With respect to castor oil, there are studies on both sides of the fence. The issues with it are that use of it is somewhat associated with the increased presence of meconium. The peer reviewed studies believe that this association may be due to stimulating the baby’s bowels causing the baby to defecate or may be due to causing trauma to the baby resulting in defecation. Let’s not forget that meconium aspiration is dangerous and can kill a baby. The studies that dismiss the increased finding of meconium generally state that women who use castor oil are overdue and it is true that women who are overdue have an increased amount of meconium presence. NAF1138’s baby was two weeks early.
OK, good. 
Swing and a miss on the medical facts, but good try. Risk of prolapsed chord was minimal because the baby’s head was already in place, and risk of infection only increases if a vaginal exam has occurred, and that window is 24 hours, but thanks for playing.
Anyone else want to play the “I know more about NAF’s daughters birth than he does” game?
Edit: You know what, it’s late, and I am starting to feel like I am the guy in that XKCD comic “someone on the internet is WRONG!” This is silly. I said my peace, and I am not actually interested in debating any of this with internet strangers. I wanted to clear up the misuse of my birth story and I feel like I did that well enough. I am not going to change anyone’s mind when it was made up before I posted anything.
Thanks all, this has made for an infuriating night. Happy fathers day.
Do me a favor, WhyNot - bookmark this post of yours, then come back in 10 years and re-read it. You’ll have yourself a good laugh.
(sorry to derail)
mmm
The studies I’ve read actually show waterbirth to be pretty low risk.
“A large-scale study of waterbirth in the UK (1994–1996) showed a decrease in perinatal mortality (1.2 per 1,000 for waterbirth vs. 4 per 1,000 for conventional birth during the same period) (Harper 2000; Gilbert 1999; London: Office for National Statistics 2005). While of the 150,000 recorded waterbirths worldwide between 1985 and 1999 problems comparable to non-water births did arise, “there are no valid reports of infants deaths due to water aspiration or inhalation”,[8] though there are at least 4 reported cases of near-drowning in the medical literature.[9] If water is kept at body temperature, there is not shown to be a risk of infant breathing under water as it is birthed. The infant should be birthed completely submerged and lifted out of the water head first. The infant will breathe when the body is exposed to cold air, so the body should not be lifted out of the water before the head.”
You also asked me for a cite for my statement about the potential danger of inductions and pain medication in labor having a detrimental effect on important hormones in labor and birth. The sites I’ve listed state that it is recommended that you avoid epidurals and opiate pain relievers during labor if you want to maximize the effect of oxytocin and endorphins.
The induction drug pitocin is synthetic oxytocin. When it is introduced, oxytocin can be inhibited. And it has a possibility of serious side effects, one of which is uterine rupture. Pitocin Side Effects: Common, Severe, Long Term
The role of oxytocin:
-triggering and regulating uterine contractions
-helps to thin and open the cervix
-helps ensure that the placenta and membranes are delivered
-after birth, helps to contract uterus and stop bleeding
-establishment of mother/child bond
-causes “let down” in breastfeeding
-has a calming effect on mother and baby
And some have theorized that receiving pitocin at birth can have lifelong consequences. Pitocin At Birth Could Have Lifelong Consequences | Science 2.0
Benefits of endorphins include:
-calming and pain relieving
-alters consciousness to help you through a long labor
- makes you feel more alert, attentive, and euphoric after birth
-helps mother/infant bonding
http://www.childbirthconnection.org/article.asp?ck=10184#hormones
http://www.smart-publications.com/articles/view/oxytocin-the-real-love-hormone/
It’s not an exaggeration to say that the state of childbirth in this country is seriously flawed. Our c-section rate is a whopping 32.9%, with many hospitals having rates of 40 or 50%. When you compare that to the WHO’s recommendation of a c-section rate around 10-15% it is evident that something is very wrong. Not to mention that the idea of informed consent is a joke in a lot of hospitals. These are just a few of the reasons so many women are turning to home birth.
And a humorous blog about the pointless things hospitals do to laboring women:
http://navelgazingmidwife.squarespace.com/navelgazing-midwife-blog/2011/3/14/pointless-hospital-rituals.html
No method of giving birth is risk free. All anyone can do is try to learn as much as they can and make the best decisions with that knowledge. If natural birth advocates come on too strong, it’s because they want to save women from the negative aspects of hospital care they know too well. They know that there are so many things doctors do not tell their patients. Or when they do tell their patients something, it’s to freak them out by saying the baby is too big to deliver (bullshit most of the time), or wanting to induce because she’s a few days past her EDD.
Rarely, if ever, do doctors say anything to empower the woman and give her confidence in her body’s ability to give birth. And other than a few extremists (of which any group has), I’ve found the natural birth community very understanding and non-judgmental of other women’s choices. That’s why I find the hostility about natural birth so confusing.
I think it is of utmost importance that women have the choice to birth the way they are most comfortable, whether that’s getting an epidural or going natural, birthing at home, or in a hospital. I would never judge a woman for the choices she makes in her birth. And I don’t think most of the natural birth community would either. They are, first and foremost, believers that women are wise enough to make the right choices for themselves and their babies.
Indygrrl, I’m sorry, but that makes me laugh. In my childbirth class, the instructor said, “I have to tell you that epidural is an option and not give you my personal opinion about it, so I won’t.” Uh…ok, guess you don’t approve of my choice, thanks for not telling me that. :rolleyes: I have actually found natural childbirth advocates to be just as judgmental and prone to telling others that they’re doing it wrong as anyone else, but YMMV.
It’s not so much that the newborn knows where he/she is. It’s about the idea that some interventions in the hospital (like induction, pit to “help” labor along, epidural or other pain meds, possible c-section) can inhibit certain hormones that are very important in the mother/infant bonding process. And when those hormones are out of whack it can also have a detrimental effect on breastfeeding.
Regarding post 299. I misstated. There was a doppler, but no other monitoring equipment.
Yeah, unfortunately there are opinionated assholes in any group. When I see a natural birth “advocate” acting that way I call them out. Thats the last thing you want to do when you want to get someone to consider what you’re saying.
Shit, I think I am wrong about this. I remember that the OB was specifically not concerned about a prolapsed chord…but I don’t remember why anymore. It’s been a while.
Ok, now I am actually done with this thread.
I still think you don’t quite get the picture. This link is a summary from an article by the Society of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians of Nigeria In it, it points out that Nigeria has one of the highest maternity death rates in the world, at 1500 women per 100,000 live births, which is one hundred times higher than in the US. Abortion is completely illegal for any reason, and yet 20,000 women a year die from illegal ones there. Why does Nigeria, despite outlawing the procedure, have one of the highest abortion rates in the world? Because only about 6% of the women there practice any sort of birth control at all, mainly because they don’t have access to it.
This link from the BBC is full of comments from African men who don’t want birth control, don’t want their wives to have it, and don’t see Africa as having an overpopulation problem. This will, of course, cause additional access problems for women. One of the gems: “In the final analysis however, I as the man make the final decision on the timing and methodology.” In other words - the husbands are making the decisions on birth control, not the women. Add in a culture where having lots of children is the norm and the number of children part of the measure of a man’s virility and you won’t get much birth control. Why would you? It’s not the men who have to run the risk of dying.
Given that, saying “get good prenatal/delivery care in Nigeria” is ridiculous. We’re talking about a country where for 94% of the population “birth control” is a back alley abortion and with one of the highest maternity death rates in the world. Is that actually a reasonable position to take?
I have no idea how c-sections are done in Nigeria, either. Are they the old-style vertical incision, which completely rules out a safe VBAC later, or the bikini-style horizontal cuts, which can allow for VBAC? Was the women even aware there was a difference? I don’t know, maybe if there had been time to explain that a bikini cut can allow for subsequent vaginal birth the woman wouldn’t have been so hysterical? (Assuming a bikini cut is what was done - sometimes vertical cuts are still performed)
In other words, you don’t believe a pregnant woman has a right to make a life-altering decision about her body and future?
You know, prior to the 20th Century in most places c-sections were illegal unless the mother was already dead. Priority was put on a live mother over a live baby. When did that change? Well, yes, c-sections are much safer these days - in the industrialized world. Not so much backwoods Nigeria.
Even if the woman had not required a c-section, just by being pregnant in Nigeria she would be one hundred times more likely to die in childbirth. One hundred times! Post c-section her chances of dying are even higher. That is not a trivial increase. In the 19th Century in the US the death rate from childbirth was about 1 in 100. Today, right now, in Nigeria, the death rate from childbirth is 1.5 - in other words, higher than in 19th Century America prior to antibiotics, anesthesia, effective pain relief and all the trappings of modern medicine. In the 19th Century nearly all births were home births, the very thing you rail against as stupidity (though I’m assuming you’ll forgive them, modern birthing being unavailable back then) and danger, yet you have no qualms about performing a procedure on a woman that even in the first world leaves her at a higher risk of complications even with modern medicine, and then just sending her back to a place where the “normal” rate of maternal death in childbirth is 150% of what was occurring back in the wild west days.
Can you get it through your thick head that the woman actually had some reason for her fears? It wasn’t some hormone-induced panic, it really is dangerous to give birth at all in Nigeria, and she has to go back there, to a country where more than 90% of the time “birth control” is a back-alley abortion, and a VBAC of any sort is freakin’ dangerous because for 70% or more of the population there is no access to hospital birth. At all. It’s a village midwife who may or may not wash her hands before attending a childbirth and who has no, repeat, no means of handling a catastrophe like a uterine rupture and there’s no way to get a women to a hospital in time to do a damn thing about it.
Maybe you still disagree with her decision, but understand it wasn’t a completely unfounded fear.
You seem to believe it is inevitable that one day she will give birth again in a place that can’t safely do a C-section, which is ridiculous.
She lives in a country where there’s essentially nothing available to most women except for home birth…the very thing you’ve been railing against. Now, all of the sudden, it’s safe enough for her? It’s not even safe enough for the homebirth advocates in the thread.
“Her body”? In other words, you don’t understand that a full-term baby is a different person than the pregnant woman?
And you don’t understand that having a c-section means cutting open a body that belongs to a different person than the baby?
I went and looked up the story of this Nigerian woman. There aren’t a lot of details about it in any of the sources that reference the story, but the details that were provided:
The woman was actually pregnant with triplets. The doctors felt she needed a C-section because that would be “safer”. (I could find no details whatsoever indicating their reasons for feeling it would be safer; obviously a vaginal triplet birth is going to be tricky, but I am not sure if that was the only reason for wanting the C-section or if there were other medical indications.) The woman and her husband refused, based on “religious grounds” according to a couple of sources, and based on fear of future pregnancies in Nigeria ending badly with no C-section availability according to others. (This second scenario is what WhyNot has been talking about.) The doctors got a court order granting them temporary custody of the fetuses, strapped the woman down in restraints against her and her husband’s will, did the C-section, etc. According to one of the sources I found - it was a journal article, FTR - her husband committed suicide some months later. Unknown whether this is related or not.
Edit: This all took place in 1984.
Sorry about the informational hijack in a flamey Pit thread.
Yeah, get out of here with your facts. 
The fact that she was actually carrying triplets makes a big difference to the story, IMO.
I’ve read twins, but never triplets. Where did that part come from, MsWhatsit?
ETA: But I’m curious: why does it make a “big difference” to the story?
Cite 1. (Google Books result.)
Cite 3 (PDF, relevant section is on page 3 of PDF, page 595 of article).
Because it means the C-section was even more necessary. It means trying to deliver vaginally would be even more dangerous both to the babies and to the mother.
And it sounds like her religious superstitions were the big hairy deal. The doctors did what they had to do. They were dealing with a crazy person.