when I was born

[WalkaboutTed]

I'm an RN, I worked Labor & Delivery for years in several big hospitals in Phoenix and Miami, Florida. I also worked high-risk OB, and I worked high-risk perinatal home health care, so I know whereof I speak. With a healthy mom and baby, and a competent birth attendant (a licensed lay midwife or a CNM-a certified nurse midwife), you are safer, will have less complications and have a way lower chance of a caesarean section.

Scare tactics, fake news and non-accurate information are the establishment's way of taking a natural, healthy process and medicalizing (not too mention $$$) birth and taking away our freedom of choice, as America has done with the process of death. I delivered my #3 son at home, on a boat. I had #4 son with a CNM with whom I worked with at a hospital. Talk to most L&D nurses and they'll tell you how much better a birth you'll get with a midwife.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

 

[WalkaboutTed]

***I was editing and got locked out before I finished my last post***

I'm an RN, I worked Labor & Delivery for years in several big hospitals in Phoenix and Miami, Florida. I also worked high-risk OB, and I worked high-risk perinatal home health care, so I know whereof I speak. With a healthy mom and baby, and a competent birth attendant (a licensed lay midwife or a CNM-a certified nurse midwife), you are safer, will have less complications and have a way lower chance of a caesarean section. I would tell my patients: "two thirds of what we do is to cover our a**es legally. We (the hospitalized process of birth) cause more problems than we fix (iatrogenic complications). You have the legal right to refuse any part of this process and if I touch you against your will, it's assault. The only time I suggest that you do what we tell you to, is if you see a sea of blue (nurses and other medical personnel) pouring into the room-that means there's a problem with you, the baby or both". Needless to say that the more militaristic docs weren't happy with that, but so often people give up their rights when they walk in the hospital's or doctor's door.

My unplanned section rates with my hospital patients was less than 15%. The most important factor in keeping a mom of of the operating room is having a doctor who trusts a nurse who keeps him/her away from the hospital as long as possible. I would have patients complain that they would labor for 12 or more hours, and that the doctor was there only 20 minutes for the delivery. When that happened, I had done my job right.

Scare tactics, fake news and non-accurate information are the establishment's way of taking a natural, healthy process and medicalizing (not too mention $$$) birth and taking away our freedom of choice, as America has done with the process of death. I delivered my #3 son at home, on a boat. I had #4 son with a CNM with whom I worked with at a hospital. Talk to most L&D nurses and they'll tell you how much better a birth you'll get with a midwife. I myself had a pretty significant immediate postpartum hemorrhage, the midwife had the drugs and expertise which enabled me to avoid going to the hospital.

And as far as complications occurring at a home birth? If you have a competent birth attendant with backup (I.e., call 911 to go to hospital), you can see a train wreck coming from a mile away. I've attended home births as a doula, a couple of which ended up going to hospital, for reasons of"failure to progress" to a postpartum hemorrhage. I haven't been to home birth where the wasn't time to get help.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.