OK, this really bothered me so I will share it in hopes that I am just too
used to the "modern" way. A woman at work is having hr first child, she's
~5months and has had no visits to an OB or Doctor. She is completely
relying
on a midwife. She will have a natural birth at home with the midwife and
husband in attendance.

Good for her!

I just can't identify with it. I LIKE knowing I've done tests and
ultrasounds and stuff to make sure - with modern technology - that my baby
is progressing fine. I just don't believe that a midwife can catch
everything - right ?

What makes you think all the testing "catches everything"? For me, the
clincher is the notion that you can do all the testing to find out if baby
is okay, like amnio, etc. and discover that you have a genetically perfect
child, only to miscarry or give birth to a premie due to problems *caused*
by the amnio. Or how about gestational diabetes testing? Take someone who is
eating well, feels fine, is growing a reasonably sized baby who is obviously
not huge for dates, and starve her for the morning, then shock her system
with pure sugar.... It was pure torture for me in every way. Or
ultrasound--used to check on the progress of babies to see that they're big
enough....yet randomized trials showed that those who were randomized to
more ultrasounds had smaller babies. IOW, it was causing the same issue it
was designed to detect!


Hope this isn't a flame starter, I just cannot identify with the natural
at
home no doctors thing. Give me an epidural, no problem...Mother hood is
demanding enough without being a hero when you don't need to. Vicki is
right - no one hands you a medal after labor and says "you get a gold
medal
for having the most pain !"


Ugh. Why do you think that those of us who want a natural birth "want" more
pain? Personally, I would much rather go through labor and birth without
drugs and remember the euphoria of birth, than get an epidural as I started
transition, always remember that "last most painful" contraction, and then
deal with back pain from the epidural for weeks or months afterward. I hear
so many people say, "oh, labor was awful and then I had an epidural." Well,
I remember labor being hard... but just about the time I was giving up,
things shifted and went from "painful" to "really intense"... and the birth
itself was triumphant. I'm willing to put up with pain in the now for a
short time for the euphoria and less pain in the future. A c-section is the
ultimate of this--okay, you feel *nothing* for the birth, but then you have
to recover from major surgery. With a newborn. Yuck. Okay if you need it,
but to choose it? That's like drinking yourself drunk to cure a headache,
only to get the hangover 10-fold the next day.

However, I completely understand that each person has a right to their own
method, and just because I cannot identify with this, it doesn't mean it's
wrong. I just have this nagging feeling that if it were me, I'd be
concerned
that I wasn't doing the best I could do for my baby. I can't help worrying
for her but I don't know why...I guess I can't imagine going through an
entire pregnancy without ever seeing a doctor when one has insurance and
access (can mid wives write prescriptions for prenatal tablets ?) My
friend
works where I do and has excellent insurance...

News flash: You don't need a script for prenatal vitamins--in fact, the
capsule ones that I get from the health food store are more easily absorbed
while causing fewer side effects than most horse-pill-prescription tablets.

IMO, midwifery care is far superior to OB care for healthy women. OB care is
a necessary backup, but when OB's start seeing normal women all the time,
they start finding ways of making them not-normal anymore. Midwives look for
ways to keep their clients healthy, instead of looking constantly for
something to fix.

Jenrose

On Wed, 10 Sep 2003 01:47:07 GMT, "LSU Grad of '89"
wrote:

Hope this isn't a flame starter, I just cannot identify with the natural at
home no doctors thing

I am not going to flame you. If you feel this way, then you make the
decisions for your pregnancy and your birth that you feel comfortable
with. Just remember, you can't make decisions for other people.


--
Daye
Momma to Jayan
"Boy" EDD 11 Jan 2004
See Jayan: http://jayan.topcities.com/

Not necessarily. Women with no risks go to hospital to have a baby
and, if they don't conform to the expected timetable, find themselves
in the "cascade of interventions".

I'd be happier with this paragraph if there was a "may" inserted before "find
themselves in the cascade of interventions." Not all hospital births keep
women on strict timetables. (Mine certainly did not. My OB told me that as long
as my baby was doing well, and I was making any progress at all, I could labor
as long as I liked.)


Naomi
CAPPA Certified Lactation Educator

(either remove spamblock or change address to to e-mail
reply.)

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 10:07:04 +0800, "JoFromOz"
wrote:

considering our species is still around, then I think for the
most part, birth was safe.

By this logic, so was the black plague, driving drunk, eating lead
paint, breathing asbestos, snorting cocaine and tons of other things I
don't do which didn't kill the species.

Just because something didn't cause the extinction of the human race
doesn't make it safe for me as an individual.


I'm not saying that there aren't valid arguments for home births or
midwives, just that this isn't one of them. The reasonable logic of
your other statements is undermined by statements like the above.


--
Help the women of Afganistan
http://www.rawa.org/

"You despise me, don't you?"
"If I gave you any thought, I probably would."

Oh how I wish that were true for my hospital!

Here, a blue line is drawn on the partogram where the cervical dilation is
drawn.
If the dilation falls below that line, 'action' must be taken. It is called
an 'action line'.

Makes me sick.

Jo

Not all
hospital births keep women on strict timetables. (Mine certainly did
not. My OB told me that as long as my baby was doing well, and I was
making any progress at all, I could labor as long as I liked.)


Naomi
CAPPA Certified Lactation Educator

(either remove spamblock or change address to to
e-mail reply.)

--
--
Babies are Born... Pizzas are delivered.

"Naomi Pardue" wrote in message
...
Not necessarily. Women with no risks go to hospital to have a baby
and, if they don't conform to the expected timetable, find
themselves in the "cascade of interventions".

I'd be happier with this paragraph if there was a "may" inserted
before "find themselves in the cascade of interventions." Not all
hospital births keep women on strict timetables. (Mine certainly did
not. My OB told me that as long as my baby was doing well, and I was
making any progress at all, I could labor as long as I liked.)

Sorry, you're quite right, Naomi!

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003 14:43:24 +0800, "JoFromOz"
wrote:

All I meant was that for normal birth, it is safer to be at home, away from
medical intervention.

And I don't necessarily disagree/agree with this statement. Saying
that "women have been giving birth for millions (sic) of years without
doctors," however, does not make this case for me.

Are you saying that normal birth is like the black plague?

Of course not, and it's not necessary to twist my words like that. I
was pointing out that your logic (that since the species was "still
around" then "birth [without doctors] was safe") was flawed.

Again, I'm not firmly against or for home births. I just find the
above argument (millions of years) to be silly.

You have so many stronger, logical and reasonable arguments at your
disposal that you can really abandon this one without doing your case
any harm. In fact, your case is improved by not saying silly things.


--
Help the women of Afganistan
http://www.rawa.org/

"You despise me, don't you?"
"If I gave you any thought, I probably would."

Sarajoyo wrote:

And Larry wrote:

Unfortunately you have a view of midwives that is straight out of the middle
ages.


Nah, in the middle ages, they had a better view of midwives.



And even more recently. My grandmother had 9 children, all born at
home, attended by a midwife. When my mother (#7) was telling me about
it, I got the impression that was standard in their area (this was in
Georgia, between 1910 and 1932). And it's not that there was no
hospital - they weren't living out in the country.

Clisby

Larry McMahan wrote in message ...

Unfortunately you have a view of midwives that is straight out of the middle
ages.

Nah...it's the modern view. In the middle ages, midwives handled most
births, and were respected. It was only in the last two centuries that
doctors took over birthing - and women started dying more often
(doctors didn't wash up from surgeries and visiting sick people, and
so introduced more infectious agents to the childbed than midwives
did.)

Cathy Weeks
Mommy to a Homebirthed Kivi Alexis 12/01