Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 9:48
PM
Subject: [ozmidwifery] I am back! Did ya
miss me?
Hi everyone,
I am back with a newly polished soap box and a
major thing to be yelling about!
I am going to jump straight into it with the
stress that I am not going to stay on the list for long (a few weeks perhaps)
so you may have to contact me off list for further details.
Okay, everyone sitting down???
Guess who is doing an Australian/New Zealand
multi-centred study called ACTOBAC A Controlled Trial Of Birth After Caesarean
which (wait for it) is a randomised controlled trial involving 2000
women. The study is being conducted by Professor Caroline
Crowther. It involves women with one previous cs and they will be
randomised at 34 weeks. Those who are designated the vbac option will
have mandatory continuous monitoring and all the other woman unfriendly
policies imposed on vbacs, inductions or augmentations will not be
excluded. The unfortunate women who are allocated to the cs group,
if they (inconveniently) go into spontaneous labour they will be given an
emergency cs.
How do I know all this?? CARES was
contacted after Crowther read my article in Birth Perinatal Issues Journal
(Sept 2002) and asked us to make some comments on the trial....we made
comments alright! 5 pages worth for starters. The issues and
criticisms are many and varied. the language used is appalling, the
information biased and the methodology dubious. An then there is the
little issue of it being completely unethical! we got a reply after
almost three months with a "thanks for your feed back. We are proud to
announce the trial has been approved for funding".
this is an unacceptable and insulting response to
say the least. we have had no further comment from them.
So how annoyed are you so far?? it gets
better. As this is a long posting as it is, (typical for me huh?) If you
want to know more please let me know. To end this email I will give you
the first paragraph from the information pamphlet provided to us by the
research team in November:
"For someone like yourself who has had a previous
caesarean section a decision needs to be made as to whether your baby is best
born by allowing a vaginal birth or whether a repeat caesarean section should
be undertaken"
and it gets so much
better!!!!
hope to hear from interested parties as soon as
possible as I am writing to the ethics committees and need as much weight to
support our objections. (ACMI National level would be appreciated if you
are listening!) Remember that this is going to recruiting women from
every major women's & children's hospital in every capital city around
this country.
cheers for now
