help baby come quicker - LONG POST

[Guest guest]

Dear Sandy -

 

And all other expecting mamas!! Full term gestation is 41-42 weeks. The

AVERAGE length of gestation is 40 weeks. Average is a word that is tragically

abused by birth careproviders.

 

Over and over again you will hear: women dilate an AVERAGE of 1cm per hour,

AVERAGE gestation is 40 weeks, AVERAGE labor is 20 hours, AVERAGE weight gain is

35 pounds. Well, average means a lot of women are less than that bar and a lot

of women are more than that bar and they and their babies are healthy!

 

In five years of working with pregnant women I've yet to have a mom have her

baby on her due date. I've had three moms go early and I remember them:

Marilyn, Allison and Agna. All of them just fine too. The majority of my moms

were told they were going to have big babies when their due dates came and went.

How was that determined? By ultrasound, which many medical and med tech

journals will tell you is inaccurate at best and very true late in pregnancy.

http://www.mothering.com/articles/pregnancy_birth/birth_preparation/ultrasound-d\

efinition.html

 

Due dates are nothing more than an educated guess based on what we have been

observing for years of childbearing around the world. Unless you know without a

doubt what day you conceived the due date calculated by traditional means (LMP)

can be way off. How many women do you know definitely ovulate at 14 days and

are on 28-day cycle??? Well, they must not be AVERAGE! Sorry...being

sarcastic.

 

http://www.transitiontoparenthood.com/ttp/birthed/duedatespaper.htm

 

 

Here is the real crime in forcing women to undergo inductions for going beyond

their due dates - a much higher cesarean rate around the world:

 

BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology

Volume 109, Issue 12 , December 2002, Pages 1416-1417

 

" Routine induction of labour at 41 weeks of gestation: nonsensus

consensus "

 

W. C. Leung & T. T. Lao

Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Queen Mary Hospital,

University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

 

Sir,

 

We read with great interest the commentary by Menticoglou and Hall

published in May 2002 and want to echo the point of increasing

caesarean section rate as a result of this nonsensus consensus. Our unit has

adopted the practice of routine induction of labour at 41 weeks of

gestation for several years on the basis of the findings of the

Cochrane Review1, which suggested that this approach can reduce perinatal

mortality. Women are admitted to the hospital at 41 weeks of

gestation for cervical assessment with the Bishop's score and induction of

labour. If the cervix is favourable, combined induction of labour with

artificial rupture of membranes and oxytocin infusion is performed on

the following morning. If the cervix is unfavourable, a vaginal

prostaglandin E2 3-mg tablet is used to prime the cervix. Combined

induction is performed on the following morning if the cervix becomes

favourable. If not, another dose of vaginal prostaglandin is given

and induction is delayed for another day. In the case of labour occurring

after cervical priming with vaginal prostaglandin, it is counted as

induction of labour.

 

We have analysed the caesarean section rate for nulliparae undergoing

induction of labour at 41 weeks of gestation from our hospital

obstetric database. In the year 2000, 183 nulliparous women were induced under

this consensus and 59 of them (32.2%) had caesarean sections. This

caesarean section rate was significantly higher than that for term,

singleton, vertex presenting fetuses in nulliparous women in the same

year (excluding those 183 women with induction at 41 weeks), which

was 368/2271 or 16.2% ( 2 test, P < 0.0001). More alarming is that the

caesarean section rate for nulliparous women undergoing induction of

labour at 41 weeks of gestation increased even further to 35.0%

(63/180) in the year 2001 and 41.1% (23/56) in the current year (January to

May).

 

 

We agree with the authors that it is now time to reconsider the

consensus on routine induction of labour at 41 weeks of gestation,

particularly in nulliparous women.

 

Reference

1. Crowley P. Interventions for preventing or improving the outcome

of delivery at or beyond term [Cochrane review]. The Cochrane Library,

1. Oxford: Update Software, 2002.

 

As for the baby being a large baby....it is not the first time that women have

had people be insensitive to their faith and confidence in themselves to birth

their own baby. I had a mom who had gained quite a bit of weight in her

pregnancy. OBs told her she was going to have a huge baby and should be induced

at 40 weeks. She is a no-nonsense kind of woman. Flat out refused to go to the

hospital 'til she was 41 weeks. Refused to sleep overnight so they could induce

in the wee hours...told 'em she was going to sleep at home and would see them at

the hospital at 7:30am so as not to be caught in rush hour traffic herself!

Allowed them one shot at induction. Didn't really work as contractions were

very mild on their own and by golly mom and baby had a totally different agenda

than the docs. They " offered " pitocin. She said okay AFTER she'd had dinner

and her support team themselves had gone out to dinner AND all had had a good

night's sleep. Put her on pit the next day even though her own contractions

were still mild. She had her baby without any pain meds (unheard of in the

hospital - a woman on pit and no drugs! - word spread like wildfire). Grandma

and Grandpa were there to see their beautiful first grandchild born- after me

that is since I was her doula!! Grandma hadn't wanted the induction at all.

She stayed at the newborn's side for weighing: 7lbs 3oz. Grandma promptly

turned to the OB and said " Big baby indeed. "

 

Try a less invasive way for predicting (and that's all most medical folks can

do) baby's fetal weight:

http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/2002/F/20022197.html Independent

midwives (those that are not under pressure to adhere to their back-up

physician's policies) are better predictors of baby's size in my experience.

 

Labor is good for babies. There is a reason for the process. Ina May Gaskin

hasn't induced to my knowledge. She has had mothers go 44 weeks before

spontaneously delivering healthy babies.

http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/06/01/gaskin/index.html

 

Should you find yourself facing induction remember one thing: NO to Cytotec

http://www.whatisaids.com/cytotec107.htm and

http://www.birthlove.com/free/devil_cytotec.html

 

Enjoy your pregnancy. Your body has worked flawlessly all these months. Your

body and your baby are one. You both know what to do. Celebrate with women

around the world.

 

http://www.who.int/features/2004/great_expectations/en/

 

 

Don't hesitate to call on me/e-mail me should you feel pressure to 'perform' and

give birth before you're both ready.

 

Warmly and sincerely,

Dale