Babies on demand!

[AdminAssistant]

I'm sorry, but I find nothing 'natural' about turning away from modern medicine and needlessly having a painful birth. If Fiance and I have kids the ol' fashioned way, I will be having pain meds and lots of them. Now, I would probably look into hiring a doula or midwife to assist, since Fiance is squeamish and I'll probably not want my melodramatic mother there.

[Andara Bledin]

Considering that much of the time, "modern medicine" has tendency to make births more painful and end up taking longer (unless they shortcut it all by performing unnecessary surgery), I'm not sure I'd be willing to trust it.

As an example, a large percentage of breech babies right themselves prior to labor, and many more during. However, if you're in the hospital with a breech baby, you'd better get used to the idea that you're going to have a c-section, because waiting on nature to do it's thing is pretty much unheard of.

^-.-^

[RedRoseSpiral]

There are different levels of pain. I've spoken to woman who have gone through both medicated and unmedicated births and said the unmedicated was much easier. But to each their own.

Personally, I plan on having an unassisted birth when I do get pregnant.

[BrenDAnn]

I read the article in the OP and I just....WHY? I'm not a mother, hopefully maybe someday I will be, but i just don't understand it. Why would anyone needlessly put themselves and their unborn child at risk, just so they wouldn't have to spend a holiday in the hospital? It's careless, and stupid. I'd rather spend a holiday in labor than in mourning of my child because I made a decision like that.

[boringscreenname]

Elective inductions aren't really all that uncommon. I hang out on a couple parenting boards and I"m amazed at the number of people who are willing to get induced and whose doctors let them get induced for all sorts of unnecessary reasons. Heck I read an article, I think it was last year, where a woman chose to be induced a day before the Superbowl, because she didn't want to go in labor on Superbowl Sunday and have her husband possibly miss being able to watch the game.

I've had both types of labor and deliveries. With my oldest, I went into the hospital in early labor just to get checked out and see what was going on. They were debating on whether to admit me or send me home, when his heart-rate started dropping, so they decided to induce labor to get him out. But the medicine they commonly use to induce labor (pitocin) was only stressing him out even more, so they stopped the pitocin and wound up doing a foley induction (I'll spare you the details you can google it if you're curious). My labor with him wound up lasting 12 hours, I had an epidural and they had to use forceps to get him out, and it turns out he was all tangled up in the cord. He was also a little shy of 6 pounds and was born 2 days before his due date. The recovery sucked, I had to have a lot of stitches and for the first couple of weeks I was popping pills left and right and it hurt to move around.

With my daughter I went into labor on my own with her, 2 weeks before her due date. I labored at home (and Wal-Mart), showed up at the hospital, my water broke literally right after I stepped out of the car. When they checked me, I was fully dilated and ready to deliver her so they just wheeled me over to a delivery room, and she was born 40 minutes after I arrived at the hospital without any type of drugs and she was born just a little shy of seven pounds, even though she was a little early. It did hurt to deliver her, but the pain was over immediately after she was born and I was up walking and moving around just fine after the doctor gave me the okay and I never once had to take any pain medicine and after I was discharged from the hospital I felt great, never better and had a really easy recovery with her.

[lordlundar]

The doctors wanted to induce my mom, but that was because I was getting to be over a week over-due. I behaved and came out the next day after he said they'd induce her. And I was barely over 5 lbs.

And who says threats don't work?

[Panacea]

Inducing reduces infant and mother mortality/morbidity. Once the pregnancy is 'term' (8 to 8.5 months) it is generally safer to induce early, for ANY reason, than wait, for ANY reason.

So why not pick a day?

Not true at all, for many reasons, many of which have already been listed.

Someone mentioned Cytotec, which has multiple uses in OB/GYN, non OB uses, and is NOT the drug of choice to induce labor. Pitocin is. Pitocin or Pit, is a synthetic form of oxytocin, a hormone produced in the pituitary gland that stimulates natural labor.

Pitocin causes the uterus to contract. It is given IV in a very small dose, usually starting at 1-2 milliunits, and going upwards until a regular pattern of contractions is seen on a fetal heart monitor.

When the uterus contracts, the contraction constricts blood vessels supplying the placenta. Oxygen flow to the fetus is reduced. In some women, this can lead to profound fetal bradycardia (late decelerations) and require a c-section, or cause a uterine rupture (which is immediately life threatening; you can exsanguinate in 6 minutes, folks!).

In some women, labor induction is necessary in spite of these risks because the risks posed by the continued pregnancy (pre-eclampsia, macrosomia, etc) outweigh the risks of the induction.

However, most labor inductions in the US are done for convenience, often the OB's convenience. He can stop the induction when night falls and avoid coming to the hospital at night (pit has a very short half life). He can control the date of delivery to some degree and deliver the baby during pre-scheduled hours. My local hospitals does all its inductions on Tuesdays and Thursdays, leaving Monday and Wednesdays for office visits. Very few deliveries occur on weekends; mostly the moms who don't have OBs or refuse inductions.

Pit can also "exhuast" the uterus, making it difficult for it to contract and shrink properly after delivery (involution), and increasing the risk of life threatening post partum hemorrhage.

If you're thinking I'm not a fan of these practices, you are thinking correctly.

My SIL refused induction with all three of her kids and had easy labors and deliveries.

Many of the mom's who get pit are screaming for an epidural within the hour.

And if the cervix isn't "ripe", it doesn't matter how much pit you give, that baby ain't coming. Yet the OBs will push and push the dose hoping the cervix will respond and the baby will come.

That's the use for Cytotec in OB: to ripen the cervix. It is actually safe and effective for that purpose given vaginally.

It is also safe for labor induction, is cheap, easy to make and works better than Pit. However, it is absolutely contraindicated in women with histories of C sections, uterine surgeries, or otherwise at risk for uterine rupture.

It is very useful for medical abortions, treating post partum hemorrhage, and gastric ulcers caused by NSAIDs.

then again I'm a firm believer in natural birthing and taking birth out of the hospitals (again barring complications). Save OBs and surgery for emergencies.

I'm a middling fan of natural childbirth. Having just said what I said about Pitocin, let me speak to natural childbirth.

There's a sound reason the specialty of OB/GYN developed 100 years or so ago. It's because women were dying by the bucket load in childbirth. It may be natural, but it isn't always safe to have a baby.

Done right, in a partnership with an OB/GYN or Certified Nurse Midwife, natural childbirth is often safe and more satisfying to the mother and family than the strictly medical approach.

However NO woman with a complication of pregnancy should deliver a baby in the home. EVER.

When things go right with a pregnancy and delivery, they go very right.

When they go wrong, they go horribly wrong. There's seldom a middle ground.

Some of the natural childbirth people spend a lot of time demonizing the medical profession. They spread misinformation at times. I had one mother who was hemorrhaging heavily and didn't want to take Cytotec because of the risks associated with labor induction . . . oblivious to the fact she'd already had the baby!

If you want to go natural childbirth, see a Certified Nurse Midwife. They prefer the natural route, but can follow and handle complicated pregnancies, and back up their practices with sound science.

[blas87]

My Brown Noser coworker likes to brag how his girlfriend did her birth "all natural" and "Drug free" and "that's how everyone should do it, they did it for thousands of years just fine!" (and he's a guy so he needs to stfu RIGHT NOW about how a woman should choose to have a baby), just because that was her choice and worked for her, doesn't mean it works for everyone.

If I ever had to god forbid give birth, I'd want to be knocked out and have someone pull it out. I can tolerate needles and eletrical shocks but I just can't handle pain down there. I had to get on BC to prevent a period because cramps were so bad. I was in tears and had to miss work because my chryosurgery was so painful.

[AdminAssistant]

Yeah, I didn't even handle my IUD procedure all that well. My gyno was like, "Oh, just take some ibuprofen, you'll be fine!!" I was able to make until nighttime before taking a hydrocodone, but just barely. (I had some left over from the collapsed lung incident 6 months ago.)

What clenched it for me was listening to my sister give birth. I wasn't even in the room, and I could hear her screaming. And my sister is tough. Got second-degree burns as a kid - no problem. Nearly broke her ankle at cheerleading camp - hobbled around on crutches when she wasn't competing and still won a major award. AND she had an epidural; the anesthesiologist was just lazy about coming around to check it.

[blas87]

I doubt I'd handle that well, either. I forgot to mention every time I have a colposcopy, I'm whining like a little girl for nearly a week after because not only am I oozing gross stuff, but it hurts so darn bad. And, the best part of all, is my tests always come back "mildly abnormal" and the lab never finds anything really wrong with my cervix. So, I spend thousands of dollars to be poked at and in pain and to find out it's normal for me to not be normal.

This is why I've decided I'm no longer doing colposcopies. Thank God you can refuse to have stuff done to you. I just wish it hadn't taken me so many times to figure that out.

[anakhouri]

I think a lot of women intend to try to give birth without drugs (I did!) but change their mind when they realize how much it fucking hurts. In the end it was a good thing I got the epidural because it made pumping me with drugs for the c-section much quicker and easier.

And women had babies naturally for thousands of years, but a good chunk of them died doing it, or the babies died, or both.

[Seshat]

My sister in law did what I believe to be "the right choice". There are quite a few hospitals in Australia that have specialist "birthing centres". Essentially, these are Nurse/Midwife run wings, with Obstetricians in the background. The pregnancy is mostly handled by the Midwife, with periodic checks by the Obstetrician - mostly so that the rare case (very rare) where the Midwife misses something is caught.

The actual birth is done as naturally as the mother chooses - epidurals are available, yes, but so are options such as water birthing. The father and family are invited to be involved: both my parents, both her parents, and my brother were at my niece's birth.
(My father missed part of my nephew's birth because my niece got so distressed at being left with just me that after I'd passed her the phone to talk to them, 'Grandpa' decided she needed him.)

I've not asked how 'natural' my niece and nephews' births were; I do know that neither were induced nor caesarian. I ALSO know that if there were complications, a fully equipped surgery, skilled obstetricians, and a fully equipped modern nursery were on standby and staffed; on the same floor and in the same wing of the hospital. Literally seconds away.

I know that some doctors (yes, even in Australia - we're not perfect) would prefer 'at our convenience' childbirths and suchlike. I believe such personalities have no place taking up obstetrics as their specialty. Study stuff that can be scheduled!

[Sleepwalker]

Not arguing from personal experience, arguing from statistics. Stillbirth is reduced by inductions. Pitocin is standard of care. Can it negatively affect some individuals? Sure. Penicillin negatively affects some people. Doesn't mean that people should look at the standard antibiotic drips during labor as a bad thing.

I know that some doctors (yes, even in Australia - we're not perfect) would prefer 'at our convenience' childbirths and suchlike. I believe such personalities have no place taking up obstetrics as their specialty. Study stuff that can be scheduled!

It CAN be scheduled, is rather the point of the thread. That you do not WANT it to be scheduled is the point of your reply. Next up- the virtues of yanking loose baby teeth vs letting them fall out on their own.

The human body 'knows' when to do a number of things. Breathe. Poop. Contract the heart muscle. All of these things can also be set to a specific schedule, sometimes to great benefit. Demanding that one of the rarer events be completely unscheduled is... odd to me.

As an example, a large percentage of breech babies right themselves prior to labor, and many more during. However, if you're in the hospital with a breech baby, you'd better get used to the idea that you're going to have a c-section, because waiting on nature to do it's thing is pretty much unheard of.

^-.-^

The likelihood of something going wrong because of the c section is a fraction of the chance that the mother or baby will die because of breach. Same reason they respond to crushing chest pains with intervention vs 'wait and see'.

To turn this around, why would you risk your baby's life and health simply because you want it to come out of your vagina rather than through your abdomen?

Considering that a typical pregnancy lasts 9+ months on average and that some babies take as long as 10 months to be ready for birth, I take that "inducing over waiting is always better," as being completely inaccurate.

Let's see what people in the know have to say:
Lamaze.org = No
TransitiontoParenthood.com = No

Apparently, unless medically necessary, inducing just makes it harder on both mother and child, as well as increasing the risks of needing to have a c-section.

^-.-^

Lamaze is not a medical technique. People associated with Lamaze do not and CAN not offer medical care or advice. Lamaze offers results consistent with placebo.

I am starting to become seriously worried with the amount of dangerous 'medical' information being bandied about in this thread. I ask anyone reading this thread, whether they and their loved ones want to birth at home or in a hospital, to at least google the sources people are offering before accepting them as 'experts' of any kind. Better yet to bring it up with a doctor, or doctors.

People have a great deal of choice when making medical choices that involve various risks, and there are no completely safe choices, but to lie to them about what the risks are KNOWN to be is reprehensible. Be safe.

Edit: The second site recommends homeopathy over medical intervention. Homeopathy is not medicine. It is snake oil. Please, please, please listen to other sources than this quackery. People who are not medically trained caregivers can NOT tell you when medical intervention is necessary, that is the danger. They can not help you, and will sometimes prevent you from getting help. Birth assisted by non medical professionals is unassisted birth.

[Seshat]

The human body 'knows' when to do a number of things. Breathe. Poop. Contract the heart muscle. All of these things can also be set to a specific schedule, sometimes to great benefit. Demanding that one of the rarer events be completely unscheduled is... odd to me.

I don't demand that it be completely unscheduled. I simply see no reason to intervene when there is no medical reason to do so.

[Panacea]

Not arguing from personal experience, arguing from statistics. Stillbirth is reduced by inductions. Pitocin is standard of care. Can it negatively affect some individuals? Sure. Penicillin negatively affects some people. Doesn't mean that people should look at the standard antibiotic drips during labor as a bad thing.

I need a citation on this one. Stillbirth is a complication of Pitocin, because Pitocin can impair tissue perfusion of the placenta (seen as a late deceleration on a fetal heart monitor).

Antibiotics are NOT standard during labor. They are only given to women who test positive for Group B Strep. The usual antibiotic used is cefazolin (Ancef).

I am starting to become seriously worried with the amount of dangerous 'medical' information being bandied about in this thread.

I hope you are not including me in that statement. Just to remind you: I am a registered nurse with 26 years of experience, and I teach OB nursing.

I ask anyone reading this thread, whether they and their loved ones want to birth at home or in a hospital, to at least google the sources people are offering before accepting them as 'experts' of any kind. Better yet to bring it up with a doctor, or doctors.

Always smart to do.

People have a great deal of choice when making medical choices that involve various risks, and there are no completely safe choices, but to lie to them about what the risks are KNOWN to be is reprehensible. Be safe.

I haven't seen anyone lie in this thread. Maybe be factually incorrect, but not lie.

Edit: The second site recommends homeopathy over medical intervention. Homeopathy is not medicine. It is snake oil. Please, please, please listen to other sources than this quackery. People who are not medically trained caregivers can NOT tell you when medical intervention is necessary, that is the danger. They can not help you, and will sometimes prevent you from getting help. Birth assisted by non medical professionals is unassisted birth.

I looked at both of the sources.

The Lamaze page is written by a registered nurse and contains factually correct information. It points out that Williams Obstetrics, which is the gold standard medical text on OB no longer recommends inductions for late term pregnancies. It disagrees with your statement that inductions reduce stillbirths; it recommends letting nature take its course.

The other page does not recommend homeopathy over medical intervention. It merely presents it as an option.

Some of the information on the homeopathic methods of labor induction are actually well known to work (orgasm, nipple stimulation, and acupuncture). The first two are not used in medical settings anymore because you cannot turn them off once started. Acupuncture can be stopped if needed. The author does recommend the woman discuss these options with the care provider first. An OB or Certified Nurse Midwive (CNM) would probably recommend against the first two, but go with acupuncture.

The only issue I have with this source is that it discusses the cons of medical interventions (but the information is factually accurate) but does not discuss the cons of the homeopathic ones. These methods are NOT snake oil, and largely work (except enemas, which do NOT work reliably, which is why we don't use them in hospitals anymore) but DO have their own risks which are similar to those of modern medical drugs or procedures. They're simply not as well researched on an evidenced based level (but the research is being done).