Isis,
medical reasons my ass! She had ruptured membranes at 36 weeks and they induced
her labour... she is at fullterm now... the same conditions do not apply. Also,
a previous caesearean, as we all know, is not a medical
reason.
I
called the producer today as well and asked him why a birth consumer was not
being interviewed... ie. someone like me or Sonia and after explaining my story
he said that Andrea had been asked to present "a balanced view" (I didn't let on
that I already knew this). I pointed out that this would seem to most women as
pitting midwives against obs ie natural birth against caesarean rather than
looking at the issue from the perspective of someone who has had complications
from a c-birth and knows the affects of this (because they presented such a
biased viewpoint this morning) from personal experience. They made it sound like
the natural birthers were the only ones who would object but I wanted him to
know that as someone who has had two caeseareans I considered this kind of
propaganda an insult and made it clear that I found it very
upsetting.
I was
quite angry and let it be known that they wouldn't be hearing the last from me
or my peers if I wasn't satisfied tomorrow's broadcast presented a balanced
viewpoint. He seemed to back off a little when I directly contradicted Dr Rick
Bastard ( : ) ) with the true stats of UR and put it in perspective with other
complications (aside from the liklihood of being hit by a bus) which can happen
to anyone. He seemed alarmed that I would be so critical of a (gasp) doctor...
aren't they gods, don't they know everything? Surely they wouldn't lie to their
patients! I didn't get a chance to talk about the other comment... Dr Bastard
stating that it was likely the woman's labour would go like the previous one (an
early induction at 38 weeks).... As the woman did not have the same
complications she had first time around it is highly unlikely she would have the
same kind of labour, especially if induction was not used.
Thanks
to everyone who sent in complaints and comments. I'm going to record the
segment tomorrow and Jodie and I are going to analyse it later. I was told that
graphic footage would not be used as they want to focus on the birth and not the
operation (Ha!).... But ofcourse, they aren't normalising
caesareans!
Well,
off my soap box for now.
It
seems it is the National Association of Specialist Obs and Gyns that are putting
out these media releases at the moment.. I am guessing a little but it is in
their mandate to do a public education campaign about issues surrounding
birthcare. I could not access their media releases but the same people we know
and love (fingers down throat) are the same who are being interviewd by the
press at the moment.
Cheers,
Cas.
Cas, Wayne, Liam and Daniel
McCullough
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Isis and Andrew Caple
Sent: Wednesday, 3 December 2003 5:43 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [ozmidwifery] C-section on TodayI sent in an email to the today show about tomorrow mornings show this is the response I got..am sorry you feel that way about it. But I think if you ask a lot of of women to graphically describe a vaginal birth, you probably would get a similar cold view of the process.We are not promoting a particular kind of birth...as you may have noticed from the interview this morning..this woman is having a c-section for medical reasons and is certainly not looking to be the next Australian Idol.Lots of women have to have them for medical reasons and I am not sure what is wrong with showing people that birth by c-section still brings the joy that follows the arrival of a new life.
