Caribbean Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Unattended Childbirth
There is a bit of a cottage industry around homebirths -- kits and tubs and what not. I doubt it amounts to much, though.
On the other hand, my med-free, midwife attended birth cost $6K in a hospital where the average is about $38K, which is awesome because we were on the hook for 10%. So while the natural birth movement may contribute to an increase in the sale of kiddie pools and garden hoses, the net effect is a big decrease in consumption.
The hair grows in thick where the horn used to be.
I think the point that I'm trying to make is that there are no "movements" that are without their vultures / profiteers. Whether or not med-free / intervention-free / "natural" birthing (whatever you want to call it) is ultimately "better" than the alternative is irrelevant. My point is that the increase in popularity = an increase of people who want to latch on / make some loot. And one great way to do that is to capitalize on women's fears about childbirth and play the role of savior / advocate in a sea of evil, hurried OB's who want nothing more than to slice and dice the ol' uterus. Obviously an informed / educated women is going to do her homework and hopefully see through the B.S. But when was the last time anyone accused the Bump (for ex.) of being filled w/ educated and informed people?
The hair grows in thick where the horn used to be.
Cut and paste from a doula near my house:
"Let me tell you, Friends: MOST practitioners who routinely do vaginal exams have started to strip membranes at 37 or 38 weeks, routinely, as well. And I have yet to hear of a practitioner who asked permission to do this potentially infection causing and water breaking procedure. They are reaching a finger through the cervix, into the opening to the uterus. When they get there, they are separating the amniotic sac from the uterus as far up as they can reach with their finger, which releases prostiglandins, making it more likely that you will go into labor on average up to ten days sooner than you would otherwise. "
http://motheringnaturally.weebly.com/index.html
I don't know anyone who's ever had her membranes "stripped" by her OB w/o her permission. With my son, when I was 40 + weeks my OB offered to strip them. I declined and he said "Ok." And that was that. This is the sort of "fear mongering" that I'm referring to.
Mine were stripped by three different midwives without my permission. I wonder what she would say to that? Obviously they weren't out to slice and dice me so it was probably okay.
I keep reading this post as Unintended Childbirth. If I got pregnant again it's what we'd have to prepare for.
"The meek shall inherit the earth" isn't about children. It's about deer. We're all going to get messed the fuckup by a bunch of cloned super-deer.- samfish2bcrab
Sometimes I wonder if scientists have never seen a sci-fi movie before. "Oh yes, let's create a super species of deer. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG." I wonder if State Farm offers a Zombie Deer Attack policy. -CaliopeSpidrman
Wait, Ina May's claiming really low mortality rates for midwives historically, even with placenta previa? I'm gonna have to question her data there. Some midwives had excellent records but it'd be blatant cherry-picking to extrapolate that to all midwives given what we know about maternal morbidity.
I'd also question how that applies to modern medicine. If I have a high fever although sarsaparilla tea and strapping onions to my feet have been shown to be somewhat effective, I'm still opening my medicine cabinet. If you're going to (rightly) point out that modern midwifery is different now. I'm going to have to ask why the historical success of midwifery vs evil doctors who didn't wash their hands and sliced willy-nilly matters. Early brain surgery was much worse than staying home and drinking tea too.
"The meek shall inherit the earth" isn't about children. It's about deer. We're all going to get messed the fuckup by a bunch of cloned super-deer.- samfish2bcrab
Sometimes I wonder if scientists have never seen a sci-fi movie before. "Oh yes, let's create a super species of deer. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG." I wonder if State Farm offers a Zombie Deer Attack policy. -CaliopeSpidrman
Also, on the other side of over-intervention. I was induced due to what they thought was large size. Obviously he wasn't so large in the end and I know many NBers are against induction for this reason and would say know.
But, since I developed pre-e and HELLP very early in my labor, they were able to identify that because I was induced and in the hospital.
Had that not been done, who knows how it would have been different for me.
I have had two unnatural childbirths, but I didn't have any concerns about my OB trying to do things out of convenience or things that weren't medically necessary. I mean, Evie probably would have been fine with the fluid if we'd let her go a few more days, and Will probably would have been okay if he wasn't rushed to the NICU immediately after birth. But there's definitely a chance that they wouldn't have been, and I'm happy with the decisions made by us and our doctors.
When I picked my OB I got a couple recommendations from friends and from my primary care guy (who I really like), and after we met I felt like I had a good idea of her (and her practice's) thoughts on medical intervention and it felt in line with our ideas. I realize that in smaller communities people don't have the option of picking from a large pool of doctors, but I think some people don't talk to their OBs about things beforehand and are surprised/shocked/angry when stuff comes up later in pregnancy. As soon as I was diagnosed with GD I talked with my OB about her thoughts on inductions and c-sections and made sure she knew my thoughts as well; when the time came to schedule an induction we were on the same page.
Anyway. I liked my doctors a lot and had a positive experience with inductions, and I hate when blanket statements are made about OBs and such. (Not that anyone was doing that here, but you know.)
Hell-freaking-yeah. Apparently, evidence based medicine is only selectively OK.
We've been talking about home birth for #2. We had such a good experience (yes, I'm the weirdo that pretty much LOVED giving birth) that we both worry I'll be upset/disappointed if it doesn't go as well next time. Not a big deal if we are still living around here, as we'll use the same midwife/hospital, so chances of a repeat great experience are good. But if we move out of the area, we'd probably do a homebirth (with full prenatal care/testing and MW labor assistance, and assuming I'm low risk).
And whoever mentioned checking mothering.com for that chick's screen name, that was a good suggestion, but Google came up empty.
Mucho likes purple nails and purple cupcakes
Ahh yes, ok I see what you are saying now. Now I can go back to sewing my lotus birth sack...
Also mothering.com deletes any stories of unassisted births going wrong so its unlikely that you'd find anything there anyway. Bunch of nutters over there.
Well, thank you all for your concern, however... we are both perfectly fine, and have been this whole time. We've just been without internet, and yes it was killing me to not post.
UC like all things is not for everyone, and please know that not seeing a doctor for prenatal care does NOT mean NO prenatal care. please don't assume things or judge them without all the facts.
The hair grows in thick where the horn used to be.
Well, I'm glad it went well, but please expand on the bolded section.
Husbands should be like Kleenex: Soft, strong, and disposable.
The hair grows in thick where the horn used to be.
New game! We try to guess what counts as "prenatal care" and then list all the things it won't catch.
I'll go first:
Dx test: spinning your ring to determine if it's a boy or girl.
Won't catch: placenta previa.
"The meek shall inherit the earth" isn't about children. It's about deer. We're all going to get messed the fuckup by a bunch of cloned super-deer.- samfish2bcrab
Sometimes I wonder if scientists have never seen a sci-fi movie before. "Oh yes, let's create a super species of deer. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG." I wonder if State Farm offers a Zombie Deer Attack policy. -CaliopeSpidrman
Yes!
Yes!