Angry

Please forgive me if my posts are not very happy for a bit. I am angry, and I want to let this anger go before I see my neighbor. I need to be supportive for her. It is her grief, not mine, and I do not want to make her feel worse by not controlling my own emotions. She needs love and support, not a stark raving lunatic pregnant woman who is pissed off because she views this tragedy as something that might have been prevented if the doctor had been a little less concerned about keeping his c-section rate down.

But I am angry. Very very Angry. I feel like they killed her baby, even though baby Matthew is still fighting for his life in NICU right now. My neighbor had no problem with delivering via c-section. All that she wanted was a healthy baby, and she didn't care how she delivered it. She knew that her diabetes made this baby a miracle for her, and she accepted the fact that it may be her only child. She didn't want to take any chances. She was in one of the best hospitals in the area, and not just our immediate area but in the entire state. Top notch care. Top notch care that kept a diabetic woman flat on her back in labor, hooked up to IVs and monitors, without real food and only ice chips to drink. But hey, she might have had the chance for a "normal delivery". Because a normal delivery always includes cervidil, pitocin, IVs, and being totally stuck in bed with a catheter. Yeah. I'm pissed that they treated her this way only to have her baby most likely die.

I have to make a disclaimer here. I am not anti-"normal" delivery. Although I am admittedly not it's biggest fan, I know plenty of women who had happy and healthy normal deliveries. But I am totally against what birth has become in a hospital setting. I have a friend who is a delivery room nurse. She said that pitocin is the most frequently used drug in the labor room, even during low risk deliveries. She said "Watch 'The Business of Being Born'. It really is accurate." She is not an advocate of home births, but more of birthing centers within a hospital setting with lots of midwives present. She is a big advocate of natural birth and not sticking a healthy laboring mother in bed with a pit bag. She is also a big advocate of not inducing a high risk mother. She has seen her fair share of "quiet births", and according to her most of the babies who died during the actual labor or delivery were attempts at inducing high risk mothers to deliver vaginally when their bodies weren't ready and couldn't take it. Her personal opinion is that scheduled c-sections should be used in high-risk cases, and natural delivery methods should be attempted with healthy mothers and babies. She also said that you never forget the screams of a mother who lost her baby unexpectedly during delivery.

My other disclaimer: I am not a doctor. I'm not giving any medical advice here, so please don't take it as such! I am just a pregnant mom with a friend who is losing a baby in a way that just seems so senseless and preventable to me.

I'm glad that women are pushing back on the medical establishment. We do need to take back our births. But we have to be careful not to go too far. Women and babies used to die during childbirth. Alot. I am thankful that we have technology to help prevent this. We need to be careful, though, to make sure that doctors don't use us as lab rats to prove that they try to keep their c-section rates low. C-sections do save lives. Were the c-section rates out of control for low risk mothers in years past? Absolutely! Do I think that lots of c-sections were caused by the way that hospitals confine and manipulate labor? You bet! But I also think that it is high time that the practice of induction in high risk mothers is re-evaluated. We have to STOP and think about what we put these women and babies through in order to achieve "natural" or normal vaginal births. I've been there, and I can tell you that it's not pretty. And I don't think that it is worth the risk of harm or death for the mother and baby.

These are just my thoughts. I am sure that many people will feel differently. I am going to leave my comments open, but please be nice and remember that I am not anti-vaginal birth, anti-home birth, or anti-hospital birth. There is a BALANCE out there, somewhere, where high risk mothers can get the attention that they need and where low risk mothers can avoid the meddling that often occurs in hospital settings today. I just long to find that balance. I think that it will save lives and give us our births back.