Posted on 07/14/2011 8:47:22 PM PDT by Nachum
Actually, the highest maternal mortality rates in all history were in early to mid 19th century hospitals. 10% to 35%. MUCH higher than home births during the same period.
The guy who dropped this rate by over 95% in two years by making the doctors wash their hands was subsequently locked up in the loony bin. Must be crazy, saying doctors could cause disease.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis
I agree with your post. I gave birth to all 3 of mine in the hospital. The first was a normal birth, but I was in labor so long that I was exhausted, and the epidural was blessing.
I waited as long as possible to go to the hospital for #2, and it turns out that the cord was wrapped around her head TWICE, and at every contraction, her heartbeat stopped. They used the plunger to get her out in a hurry, but I have no doubt that a C-section could have been imminent. If I had been at home, she might have died.
#3: used my OB-practices nurse-practioner midwives. Had the baby in the hospital, easy birth.....but knew that there was a doctor on call just down the hall if complications arose.
Natural birth is wonderful.......if all goes according to plan.
That’s nice. My wife would have probably bled out had we followed this advice, which we had no way of knowing ahead of time.
Very much so, thanks for saying it. Without getting too graphic, everything was fine with our delivery right until the very end, when things got tore up real bad. I damn near passed out from seeing all of the bleeding. The OB had to immediately call in a team with another MD and about 5 other nurses. Had they not immediately sprung into action, I have no doubt that my wife would have been in serious danger. It was then that it really sunk into me why the mortality rate from childbirth was so high before modern medicine.
You got it! Third world country ... here we come!!! US was envy of the world when it came to medical care. Soon to be no more... thanks to the illegitimate Kenyan usurper and his Rat and Rino buddies.
I know a few ladies with similar experience.
If a women is having a 2nd+ uncomplicated pregnancy, and is dilating “on schedule”, why not opt to “send her home”?
How about trying to pass a bowling ball.
Amen, bro. And then there's all those sick people and people with broken bones and all manner of injuries.
It's like hospitals are magnets for people with health issues.
Laboring at home allows the labor process to proceed uninterrupted, but only because the hospital, with bossy uniformed staff with their fluorescent lighting naturally stop the labor process, but that pesky umbilical cord does get in the way all too often, so one would never be well advised to labor at home. Csections, inductions and all of the trappings ARE better than the alternative, of course.
Natural birth IN the hospital is ideal. Problem is the staff takes over instead of realizing their actual role - support in case of emergency. Babies really have been arriving naturally for millennia.
The Germans manage to do natural childbirth in the hospital and it seems to work.
It is actually the staff who need to make the hospital environment more like home; they are the ones who are well advised to not ony alter the environment, but to inform the mom about the process. They don’t want to do this, as they need to justify financially all of their staff and equipment- the system is addicted to it- equipment and pharmaceuticals.
Oh, well. I guess I need to write about it.
What you witnessed is very common and the reason, as you surmised, for former high mortality rates.
Literature from the fairy tales of the Middle Ages with all of its wicked stepmothers to American folklore is full of references to death by childbirth.
Hospital staff could do more to allow normal labor and delivery to proceed and save their scary lights and bossiness for the true emergencies.
Our last child was born in our bedroom. Best birth of them all by far. Wonderful experience. Highly recommend it.
Just meant that a competent midwife, a very necessary team member, cannot help with a true emergency at home if specialty personnel and equipment are needed.
A home environment, with down the hall access to emergency care, is good. Hospitals won’t do this because they . . . well they just haven’t done it.
You describe my third birth precisely. In the hospital, but with a midwife. It was a very easy birth, but the other two had blazed the trail, as it were! (After baby #1, I did learn to stay at home as long as humanly possible, which was way more comfortable.)
Any competent midwife can handle that situation, and one must be within 15 min of a hospital or forget about homebirths. We have a friend whose cord prolapsed and the midwife kept the cord back in her uterus while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. The baby was delivered 40 minutes later (not "seconds"), perfectly healthy. My child's head got stuck in my wife's cervix and the heartrate increased. The midwife calmly use a hand technique and it was over in seconds. We also had a midwife use her hands to turn a breach baby (our prior one) around in my wife's uterus. They are amazing. OBGYNs in hosptials these days are all too often akin to salespeople for C-Sections, and otherwise are useless. Watch TLC "Baby Story" sometime and see how impatient idiot MDs constantly push women to have C-sections if they are 'taking too long'. There is no risk to the baby whatsoever. It's ALL about money and lawyers.
Third world nation The United Banana States of America
This is not a "fact." I understand you believe this, but it is your supposition, not a fact.
Planned homebirths tend to be very safe. This is because most mothers who choose to have a homebirth are healthy and psychologically mature women. Their main concern is the welfare of their babies. Most will choose NOT to have a homebirth if they have medical conditions that might lead to complications (e.g. diabetes or high blood pressure).
These women will have planned carefully. They will not insist on sticking with a homebirth plan if there is any indication, at any point, that the birth would be safer in the hospital. They will always have a back-up plan to get to a hospital asap if necessary.
As for those "stupid young" women out there that you refer to -- guess what? They are NOT going to have a home birth.
Why? Because these stupid types tend to be scared to death of pain and are completely unwilling to put up with it. They will demand their epidural when the time comes! (And since they're often getting Medicaid, they don't pay for the costly anesthesia -- YOU do.)
I know this because I've had hospital births (3), and one home birth. During the hospital births, I heard other women in labor in adjoining beds, and believe me, the Medicaid types are definitely out to milk the hospital for all services they can get (and speaking of milk, they will NOT nurse their babies, but will demand free formula). These women will never have a homebirth ... unless it's by accident.
I believe that homebirths are actually safer, for both mothers and infants, as long as the mother has had a healthy pregnancy. Having experienced both kinds of births myself, I have plenty of anecdotal evidence. And I think there are statistics out there that will bear me out. But, that's a topic for another day.
Very sorry to hear that, but that is not standard practice.
1—How did you find the NHS overall?.
2—How did you find Britain overall (likes/dislikes)?.
3—When did you live here and where?.
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