Elena LaVictoire's Library tagged birth →  View Popular

My heart went out to them. But I knew there was little I could do.
With five other pregnant women to care for at the same time, all with
hugely different and complex problems, I was rushed off my feet and
didn't have the time to look after her properly, to allay her fears or
to hear about how she wanted the birth to unfold.

I longed to sit with this poor young woman, calm her and remind her gently to breathe deeply through each contraction.

Just
half an hour of my time could have made all the difference. Instead, I
put on my cheeriest smile and followed hospital procedure. 'Would you
like a painkiller?' I asked.

Ten hours later, after she had been drugged to the eyeballs to dull the pain, I heard she'd given birth.

Her baby was healthy, but I knew I'd let her down.

As I watched her being wheeled into the ward, I felt eaten up with guilt. She'd effectively been ignored from the moment she turned up until the moment she gave birth.

Plonked on an antenatal ward until her time came, with no one to reassure her during what was most likely the most terrifying moment of her life.

No woman should have to give birth in these conditions  -  let alone in a modern hospital with professional staff at hand.

Welcome to the modern NHS maternity ward. A world of shoddy practice, poor hygiene standards and a shocking disregard for patients' individual needs.

Results showed that the frequency of VBAC success rose with increasing number of prior VBACs, from 63 percent with no prior VBACs to 88 percent for women with one and 91 percent for those with two or more prior VBACs.

The corresponding incidence of uterine rupture, a serious complication of labor, declined from 0.87 percent to 0.45 percent and 0.43 percent. The rates of other complications followed similar patterns with increasing number of prior VBACs.

In contrast, the investigators note, repeated cesarean deliveries are associated with higher risks of complications like placenta accreta (when the placenta implants too far into the uterus) and trauma to internal organs in the mother, as well as more frequent hysterectomies and blood transfusions.

"Women planning large families ... should be reassured by the increasing success rates and decreasing risks associated with VBAC attempts in successive pregnancies," Mercer and his associates conclude.

Experts say hospitals typically must have at least 1,000 deliveries a year to break even or profit from their maternity services.

''There was no way for us to get to the number of deliveries we would need to make this a viable opportunity for us,'' Pope said.

Licensed home-based midwives say they’ve seen a slight increase in business in part because their service tends to be less expensive than giving birth in a hospital.

“The fact (that) people are having a lot of financial troubles is causing people to look for alternatives,” said Suzanne Smith, a midwife who said she is taking more calls from people who are uninsured or have high deductibles.

Consulting appointments are also up at BellaNatal, a one-room birth suite in Orem run by Smith.

At the Birth and Family Place, a birth center in Holladay, the number of women touring the center who say they’re attracted by the price has risen to about one-third, according to medical director Rebecca McInnis.

“I don’t think it’s been that high before,” McInnis said.

A hospital-based birth can cost about $8,300, including about $6,000 on average for the hospital charge, according to 2006 estimates by the state health department. Deliveries at home or at a birthing center can be substantially less expensive.

Noah is one of only a tiny minority of U.S. babies born at home. During the first half of the 20th century, home births dropped dramatically. Today, fewer than 1% of U.S. births are at home, compared to just under 30% in the Netherlands.

Citing safety concerns, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has campaigned against home births, distributing bumper stickers that say "Home deliveries are for pizza."

And the American Medical Association's House of Delegates last year passed a resolution stating that "the safest setting for labor, delivery, and the immediate post-partum period is in the hospital, or a birthing center within a hospital complex."

Around the time Noah was born, though, researchers in Canada and the Netherlands published two large studies concluding that among low-risk women, planned home births attended by qualified midwives appear to be as safe as hospital births. The new studies have fueled the debate but have not convinced ACOG.

For one, says Erin Tracy, ACOG's delegate to the AMA, the studies weren't large enough. Problems are infrequent in childbirth, no matter where it takes place, so only "really large numbers" could reveal whether the home truly is as safe as the hospital, says Tracy, an OB/GYN at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospita

Noah is one of only a tiny minority of U.S. babies born at home. During the first half of the 20th century, home births dropped dramatically. Today, fewer than 1% of U.S. births are at home, compared to just under 30% in the Netherlands.

Citing safety concerns, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has campaigned against home births, distributing bumper stickers that say "Home deliveries are for pizza."

And the American Medical Association's House of Delegates last year passed a resolution stating that "the safest setting for labor, delivery, and the immediate post-partum period is in the hospital, or a birthing center within a hospital complex."

Around the time Noah was born, though, researchers in Canada and the Netherlands published two large studies concluding that among low-risk women, planned home births attended by qualified midwives appear to be as safe as hospital births. The new studies have fueled the debate but have not convinced ACOG.

For one, says Erin Tracy, ACOG's delegate to the AMA, the studies weren't large enough. Problems are infrequent in childbirth, no matter where it takes place, so only "really large numbers" could reveal whether the home truly is as safe as the hospital, says Tracy, an OB/GYN at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital.

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has determined that Belmont Abbey College violated discrimination laws because the school's employee health insurance plan does not cover contraception, according to a letter the EEOC sent to the school.

"I hope it would never get this far," college President William K. Thierfelder told The Washington Times, "but if it came down to it we would close the college before we ever provided that."

Doctors are being advised not to induce labor for non-medical reasons prior to 39 weeks into a pregnancy under revised guidelines released today by the nation's association of obstetricians and gynecologists.

The guidelines, the first since 1999, arrive amid concern about the increase in the number of such procedures in the last two decades. The rate of induced labor has increased from 90 per 1,000 births in 1990 to 225 per 1,000 births in 2006.

“It's really become an epidemic,” said Dr. Mildred Ramirez, an author of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists guidelines and professor of ob-gyn at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. “The doctor and patient need to weigh the risks and benefits — there will be exceptions — but I hope the consequence of the guidelines is a reduction in the rate.