|
I gave in. I couldn't bear it
any longer.
J <- apparently proud to
hang out with the zealots....
Ms Devine, I am at a loss to understand why you are promoting such appalling medical misinformation. You have provided no evidence and obviously misunderstand the importance of normal physiological birth to healthy babies, and the physically healthy and emotionally intact mothers who must care for them. Your childish depiction of those of us who oppose the poorly evidenced medical model of birth in favour of the internationally recognised standard, is inaccurate in the extreme. I am a consumer who researches and makes choices on the available worldwide evidence, and despite scaremongering by obstetricians, and illinformed persons like yourself, the evidence remains the same. Routine obstetric care leads to high rates of unnecessary and dangerous interventions and concomitantly poor outcomes for mothers and babies. Let me give you some actual evidence because you have none. Citing a number of undeniably tragic case studies, given by a leading opponent of evidence based care, namely Pieter Mourik, and presenting it without references does not a case make. The World Health
Organisation states clearly in its 1996 publication Care in Normal
Birth: a practical guide ( http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/publications/MSM_96_24/care_in_normal_birth_practical_guide.pdf) that routine obstetric
care is potentially dangerous and just plain inappropriate for most women.
Women and their babies can be harmed by unnecessary practices. Staff in
referral facilities can become dysfunctional if their capacity to care for very
sick women who need all their attention and expertise is swamped by the sheer
number of normal births which present themselves. In their turn, such normal
births are frequently managed with "standardised protocols" which only find
their justification in the care of women with childbirth complications. A study
of 1765 women published in the British Medical Journal in 1996 concluded
that Routine
specialist visits for women initially at low risk of pregnancy complications
offer little or no clinical or consumer benefit.(http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/312/7030/554
) We know from Australian studies
that the outcomes of our private hospitals and private obstetricians are very
poor even when compared with our deeply flawed public system.
medically
'low risk' multiparous women who gave birth in a private hospital with a private
obstetrician were less likely to have spontaneous onset of labour, more likely
to have induction and/or augmentation, less likely to have a vaginal birth and
significantly more likely to have obstetric interventions at birth. They were
also more likely to have an elective or an emergency caesarean section. These
women were twice as likely to have an episiotomy for a vaginal birth 19.2% v
7.0% and three times more likely to have an epidural 31.3% v 9.2%. (Rates for
obstetric intervention among private and public patients in The reality is that a safe birthing
environment is one in which evidence based practice occurs, and this is
obviously not with obstetricians, who are surgeons, and not experts in normal
physiological birth. How do we know this to be fact? Because the best, safest
outcomes occur worldwide in planned home births with a midwife in attendance and
obstetric care available only if required. Again, the evidence is clearly in
favour of obstetrician-free space. Any number of studies show over and over ad
nauseam that hospitals are not safe places for birth. A 1996 study concluded that perinatal
outcome was significantly better for planned home births than for
planned hospital births, with or without control for background
variables. ( BMJ
1996;313:1309-1313 (23 November) http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/313/7068/1309) and a 2000 study
showed that There is no evidence that
hospital is the safest place to give birth. (BMJ. 2000 Mar
18;320(7237):798.) The most recently published BMJ study
of home birth covered a population of 5418 women in Caesareans are not
routine procedures but life threatening surgery which should only be attempted
if the risk of death from it is less than the risk of pursuing a vaginal birth
in the circumstances. If we look to the BMJ again, we learn that
"Caesarean sections are not without complications and
consequences. Maternal risks in the short term include haemorrhage, infection,
ileus, pulmonary embolism, and Mendelson's syndrome. The prevalence of
hysterectomy due to haemorrhage after caesarean section is 10 times that after
vaginal delivery, and the risk of maternal death is increased up to 16-fold.
(BMJ 1998;317:462-465 ( 15 August ) In case youre missing the point here, employing an obstetrician
as your primary carer leads to higher rates of unnecessary intervention and
surgery which has life threatening risks for mothers and babies.
So unless you
have access to more studies than the World Health Organisation, the Cochrane
Review and PubMed, or more insight than the authors of countless
published studies on large populations, I suggest you take some time to have a
rethink about your prejudices which clearly have no foundation in truth. Many
people are sucked in by misinformation but in the public position you
hold in a major daily newspaper, it ill becomes you to peddle myths and
superstitions. Allowing Pieter Mourik to use you as a mouthpiece for his untrue,
hysterical and indefensible assertions is pretty poor form. Why dont you do
some research for yourself and find out what the rest of the world knows? You
will be less likely to fall prey if you have some hard facts in front of you.
Take a look at the
Janet Fraser |
- [ozmidwifery] me too - my letter to Miranda Janet Fraser
- Re: [ozmidwifery] me too - my letter to Miranda Denise Hynd
- Re: [ozmidwifery] me too - my letter to Miranda Helen and Graham
- Re: [ozmidwifery] me too - my letter to Miranda Susan Cudlipp
