You'd be amazed how little some medical techniques used in birth were studies before they were introduced and how poorly they performed once they were actually exposed to scientific scrutiny. Epistotomy was introduced routinely into many maternity hospitals with no scientific study of it's value. Once it was exposed to scientific scrutiny it was found that it's actually harmful in all but a small proportion of emergency situations. The majority of the time if a woman as allowed to tear naturally the tear will heal more quickly and better than a epistotomy would. Even after this has been shown, women are still being cut by their obstetricians for no good reason.
I'm not interested in low intervention birth because I'm some hippy who trusts homeopathy and snake oil rather than science. I'm interested in low intervention birth because scientific studies have shown that the methods being used by a lot of obstetricians are not the methods most likely to lead to good outcomes for mother and child. Here is a statement by the Royal College
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I dunno. It seems to me that if OBGYNs were capable of performing home maternity care, then they could make a lot more money for themselves doing that, while still ending up charging women less (because of a lack of hospital fees). Why aren't they doing this? It'd keep them busy and keep them with a source of income.
Even more interestingly they do not bother to site any scientific studies to support their opposition in their statement instead relying upon what appear to be quite crude scare tactics.If, "You should do it in a hospital to have easy access to emergency care in case you need it" is a scare tactic then so be it. But it seems to me a pretty salient reason to have it done in a hospital. I do not agree with hospitals forcing procedures down a patients' throat simply because it garners more money (I'm assuming an epistotomy is a Caesarian, I can't find a definition anywhere offhand), but as far as I know that's sort of illegal in the United States if the doctor cannot properly assess the risk of alternate procedures for a
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My objection to your original comment was that you implied that the only reason to favour low intervention birth was superstition.
I'm sorry if I implied that. In my experience, that's just the most common reason. I have talked to people before about hospital care pushing dangerous surgeries because they are expensive and wanting a home birth for that reason, and that's valid.
Let me, for a second, bring in some quotes from your article:
"2.5 A proportion of women who plan a home birth are transferred to hospital ,9,13,14,19 most commonly for slow progress or needing pain relief not available at home, such as epidural anaesthesia. The most serious reasons for transfer are maternal haemorrhage, concerns about fetal wellbeing and the neonate born in an unexpectedly poor condition. Delay in transfer under these circumstances may have serious consequences. Owing to poor collection of maternity data, the comparative statistics for women being transferred in labour are unclear."2.2 Randomised controlled trials to assess the safety of
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looking at the RCOG's statement, they actually say that randomized controlled trials aren't possible, and therefore no firm conclusion on home birth safety can be reached. They point out that there's no data available on homebirth outcomes where the women are rushed to the hospital for complications. (reading between the lines of their statement, it looks like the only numbers they have are pure homebirth vs. hospital, and the "hospital" numbers include the situations where women rushed to the hospital after homebirth complications
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I'm not interested in low intervention birth because I'm some hippy who trusts homeopathy and snake oil rather than science. I'm interested in low intervention birth because scientific studies have shown that the methods being used by a lot of obstetricians are not the methods most likely to lead to good outcomes for mother and child. Here is a statement by the Royal College ( ... )
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Even more interestingly they do not bother to site any scientific studies to support their opposition in their statement instead relying upon what appear to be quite crude scare tactics.If, "You should do it in a hospital to have easy access to emergency care in case you need it" is a scare tactic then so be it. But it seems to me a pretty salient reason to have it done in a hospital. I do not agree with hospitals forcing procedures down a patients' throat simply because it garners more money (I'm assuming an epistotomy is a Caesarian, I can't find a definition anywhere offhand), but as far as I know that's sort of illegal in the United States if the doctor cannot properly assess the risk of alternate procedures for a ( ... )
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I'm sorry if I implied that. In my experience, that's just the most common reason. I have talked to people before about hospital care pushing dangerous surgeries because they are expensive and wanting a home birth for that reason, and that's valid.
Let me, for a second, bring in some quotes from your article:
"2.5 A proportion of women who plan a home birth are transferred to hospital ,9,13,14,19 most commonly for slow progress or needing pain relief not available at home, such as epidural anaesthesia. The most serious reasons for transfer are maternal haemorrhage, concerns about fetal wellbeing and the neonate born in an unexpectedly poor condition. Delay in transfer under these circumstances may have serious consequences. Owing to poor collection of maternity data, the comparative statistics for women being transferred in labour are unclear."2.2 Randomised controlled trials to assess the safety of ( ... )
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