BreckH

Hi, Just came back from a meeting at work NICU in San Diego where we are discussing going to cue feedings please if you can send the feeding protocol you are talking about... [email protected] Thank you so much, Breck

I worked in a hospital in Grants Pass, Oregon Three Rivers, and they were CIMS certified Coalition for Improving Maternity Services. To become certified they had to have a low section rate, low intervention rate over 98% breastfeeding when they walked out the door and all of that. Their nurse manager was a CNM who had a clinic in Florida before she took the job in Oregon. This hospital was fantastic. All women were up and in the halls, we had jacuzzi bathtubs, had waterbirth options and they were having the most amazing outcomes as far as stats were concerned. It was the funniest place I've ever worked. Everyone was hyped when a laboring woman came in and if there were epidurals or interventions it was always after the woman was at least 5 cm dilated which cute the rate of cesarean. I guess I miss that coming to Calif. especially SD they just don't think like that here. They are in a hurry to get the babies delivered before 11pm. and it just breaks my heart. I guess if I had never seen the other side, like also doing homebirths, I wouldn't notice as much.

And I've gone one step further, from my husbands suggestion of "if you are so upset about what is happening to laboring women in hospitals today why not write a book." and I did I wrote "Hey! Who's Having This Baby Anyway?" and in it I help women choose their right provider, know their rights in the hospital, tell them about medications in labor, I discuss VBAC, waterbirths, breastfeeding, prenatal classes that are out there and a lot more stuff. So I am not out there to just talk the talk, I am trying to make a difference from legislative to the bookstore. Other countries are doing such a better job then us. The Netherlands have a 10% section rate why can't we? How did we end up with the 2 worse country for mortality? Cuba is below us..

Yes i contact my congressmen and state representatives regularly along with about 100 other of us. And have you noticed that the choir is the heart of the church and the praises and messages they sing are for the whole of the community? And I love being a nurse it is a hard hard job especially when you have to follow orders that, even in NICU, may not seem like the best interest of the patient. And the good nursing part is when you can take that situation and make it work well with the patient and their family, with a great outcome.

I'm a nurse too you know.. 18 years and have seen many changes . I watched things drastically change especially in L&D and have seen results change too and as a result have changed my focus from L&D to NICU where the interventions there most of the time are needed. I don't mean to disrespect anyone here and it is not my intention to do this, I do get a little passionate about natural childbirth and that is why I wrote my book to help women stay in control of their baby's birth . I will just sit back and watch for a while, I just thought we are all having a discussion on birthing in America. Sorry if I offended anyone, I really am do mean that.

And back in her grandmothers day maybe that was true but not anymore. Statistics show home and clinic births have a much better outcome, IF the woman has prenatal care, has a good diet, has a good birth team, has an uneventful pregnancy and is willing to enter into labor prepared. NO ONE without any of these things should consider birthing outside the hospital. Birthing at home is not something to do because you dont' want to hassle with the hospital, it is something you do because you want to have the best possible outcome for your baby, you want control of how your baby will come into the world with your choices of who will attend your birth. (the provider you want, the midwives and doulas you want, the family you want to have with you) You want a drug free environment and the ability to move around in surroundings that you are familiar with. Studies have shown that animals that are moved during labor either stop their labor or deliver their young dead. Women who come into the hospital and are sent home with "false labor" would most likely have continued with their labor and had their babies if they had stayed at home. More babies would be born at night like nature intended but birth certificates across the states show that more babies are born between 8-5pm Mon. thru Friday then any other time. Pit, inductions, cesareans and impatient providers have contributed to this. There are some amazing OB nurses out there I have met many in the different hospitals that I have worked for, but the OB nurses that are working in the hospital here in SD love the epidurals, they want their moms asleep during the night and monitor them from the nurses station. It seems gone are the days (here at least) when they would get them up, get them into the shower, birth ball, walking the halls all of that. The new policy nation wide, in order to get federally funded, is that a patient has to be assessed every 30 minutes for pain management. You ask a laboring mother if she is painful every 30 minutes and eventually she will believe she should be. Then the epidural is offered, and she is bedriddened and inteventions begin. Women without prenatal care, drug mom's and there are many, difficult pregnancies, pretermers, women who don't have the desire to be totally involved in their pregnancy should have their babies at home, but moms that are not wanting an out of hospital birth should be given every oportunity with midwives in every state, birth clinics in every town and doulas allowed in evey hospital to have the birth they want and to bring their children into the world as natural as possible. Did you know that 90% of babies born today have some type of drug in their system and I'm not talking about street drugs?.

I would love to know in which states and cities all of you are from, this makes a lot of differences in the type of birth experiences people have in hospitals and at home.. I'm from San Diego California. The hospital I work at has a 85% cesarean rate before the weekend and before holidays. They have a 98% epidural rate.

This is exactly true and accurate, we are a nation, and just about the only one, who have been taught to fear childbirth and to be forced through peer pressure to submit to the wishes of providers and follow the path of others who believe the only safe way to have a baby is in a hospital. When in reality, statistics show, it is actually the opposite. 95% of the population alive today in the world were born at home, and the majority of those who weren't were born in the US and we have the 2nd worse mortality rate in an industrialized country.. Go figure.. If we are to do our births in the hospital, which we always will for most of us, we need to do better, we need to train our mothers not to fear the word no. To come in later, refuse unnecessary routine interventions and medication, get up out of bed and walk, dance, utilize water, and move their bodies around until they are ready to birth their baby's. Mothers need to refuse providers that say they can't have options, that IV's when they walk in the door is routine and that their doula and care plan are not welcome. Until then pregnant couples will not control the outcome of their births, at least not in most of the hospitals that I've heard about, and will be lucky to make a few of the choices in their baby's birth. I have personally seen RN's in L&D who take the birth plans back to the break room and laugh about what the woman wants, and I have seen it put in the back of the chart and never addressed. And yes I have seen some amazing births in the hospital where the nurse worked with the mom all night long, a doula was present and mom was getting everything she wanted and it was amazing. So it is possible. It just takes shopping around for the right birth team and being informed.

This is current: Pregnancy is big business in America Published by Roxanne February 26th, 2007 Care 66% of all hospital revenue comes from hospital births (and the C-section rate is 33%), according to a new documentary that examines pregnancy practices in America. When we’re fighting for reproductive rights, I think we need to remember that we have more enemies than just the Christian Right. Via Lauren.

Smilingblueeyes spelled it out pretty clear, clinics and small hospitals are closing their doors to birthing and directing the births to larger hospitals which with their complications and interventions are directing their babies into NICU, longer stays in hospitals from cesareans, necessary or not, and with the cesarean now at 30% (google birth statistics ) the hospital is generating more revenue then ever before in births. Over the past 10-15 years more and more babies are being admitting into NICU for even the slightest fever, or any newborn apnea spells including after they are resolved and are kept to Rule Out Sepsis whether the mother was GBS positive or not. I overheard one Neonatologist say to another the other day that he wants the Sharp NICU units in SD (there are three) to generate $1,000,000 a month. So birth includes labor care, keeping a pretermer in the unit until she gives birth usually on Mag, or Tobuterol or whatever, the delivery and all that goes with it Pit, epidurals, stadol, monitors, etc. The cesarean she may end up because of all of the above, the infant possibly going into the NICU unit for up to 10 days, mom's recovery, lactation consultant, circumcision, and on and on.. So yes, in most hospitals the birthing center does generate 66% of the revenue and the hospitals are willing to bend over backwards to make it the most attractive unit there because if mom has a good to decent birth experience she is going to direct old Uncle Henry and Aunt Martha there to have their bypass surgery and her kids will be going there for everything they have under the sun.

Google pregnant in america and listen to the trailer that is offered on the home page. This is the documentary that will be presented later this year. In this trailer is the statistics that I quoted about the 66% and when I chatted with Steve ( the producer) he said the statistics quoted in the trailer were current and researched. This may not relate to small hospitals, and ones that are independent but do apply to hospitals like Kaiser, Sharp, Scripps etc..

I'm so sorry for the mentioning of the website. I didn't know. sorry. No the Stats are from the US and current. Breck

Hi I was a direct entry midwife in Canada for 6 years and under the supervision of an MD I caught over 250 babies at home, had my two children at home at that time and just last January delivered my own granddaughter 8 lbs. 4 oz without a tear, became an RN in 1988 and went from working in the float pool and L&D which I hated because of all the manipulation to now working in NICU in San Diego, had a doula practice in SF (2000-2002) for 2.5 years, wrote a book that is currently out "Hey! Who's Having This Baby Anyway?" , created iCare (Improving Childbirth Awareness for a Richer Experience) course and have 25 instructors across the US. and used to teach childbirth classes in Canada for ACHI. I have other projects in the works right now but so far that is it.

There is a new documentary http://www.pregnantinamerica.com check it out these are the stats they are quoting and the film isn't out yet. As for self pay? when a person is a no pay or illegal and has no insurance the price of their care goes up because the tax payers end up footing the bill and covers the costs of insurance companies that don't pay off the whole amount of a bill.

The biggest problem started when pregnant women went from hiring famly practice providers (who can't perform surgery) to OB/GYN's who are surgeons who can't keep their hands off the surgical equipment. Like OB/GYN's say "When in doubt cut it out!"