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I hear you, Helen! I know a
woman who dilated fully in 4 hours (yes, 4!) then had a rest and be thankful
stage of an hour during which it was decided she had "FTP" and she had a repeat
surgery. I spoke to another woman recently whose surgeon had just told her
that owing to her fairly short labour with her first child, she only had 10
hours in which to birth the second or face surgery. Talk about arbitrary!
Marsden Wagner is right when he describes how much the timeline for labour has
shrunk over the last 20 years. I have a section on FTP, or as I prefer to call
it, Failure to Wait on my forums which provokes lively conversation from many of
the members who have scars on their bodies from this particular myth. I have a
great link to a hospy protocol on dxing FTP which relies solely on machines to
decide the appropriate strength of cx and then on the clock to check for
dilatation - woman stationary in the bed, of course, so the machines can work.
In the absence of "good enough" cx and time factors, the woman is taken to
theatre with absolutely no mention of how she or the baby are going. Utter
madness. We'll be like the US soon and our maternal death rates will start to
rise with the upping of initial unnecessary surgery and then the refusal of
VBAC.
J
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 9:49
AM
Subject: Re: [ozmidwifery] Resounding
failure of "active labour management"
I totally agree with all of your comments
Janet. My original bone of contention in this case however, is the "time
line" approach where if the cervical dilatation is slower than everyone thinks
is "normal" then the woman is whisked off for a caesar. This seems to
happen far too much still despite both mother and baby coping just fine.
I know what revelation it was to me 17 years ago when my friend went to
Boothville in Brisbane to have her first baby and was FULLY DILATED FOR 12
HOURS. I had not long done mid in Darwin and couldn't imagine anyone
being "allowed" to go that long with a good outcome. Her daughter is
very healthy! 17 years later, I still can't imagine that
happening in any mainstream setting.
Tragic
Helen Cahill
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2006 1:26
PM
Subject: Re: [ozmidwifery] Resounding
failure of "active labour management"
Rachel,
I only hear this from
health professionals. I don't hear it from women, not even the most
mainstream hospy birthing mamas with whom I deal. It's a very small
percentage of women who embrace this technology, and an even smaller number
who knowingly embrace it. If you read mainstream birth stories they usually
start with "My baby was 10 days overdue so my hospital/surgeon said I had to
be induced." The women are generally scared, although normal physiological
birth scares them too, but have no idea of the massive risks involved. When
it all goes pearshaped, as it so often does, the hospital/surgeon and those
around them tell the woman she is defective and can't birth "properly". It
sometimes leads to ERC solely for fear as women are so shocked by the
assault of active management that they seek to control the process in future
by choosing surgery without the horror of labour under these circumstances.
Of course, the profiting surgeon is only too happy to oblige.
Apart from women
transferred from BCs to labour wards, the most traumatised women I see are
those who have had active management foisted on them by hospital policies
and the belief that you can't say no. Not that saying no helps women in most
hospitals anyway, you only need to read those same birth stories to hear
that also. Whatever MWs in hospitals are being asked about induction and
active management, women are really not understanding what it is and I
almost never hear of a woman who *wants* to be induced, they just don't know
they don't have to be. Most women now believe that without
interventions like induction and ARM that babies won't come and that women
don't know how to go into labour.
Tragic but something I see
all the time. Try some mainstream birth forums to read the same story over
and over and over again.
J
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