No. It’s not okay when you attack my point because I’m 17 when someone who is probably 10 years my senior with extraordinary qualifications said something similar. My point was that if you’re criticizing me, then you are critiquing Romani as well. That means that my age cannot be a reason to disqualify what I said.
And? They are still American women giving birth. I don’t believe this is just a made up problem made up from statistical manipulation. We are dead last when it comes to first world countries. Those factors are not enough to make us last. Those are factors that would make us drop a few spots, but to be last? I think that shows there is a real problem.
Sevmom, I had preeclampsia / HELLP syndrome at 31 weeks too. I would have easily been dead if it weren’t for the medical community. You can go from low risk to high risk in the blink of an eye.
Pizzagirl, It is so scary, as you know.Everything normal until about 37 weeks, put on bedrest, hospital at the end and delivery the day after due date. I did not want to know the sex of my baby in advance but when I was in the hospital and the doctors made it clear it was potentially life threatening for both me and my child, I wanted to know . I remember patting my stomach repeatedly in the days in the hospital before delivery and told my son it was going to be okay. And , luckily it was. He is a joy and I am very grateful.
This is an interesting thread, my great grandmother was a midwife. She was still delivering babies until I was in jr high, and she didnt pass until I was in my 20s, so her stories were first hand not passed down history. She delivered darn near everyone in the small town because Blacks were not allowed at the hospital, and didnt have money to go elsewhere. She never lost a baby. She said one baby died, but it was a crib death.
To be fair, I am NOT a PhD candidate in MCH or anything public health related. I left that field because it’s too depressing for me. (PS I’m only 24 lol. I’m not QUITE in my late 20s yet.)
Maternal health in this country can be GREAT, fabulous, the best in the world… if you can afford it. I work with the women who can’t in a state that doesn’t give two hoots about their poor. This WILL become less of an issue with the ACA but I worked with the women who couldn’t afford to get prenatal treatment or the hospitals that many of the people on this thread are connected to. I worked with the women who go to hospitals where, bluntly, they do not think the women should have any more children and are treated as such. This is not an uncommon story among poor women, especially poor women of color.
As I have said before, I will go to a hospital to have my kids because I want pain meds and I have more than one underlying condition that can make delivery complicated. But I am lucky enough to have good insurance, access to good hospitals, etc. I am better off than many, many women in this country. With that said, I do have an issue with the medicalization of childbirth- which really is a natural process. Yes, the most dangerous thing in the world a woman can do, but we survived as a species for hundreds of thousands of years with the same process. But there is a problem when nearly 1 in 3 pregnancies end in C-sections in the US. You can’t tell me that’s necessary and it’s certainly not healthy.
I think Amnesty International’s Deadly Delivery is a very fair look at the state of MCH in this country today. From my own work, I know that the maternal death rate is higher in Detroit than in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. Women die giving birth in the hospital lobby. That shouldn’t happen in this country and what’s worse is that it is completely ignored unless you’re immersed in the field.
“Yes, the most dangerous thing in the world a woman can do, but we survived as a species for hundreds of thousands of years with the same process.”
Irrelevant. To perpetuate the species, you just need to get to the replacement rate. There can still be a lot of wastage.
All you have to do is look at an old-time ceremony. Even the royal histories of Europe are influenced by the number of deaths of mother, child or both in childbirth. Mother Nature is a bee-yotch.
Wow–that’s really troubling @romanigypsyeyes! I am just risk adverse and was glad to be able to have my babies in the hospital. They really didn’t do much to me medically and I believe only did one ultrasound for each pregnancy. I was nearly 30 when I had S and over 30 when I had D, so felt it was better to be safer in the hospital, plus my history of childhood asthma. I never really considered having my kids anywhere else, but my sis preferred to have hers at the hospital where her H had privileges and she got maid service for 4 hours after she returned home from having the baby AND a candlelight hospital dinner with steak and/or lobster, I think.
For more GOOD health care. As I said, the ACA is correcting some of these things. But there are other very disturbing things that happen IN HOSPITALS and on a wide scale.
Look, I really do not have a pterodactyl in this fight. I didn’t want to work in MCH for a reason. But hospitals are not magic for everyone and again ** each woman needs to make her own decisions based on facts and not rhetoric **. Why that is such a controversial thing, I’m not sure. I have said repeatedly that I will have my child in a hospital and anyone who knows my views knows that I want universal insurance with good health care for all. Unfortunately, for too many, hospitals are not a place of healing and are rather a place where people, especially the poor, are provided inadequate care because of their inability to pay (often because of low reimbursements from crappy health insurance or Medicaid). In my fantasy world, this wouldn’t exist. Instead, I live in the real world with real mothers who lose their lives and babies because of overburdened and poorly funded hospitals.
I understand that this is deeply personal for you PG because of your husband’s line of work. I have no doubt that he is an excellent doctor who does the best possible for his patients. But that doesn’t erase the experiences of thousands and thousands of women who have had adverse experiences BECAUSE of hospital mistakes.
@CaliCash - Can you accept that there is no one-size-fits -all birthing option? And that each woman can and should make her own decision in consultation with her doctor and according to her own preferences, history, and comfort level? And that the choice to give birth in a hospital is perfectly valid?
PG, I’m pretty sure romani agrees with you about universal health insurance.
My husband was supposed to be deployed when our 1st was due to be born. He injured his knee and got transferred off his ship (doctor’s orders) 2 weeks before that ship left on a 6 month cruise. Had he deployed he would not have seen DD until she was 4 months old. I’m glad he was able to be there but many many military fathers are not.
It is tradition when Navy ships return that new fathers are the first off the boat.
This is an interesting story. The mother is a physician who found herself needing medical help and getting a little too much of it. I wish she had named the hospital. She’s at SUNY Stony Brook, but they actually have a much lower c-section rate than some nearby hospitals (as is usually the case comparing academic centers vs. private hospitals).
@greenwitch I am very familiar with Dr. Keirns’ work. She has deep ties to U of M and Detroit-related health care. She and my advisor have served on several history of medicine committees together though I have not had the pleasure of meeting her. Thank you for sharing that, it was quite powerful. Imagine if she was not a physician and had just been in there as a “regular” mom.
As I mentioned, I had my babies in a university hospital. Some things were bare bones, my roommate & I shared a bathroom with another roomful of women, about 4, I think. So it happened pretty frequently that when I shuffled over after surgery, the door was locked.
I had private insurance, but others care was not lacking there because they did not.
Not CaliCash, I can accept that, but the fact remains that there are structural issues in how we have set up childbirth in this country that have led to the totally ridiculous C-section rate of 30%. (When I was in Germany a doctor with over a 10% rate was considered dangeroulsy overeager to cut, but I see they are now right up there with us.) WHO thinks somewhere around 15% is probably the correct amount.
Both my brother’s wives had home births. For both protracted labors for the first kid landed them in the hospital, but subsequent births went as planned. I had a midwife who practiced with an OB-GYN group out of a hospital which I thought gave me the best of both worlds, though the hospital was so crowded the day I was there, I was in a closet for half the experience.
I wanted very much to have a vaginal delivery, and my doctor tried very hard to make this happen, but it wasn’t possible. We again tried a VBAC the second time, also to no avail.
But I have friends who had scheduled c-sections simply because they did not wish to go through labor. I don’t know how they got that past their doctors and/or their insurance companies. My insurance notified us in advance that they wouldn’t pay for a second c-section if we didn’t document very well that we had seriously attempted a VBAC.
I had a VBAC but my doctors would have preferred I just schedule another c- section. I was not about to go through major surgery again if I could help it. Especially with a 3 year old at home that I also had to care for . I am surprised when I hear about women who prefer to just schedule a c-section rather than go through labor. I found the recovery from the VBAC much easier than the recovery from the c-section. But the VBAC was just my preference. I assume others make different choices in consultation with their doctors.