Inductions?

she was estimated to be 8.5 lbs on every ultrasound, even the higher resolution one the neonatologist performed. I had been experiencing pre-term labor and had suffered through dozens of tests to determine her maturity and readiness to be outside the womb. I was measuring several weeks ahead, even though I had been charting and knew when she had been conceived they would not listen to me. all baby girls in my extended family weigh under 6lbs (until my second daughter was born weighing almost 7lbs, breaking all family records). She weighed 5lb6oz at birth (average size for a baby girl in my family, actually), losing down to 4lb2oz at her smallest because of the feeding problems. It was not a scheduled induction. I was induced because my water broke, and I went to the hospital instead of staying home, and because my good doctor was not on call that weekend and the on-call doc has a 60% cesarean rate. He apparently uses cytotec on everyone. She had perfect apgar scores, even though her heartrate dropped to ten beats per minute because of the hypertonic contractions the cytotec caused me to have. Every single one of the complications to me and my child can be attributed to the meds I was given in the hospital. That much is fact. That much is written in black and white on the package insert sheets that come with the meds that I had to find online because they wouldn't give them to me at the time in the hospital. It's no theory. If it weren't proven beyond a doubt, the drug manufacturer would never print it out for anyone to read.

 

wait, I do have the stats from The Farm study. I gave them to my OB when he was concerned about me having my vbac there...



http://www.thefarm.org/charities/mid.html

and www.pubmed.com has at least abstracts of the studies regarding the risks of using induction meds, with links to the whole study in most cases, just do a search for whichever particular med is in question. If you search google for those same medications, you can find the package inserts and patient info sheets, probably as pdf files. The risks are very real, and just as Maggie described and more. There are more risks, up to and including maternal demise, especially when it comes to the particular induction med I was given.

another good source of information that doctors don't want to tell you would be www.gentlebirth.org
I was lucky in that my OB wanted me to educate myself and make my own decisions. Unfortunately, most doctors hate it when you question their authority rather than believe everything they say without question. The law gives us the right to make informed decisions, but we cannot possibly do that if we are not informed nor given a choice in the matter. Somehow patient's rights no longer exist in many hospitals in the US.

 

Amen, Boogiemama. Cytotec has NO place in birth. It has an X classification "for use in pregnancy." Which means it should not be used on a pregnant womyn, no matter what. "Ripens the cervix" we are told. Hardly. The numbers of ruptured uterui and torn cervixes increase dramatically with a "Cyto" birth.

Case in point..... We've just seen this, here, of all places.