Trust
your health-care provider: don’t take birthing options into your own hands
Googling your questions about
pregnancy and babies is seriously risky. A recent tragic outcome for Sara, who
was an ardent ‘Ten-Month-Mamma’ (home-birthers who don’t believe in inductions
for overdue babies) who chose to ignore the advice of her midwife, resulting in
the death of her baby, has left the group feeling flustered and guilty. They have since closed.
A pregnancy is 40 weeks. Nine calendar
or 10 lunar months – but remember, a lunar month is shorter than a calendar
month. It follows the phases of the moon.
The trend for higher c-section
rates has swung the birthing pendulum to women mistrusting doctors, demanding
natural birth and doing things their way.
This is not good.
I am proud to call myself a
midwife. It’s the happy side of nursing. Thanks to good ante-natal care, early
detection and intervention of problems, prompt action, experienced doctors and midwives, having babies today is much
safer than it used to be. But that does not mean that pregnancy and
childbirth is without risks. There
will always be a multitude of ‘what if’s’ that can become problematic. I
strongly advise women not to take matters into their own hands. By all means, get
a second or third opinion if you don’t agree with your health-care provider, but you
are not qualified to make medical decisions. Even they can be flummoxed because childbirth is, and always will be, unpredictable.
My own birthing experiences is a good
example. My first two babies were born naturally, without epidurals and problem
free. I expected my third birth to go the same way, but when I got to the
hospital in established labour (regular contractions five minutes apart) my
baby was a ‘brow’ presentation. My gynaecologist said that there was a
possibility that her head would ‘flex’ into the correct position and I could have
natural birth – or extend and get stuck. What happened? Her little head ‘extended’
to become a ‘posterior face presentation’ and I was whipped to the operating
theatre for an emergency c-section. Had I insisted on natural birth, there
would have been serious and irreversible complications.
Listen to your instincts, but trust
your midwife/doctor/gynaecologist.
