Monday news roundup:
The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada says a C-section should not be offered to a pregnant woman unless there is a valid medical reason to perform one. But, a University of British Columbia study found that 2 per cent of obstetricians were in favour of a woman's right to choose a C-section for herself, even in the absence of a medical indication.
Speaking of caesars, Charlotte Church says giving birth naturally was pretty rough: "It's absolutely, disgustingly horrendous.It's shocking I tell you that. I had both babies at home, two home births, just with gas and air. It was horrendous. I mean it was amazing and awesome and crazily whatever, a completely different experience but you know, I might do it again because I'm a little bit of a sadist that way."
Over in supermodel preggo land, the maternity style wars were on as Heidi Klum and Gisele Bundchen tooled around town with their bumps in all their glory
In case you missed it, Shiloh Pitt, 3, lost her front tooth. This has prompted such heated internet discussion, forcing Brangelina to issue a press release answering questions about the obvious gap in Shiloh's smile. Most people think Shiloh is too young to start losing teeth, so most of the web is settled on the idea that Zahara either clocked her in the face or she has been eating skittles for breakfast.
Speaking of half-pint celebs, Suri Cruise is not only a style maven for other three year olds, her mother, Katie Holmes points to Suri as her inspiration for her new fashion line she is launching with her stylist Jeanne Yang: "It has been my dream forever to be in fashion and I'm truly inspired by my daughter Suri. She just loves dressing up so I decided to launch this exciting venture with Jeanne." Um, let's just hope that her new line doesn't include sparkly shell shaped handbags or kitten heels.
Oh, and Nicole Richie has snapped back into her size zeros in just under 2 weeks. Ho Hum.
Showing posts with label obstetrics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obstetrics. Show all posts
This and that!
OMG. You are probably so cross with me for disappearing for a week without warning. Well, let me tell you, it's been one busy week for me and pretty slow week for pregnancy news. I'll save the details for another day and get on with what I do best. Here is a smattering of things on my radar:
So, I'm amused to see the US News and World Report's 7 Strategies for a Successful Maternity Leave. What I find particularly funny (or perhaps ironic?) is that strategising about your maternity leave is really only necessary when you actually have maternity leave. Even more amusing is the tip to 'Find Good Child Care' while you are on maternity leave. If any woman here in Melbourne actually waited until her baby was actually born to work on childcare, no one would have care until the kid was three. Ladies here get on the waiting lists at the first whiff of pregnancy.
And if this isn't a cautionary tale, I don't know what is, in spite of the researcher's warning that the research should not be used to prevent women from choosing to terminate their pregnancies. I can just see the pro-life lobby falling over themselves to find a way to use this new 'risk' to challenge choice.
Australian obs are pissed off with Health Minister Nicola Roxon after accusations that they have been raising their fees as much as 20% by taking advantage of the existing Medicare safety net. Come January, however, Roxon is cutting them off when Medicare refunds are capped. According to new reports, the increase in charges helped turn obstetricians into millionaires with the highest earning 10 per cent of obstetricians now earning $1.8 million a year - $1.1 million of which comes from Medicare. Perhaps another reason to go with a midwife!
And finally, while I'm happy that Kim Clijsters made such a spectacular 'comeback' to tennis this week winning the US Open, I'm annoyed (again) that the fact that she is a mother somehow makes this astonishing victory more astonishing. Clijsters is a great player; why are our expectations so low for women when they rebound from motherhood?
So, I'm amused to see the US News and World Report's 7 Strategies for a Successful Maternity Leave. What I find particularly funny (or perhaps ironic?) is that strategising about your maternity leave is really only necessary when you actually have maternity leave. Even more amusing is the tip to 'Find Good Child Care' while you are on maternity leave. If any woman here in Melbourne actually waited until her baby was actually born to work on childcare, no one would have care until the kid was three. Ladies here get on the waiting lists at the first whiff of pregnancy.
And if this isn't a cautionary tale, I don't know what is, in spite of the researcher's warning that the research should not be used to prevent women from choosing to terminate their pregnancies. I can just see the pro-life lobby falling over themselves to find a way to use this new 'risk' to challenge choice.
Australian obs are pissed off with Health Minister Nicola Roxon after accusations that they have been raising their fees as much as 20% by taking advantage of the existing Medicare safety net. Come January, however, Roxon is cutting them off when Medicare refunds are capped. According to new reports, the increase in charges helped turn obstetricians into millionaires with the highest earning 10 per cent of obstetricians now earning $1.8 million a year - $1.1 million of which comes from Medicare. Perhaps another reason to go with a midwife!
And finally, while I'm happy that Kim Clijsters made such a spectacular 'comeback' to tennis this week winning the US Open, I'm annoyed (again) that the fact that she is a mother somehow makes this astonishing victory more astonishing. Clijsters is a great player; why are our expectations so low for women when they rebound from motherhood?
Standing up is better for labour
"A review of 21 studies involving almost 4,000 women concludes there is no risk to pregnant women from standing up when they start the delivery process and it may actually be harmful to lie flat."
Duh! Midwives and homebirthers have been saying this forever. The only reason women have been encouraged to lie down with their legs up (the lithotomy position) historically is because doctors it helped early obstetricians to see women's bits. Laying down works against gravity whereas walking around, squatting and standing help move things along. If you have an epidural, obviously, you have to lie down but it also raises your risk of having a caesar.
Read more: Taking a stand
Duh! Midwives and homebirthers have been saying this forever. The only reason women have been encouraged to lie down with their legs up (the lithotomy position) historically is because doctors it helped early obstetricians to see women's bits. Laying down works against gravity whereas walking around, squatting and standing help move things along. If you have an epidural, obviously, you have to lie down but it also raises your risk of having a caesar.
Read more: Taking a stand
Midwifery, vindicated at last?!
According to an international review of maternity services, women who are cared for by midwives rather than GPs or obstetricians are less likely to lose their babies within the first six months of their pregnancies.
In a huge analysis of 12,000 women in 4 countries, researchers argue that women who were supported by midwives were much less anxious than those treated by other health care providers. As a result, they experienced fewer miscarriages.
Obstetricians are unsurprisingly annoyed with the findings.
The best part of the study?
Women being looked after by midwives were less likely to be admitted to hospital during pregnancy, episiotomies or require pain medication and were more likely to have vaginal births, feel in control during labour and better able to initiate breastfeeding.
As the most comprehensive study of this kind ever, the analysis also showed there was no significant difference between the women who were looked after by midwives or obstetricians when it came to foetal deaths after six months gestation, length of labour, induction, intervention, premature births and admissions to neonatal intensive care units.
For all the midwives out there, go on...say it....
WE TOLD YOU SO.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/3mb4k9
In a huge analysis of 12,000 women in 4 countries, researchers argue that women who were supported by midwives were much less anxious than those treated by other health care providers. As a result, they experienced fewer miscarriages.
Obstetricians are unsurprisingly annoyed with the findings.
The best part of the study?
Women being looked after by midwives were less likely to be admitted to hospital during pregnancy, episiotomies or require pain medication and were more likely to have vaginal births, feel in control during labour and better able to initiate breastfeeding.
As the most comprehensive study of this kind ever, the analysis also showed there was no significant difference between the women who were looked after by midwives or obstetricians when it came to foetal deaths after six months gestation, length of labour, induction, intervention, premature births and admissions to neonatal intensive care units.
For all the midwives out there, go on...say it....
WE TOLD YOU SO.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/3mb4k9
Pregnant mannequin that actually bleeds!
If you have ever wondered how obstetricians learn how to deliver babies, allow me to introduce you to 'Noelle', the pregnant woman simulator. For a mere $45,000 obstetric residents can practice birthing in a number of different situations. 'Noelle' can give birth normally, breech, and by C-section, and she can exhibit symptoms of having medical conditions such as diabetes and pregnancy-related emergencies such as seizures from eclampsia. Fake blood spurts from a reservoir in her leg. Oh, and her simu-baby is named 'Hal' and he is propelled down the birth canal by hydraulics and even turns blue to replicate oxygen loss...
Fat and Pregnant
I don't know about you but I'm pretty sick of reading about obesity. Australia was recently crowned the 'Fattest Nation' just edging out the United States and let me tell you, every second article in the papers lately is about the 'ticking timebomb' of fatness.
It comes as no surprise then that there is now a new genre of obstetric care emerging to accommodate pregnant women who are more generously proportioned. A new Centre for Bariatric Obstetric Care is opening in Ann Arbor, Michigan outfitted with special equipment to 'manage' the pregnancies of morbidly obese women.
Contrary to what seems to be logical, obese pregnant women are advised not to gain any weight at all during pregnancy, and instead, are encouraged to lose weight. Whilst it is clear that there is an impressive list of legitimate risks associated with obesity and pregnancy outcomes, one gynecologist has noted that pregnancy is effectively 'obesity's ground zero'. If anyone else has noticed, a range of headlines lately have been about how eating junk food, for example, in pregnancy can causes 'irreparable' lifelong damage to foetuses, predisposing them to being overweight by the age of 3. Now, it seems, it is okay to blame overweight women for obesity in the next generation. This is worrying. As much as fat is something that has come to be feared, my concern is that 'fat' has come to be a scapegoat for the privileging of foetal rights over maternal rights. For a while it was just women who smoked and drank that were blamed for foetal abuse, will having an extra piece of cake now carry the same moral weight?
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/magazine/13wwln-essay-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
It comes as no surprise then that there is now a new genre of obstetric care emerging to accommodate pregnant women who are more generously proportioned. A new Centre for Bariatric Obstetric Care is opening in Ann Arbor, Michigan outfitted with special equipment to 'manage' the pregnancies of morbidly obese women.
Contrary to what seems to be logical, obese pregnant women are advised not to gain any weight at all during pregnancy, and instead, are encouraged to lose weight. Whilst it is clear that there is an impressive list of legitimate risks associated with obesity and pregnancy outcomes, one gynecologist has noted that pregnancy is effectively 'obesity's ground zero'. If anyone else has noticed, a range of headlines lately have been about how eating junk food, for example, in pregnancy can causes 'irreparable' lifelong damage to foetuses, predisposing them to being overweight by the age of 3. Now, it seems, it is okay to blame overweight women for obesity in the next generation. This is worrying. As much as fat is something that has come to be feared, my concern is that 'fat' has come to be a scapegoat for the privileging of foetal rights over maternal rights. For a while it was just women who smoked and drank that were blamed for foetal abuse, will having an extra piece of cake now carry the same moral weight?
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/magazine/13wwln-essay-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
A tour de force of birth
I finally saw On The Business of Being Born (OTBOBB). Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein have created a film that will make you experience what feels like a lifetime of emotions in the short span of 85 minutes. Navigating the streets of New York with a lone midwife on a mission to bring birth back into the home, OTBOBB draws on the experiences of pregnant women as they navigate the bureacracy of the American maternity system. In between providing a brief history of medicalised birth, the most profound and ultimately moving feature of this film is the up close and very personal view of birth---something which most women have never witnessed until their own. Babies are born throughout this film in some of the most humbling and beautiful footage I have seen on the subject to date.
Whilst the American and Australian maternity are relatively similar, the glaring lack of midwives in the American system is where the cracks in the foundation begin to show. The overwhelming use of 'pit' or pitocin in New York hospitals where an astounding 90% of births are induced is the trigger for the cascade of interventions to which American women are subject in contemporary maternity wards.
Thus, it is easy to see how the production of oxytocin, the naturally occurring hormone in women's bodies that triggers birth and is also described as a 'love' hormone to help with bonding when the baby is born, is stifled in this environment. The use of 'pit' or syntocinin (in Australia) is a synthetic form of oxytocin. However, when women are induced with this synthetic form of oxytocin, contractions are much stronger. When contractions are stronger, there is more pain and it is no wonder that the obstetric residents in certain NY hospitals were shoving epidurals in womens' spines as soon as the pain started to increase. However, epidurals slow labour right down. Ironic, eh? Women are induced to speed labour up in order to keep more beds open and the turn-over high in American hospitals. Yet, induction = pain = epidural. This slows labour down and puts baby at a higher risk for complications. The naturally occuring oxytocin? Replaced with adrenalin, the 'fight-or-flight' hormone which is produced when women are afraid or feel unsafe. No natural endorphins, no oxytocin. Just fear, shame and 'failure'. And you know what happens next? Caesarean. NY state hospitals have some of the highest caesar rates in America, hovering at 46%. Birth centres are closing faster every day due to the daily battles against insurance companies, rising costs and the inability to compete with hospitals. Homebirths? Only 1% of all births in America.
OTBOBB portrays modern birth as a battle being waged on women's bodies. There are no 'choices' when birth is left in the hands of 'experts' and midwives are nowhere to be found. Australian women are lucky in the respect that 'normal' birth is largely left up to midwives. However, the intervention rate is still extremely high in Australia and there is a growing lack of trained midwives available to all of the women that need them. Hospitals are increasingly reluctant to hire midwives because it is a competition for their obstetric business. Moreover, private midwifery care is rarely covered by insurance but this is most likely changing.
I had chills watching this movie. There were times when I felt so angry watching women in hospital being moved around like cattle, being told they had to be induced without any information provided to them as to the risks of the procedures being performed on their bodies. Informed consent is pretty much non-existent in the American system. America has one of the worst infant and maternal mortality rates in the world despite being one of the richest countries. Why? Birth has been taken out of the hands of women and their bodies are used to line the pockets of insurance companies, hospitals and obstetricians who don't care about the process but only about the product. As long as a baby comes out alive, it doesn't matter how it got there.
YOU MUST SEE THIS MOVIE.
NOW.
YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.
Whilst the American and Australian maternity are relatively similar, the glaring lack of midwives in the American system is where the cracks in the foundation begin to show. The overwhelming use of 'pit' or pitocin in New York hospitals where an astounding 90% of births are induced is the trigger for the cascade of interventions to which American women are subject in contemporary maternity wards.
Thus, it is easy to see how the production of oxytocin, the naturally occurring hormone in women's bodies that triggers birth and is also described as a 'love' hormone to help with bonding when the baby is born, is stifled in this environment. The use of 'pit' or syntocinin (in Australia) is a synthetic form of oxytocin. However, when women are induced with this synthetic form of oxytocin, contractions are much stronger. When contractions are stronger, there is more pain and it is no wonder that the obstetric residents in certain NY hospitals were shoving epidurals in womens' spines as soon as the pain started to increase. However, epidurals slow labour right down. Ironic, eh? Women are induced to speed labour up in order to keep more beds open and the turn-over high in American hospitals. Yet, induction = pain = epidural. This slows labour down and puts baby at a higher risk for complications. The naturally occuring oxytocin? Replaced with adrenalin, the 'fight-or-flight' hormone which is produced when women are afraid or feel unsafe. No natural endorphins, no oxytocin. Just fear, shame and 'failure'. And you know what happens next? Caesarean. NY state hospitals have some of the highest caesar rates in America, hovering at 46%. Birth centres are closing faster every day due to the daily battles against insurance companies, rising costs and the inability to compete with hospitals. Homebirths? Only 1% of all births in America.
OTBOBB portrays modern birth as a battle being waged on women's bodies. There are no 'choices' when birth is left in the hands of 'experts' and midwives are nowhere to be found. Australian women are lucky in the respect that 'normal' birth is largely left up to midwives. However, the intervention rate is still extremely high in Australia and there is a growing lack of trained midwives available to all of the women that need them. Hospitals are increasingly reluctant to hire midwives because it is a competition for their obstetric business. Moreover, private midwifery care is rarely covered by insurance but this is most likely changing.
I had chills watching this movie. There were times when I felt so angry watching women in hospital being moved around like cattle, being told they had to be induced without any information provided to them as to the risks of the procedures being performed on their bodies. Informed consent is pretty much non-existent in the American system. America has one of the worst infant and maternal mortality rates in the world despite being one of the richest countries. Why? Birth has been taken out of the hands of women and their bodies are used to line the pockets of insurance companies, hospitals and obstetricians who don't care about the process but only about the product. As long as a baby comes out alive, it doesn't matter how it got there.
YOU MUST SEE THIS MOVIE.
NOW.
YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.
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