I am a future nurse trying to reconcile my beliefs about birthing with the standard of care birthing moms receive. Are there other nurses in L&D who are seeking change (or secretly hoping for change) in regards to the birth experience in hospitals for women? (i.e. reducing c-section rates, allowing women to birth in different positions, etc).
And what are your thoughts on the new organization, improvingbirth.org, and the Business of Being Born documentary? Interested in thoughts from both sides.
Can a nurse be an "out" activist for change if they disagree with the way things are done?
I have a large family. I had some of the kids with epidurals and some without. I am a postpartum nurse who started in L&D. I see a huge difference between babies born with no interventions and medications and babies born to mothers who had pain meds, then epidurals, then interventions, etc. It might be completely anecdotal, but I think the natural babies (for the most part) are much healthier and vigorous from the first second...and for the most part, the labors are faster.
New L&D nurse that just had my 3rd baby at home with a midwife! I worked 2 years peds and 2 years postpartum/floating to L&D. I saw a lot of stuff in L&D that scared the dickens out of me and lead me to feeling safer delivering at home. It's sad, but true. I had a lovely homebirth of a 10 pound baby girl with a very awesome and competant midwife. I now work L&D at a different hospital one I feel much more comfortable at and agree with the above poster.... I treat all my mom's the safe and value their experiences whether they want an epidural or not. But I do think more of our patients need advocates and need to truly have informed consent, because so many do not.
I started my career as a CPM doing home and birth center births. Then I became an RN, and I work in a hospital L&D floor now. It IS hard. I have a lot of feelings about the standard way we care for women in childbirth. Pain medication is, to me, at the bottom of the list of things I care about. Want to go natural? GREAT! Want an epidural! Totally understandable! That sh*t hurts!
What I DON'T like is the rampant use of non-evidence based interventions, like prohibiting VBACs, NPO for all women, elective inductions, continuous EFM accross the board, rushing to get all the baby business done right after birth instead of allowing baby to transition on mom, etc.
Absolutely! I am an L&D RN and have my babies out of hospital (2 free standing birth center water births) and will likely have my next at home. I use CPMs. I recommend them to any and everyone I can...one of our newer RNs is having a home birth with them! So yes, you can be a advocate for normal/physiologic/less intervention birth and still practice in hospital. There is always a place to discuss EBP and a forum to discuss what women really want with regard to ******** these days.
Though I will say that I am lucky to work in a hospital that permits and encourages VBACs, lady partsl twins (both vertex, sometimes even if only A is so), hard stop on elective inductions prior to 39 weeks, intermittent auscultation, is baby friendly, is LDRP among other practices which helps normalize labor and delivery. There are areas of course that we we can improve, but it takes baby steps.
I started my career as a CPM doing home and birth center births. Then I became an RN and I work in a hospital L&D floor now. It IS hard. I have a lot of feelings about the standard way we care for women in childbirth. Pain medication is, to me, at the bottom of the list of things I care about. Want to go natural? GREAT! Want an epidural! Totally understandable! That sh*t hurts! What I DON'T like is the rampant use of non-evidence based interventions, like prohibiting VBACs, NPO for all women, elective inductions, continuous EFM accross the board, rushing to get all the baby business done right after birth instead of allowing baby to transition on mom, etc. That's why I am in CNM school![/quote']
I can't count the number of women that come in planning on a totally natural birth who decide, at 6 cm, to go with the epidural and are very happy they did. I always tell them I'll support whichever direction they go.
I don't know the exact statistics, but I've done PPV on enough natural birth babies to know that just doing things natural does not guarantee a perfect baby. Personally, I've had a C/S and two VBAC's, two with epidurals one natural. There are pros and cons to all the different choices.
There are risks to whatever a woman chooses. At home, the woman risks an unexpected postpartum hemorrhage. At the hospital, she risks a spinal headache from her epidural.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
At home, the woman risks an unexpected postpartum hemorrhage. At the hospital, she risks a spinal headache from her epidural.
Ha. That actually made me snort out loud. Research in Europe has shown that homebirth, for low risk patients, is as safe or more safe than hospital birth.
One risks a lot more than just a spinal headache from the hospital. Unnecessary interventions caused by continuous fetal monitoring, arrest of dilatation/descent from being confined to a bed, infection caused by....well...being at a hospital instead of at home. And that's not even taking into consideration the body of evidence that is showing that C/S changes an infant's gut flora, putting them at greater risk of asthma, allergies and diabetes later in life.
There's a lot more at stake than just a spinal headache. Now, granted, the above things don't happen in the majority of cases (well, except for the gut flora thing, that happens with every baby who has a C/S), but in the vast majority of cases, women don't die at home from hemorrhage, either.
Ha. That actually made me snort out loud. Research in Europe has shown that homebirth, for low risk patients, is as safe or more safe than hospital birth.
One risks a lot more than just a spinal headache from the hospital. Unnecessary interventions caused by continuous fetal monitoring, arrest of dilatation/descent from being confined to a bed, infection caused by....well...being at a hospital instead of at home. And that's not even taking into consideration the body of evidence that is showing that C/S changes an infant's gut flora, putting them at greater risk of asthma, allergies and diabetes later in life.
There's a lot more at stake than just a spinal headache. Now, granted, the above things don't happen in the majority of cases (well, except for the gut flora thing, that happens with every baby who has a C/S), but in the vast majority of cases, women don't die at home from hemorrhage, either.
Quoted for truthiness. like I said before, I started my career as a CPM. I also had my two babies at home. I delivered twins as a surrogate, and had them in the hospital.All of my birth experiences were great. the big problem we have with Holmberg in the US is that in many locations, homebirth midwives are not able to plug into the mainstream healthcare system, resulting in delays in care when A transfer is necessary. This is why I so very strongly support increased legislation and recognition of the PM's, as well as increased standardization of the credential. please excuse typos, tiny phone keyboard
zbb13
286 Posts
I have a large family. I had some of the kids with epidurals and some without. I am a postpartum nurse who started in L&D. I see a huge difference between babies born with no interventions and medications and babies born to mothers who had pain meds, then epidurals, then interventions, etc. It might be completely anecdotal, but I think the natural babies (for the most part) are much healthier and vigorous from the first second...and for the most part, the labors are faster.