- Woman comes in and lets say doesn't want an epidural, so they let her be for a bit.
- After a while, the hospital wants the bed back so they can get another paying customer in there, so they give the woman a shot of Pitocin, a drug that causes contractions.
- The contractions are so severe with the Pitocin that, even if you didn't want an Epidural, you're getting one now.
- Well, the Epidural causes the contractions to ease, so it's time for more Pitocin.
- And, you guessed it, another Epidural, because of the contractions. Plus a couple of other drugs to ease the side effects of the Pitocin.
- Now the baby is in the mother, getting a drug to cause contractions and then a drug to ease contractions over and over and the babies heart rate is going crazy, putting the baby in danger. Also the strength of contractions on Pitocin restrict the babies blood flow.
- Then they finish the delivery off with a quick and easy Cesarean Section which they say "saved the baby", when really the inhuman amount of drugs they gave a woman in labor put the baby in danger in the first place.
It was a crazy account of how these hospitals are just giant money making machines. They encourage C-Sections now because they can get the woman in and out and fill the beds faster. Even though a C-Section is serious invasive surgery that adds way more risk to a delivery. We do over 40% of our deliveries as C-Section in our country now. That's crazy.
I'm so glad we are using a midwife. The death rate for using a midwife looks to be less than 1 per thousand births where the hospital death rate is about 4 per thousand. It sucks that we as a nation believe everything a doctor says, when really, they don't know shit about the human body and their first priority is money, over you , over your baby, they just want the money.
Check out the Documentary "The business of Being Born", you can get it on Netflix or watch it instantly on Netflix. And if you're having a baby, you should really consider using a midwife or a midwife birthing center. Not only is is safer, it costs less.
Pitocin FAQs from Childbrith.org
I agree.. they should only induce labor IF it is medically necessary. I was induced only because my water broke prematurely and there is a 12 hour window of time where the baby will need to be born after the water breaks or else the baby can get infections. They waited 6 hours before inducing to give Luna and chance to come on her own. Then I needed an epidural because my Blood Pressure was so high they didn't want us to go into toxic shock or me to have a heart attack during labor.
ReplyDeleteI agree they over use necessarily birth, some people having it scheduled to have baby on a certain day - that is insane.
I think having a baby in the hospital is fine if that is your choice - people just need to know they have the right to say NO to any treatment being offered and if they are educated about the process of birth and what is and is not necessary you can have a successful birth.
Luckily, I had sort of the opposite experience. I asked for an epidural and the midwife on shift (not my midwife) wouldn't give it to me. Now, if I had stressed to her how I wanted a natural birth when I came in this would make sense. I hadn't. I wanted to see how it went, and I asked for drugs because I was too freaking exhausted at that point to take it any more. So evil midwife offered me the tub. I asked her if it would make the pain go away. She said no to which I replied, "so then I'll be in pain AND wet? Why the hell would I want to do that?" And then she told me to think about it and left. I was going to kill her. My nurse, who was awesome, got the anesthesiologist for me. But that midwife was rough and not so nice. The next one though was awesome and that was about the only glitch we had. So except for that one evil midwife, the rest of them were quite awesome.
ReplyDeleteI like what Lish said-if you want a natural birth, try to go as long as possible, but if it turns out that you want/need drugs-it's ok!It's nice to have an idea of how you want your birth experience, but be flexable...either way your gettin a baby outta the deal. Heather
ReplyDeleteHad Janet the normal way in 1974. Had a high blood pressure problem so had to have an epidural but still was awake to watch the birth. Then along came Jiles in 1977. Wouldn't drop down far enough for the Doc to know if he was touching a butt or a head. His Dad and I were left to decide between a C-section and a regular birth. We decided on the C-section since Janet had been a regular birth and I wanted to check out the alternative. I still got to be awake during the C-section. Good thing we chose the C-section because Jiles was breach and weighed 10 pounds and 6 ounces. Had we chosen the normal way, one or both of us would have died.
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