Homeopathy in Childbirth - objections from hospital midwife

[Rolf]

I have booked a doula for my (hopefully) imminent labour. We have been to see a homeopath together and plan for her to throw remedies in my mouth whilst I'm in labour.

I was told yesterday by a very reliable source (my hairdresser!!) that a friend of his recently delivered at the same hospital and when her doula started giving her homeopathic remedies, the midwife got very worked up and asked her to stop. I'm not sure whether or not she did, but the hospital is now undertaking an internal inquiry (whether generally or into this particular case, I'm not sure). The patient apparently was perfectly happy with her care from both the hospital and the doula so I think it's for the purposes of clarification rather than a big witch-hunt.

I'm slightly concerned that because of this there will be generally twitchy atmosphere about someone not employed by the trust giving a patient any sort of medication. I've added to my birth plan "I would like to use homeopathic remedies in labour and am happy for my doula to administer them". Do you think that's adequate or should I go further? Should I write out a list of the remedies I'm taking in with me, the name of the homeopath who dispensed them and a more sweeping waiver? Or is that the litigator in me speaking?

I have quick labours so won't be able to waste time debating with them. My doula is well-known at the hospital and I think will be very good at this sort of advocacy. And I have a good relationship with the hospital although as it's a big teaching hospital there's every chance that in labour I won't be looked after by anyone I know.

Any thoughts would be v welcome.

They're not bottles of water.

It IS water, though, isn't it? Plus one molecule of "remedy" or, okay, a whole cluster

PMSL @ "bottles of water"! Classic.

Nope

In fact I wouldn't use any liquid that had been opened years previously.

Perhaps the doctors in Romania work on the principal that their job is to help someone feel better. If homeopathy does that why would they argue with it. Better than making people feel worse which many conventional drugs do. According to this thread prozac is little more than placebo (or is it all placebo? Haven't really followed the prozac argument). At least people taking homeopathic remedies aren't risking psychosis as a side effect

Some UK doctors work on that concept of health as well. They tend to be very good doctors.

75% of people want more CAM available on the NHS. Medical students are now given the chance to learn about CAM during their training (at least they do at my local medical school).

This GP's surgery has been much praised for its integrated approach, because it is providing patients with access to therapies that they want. And they go away feeling better - without risking side effects. That's what matters to them -and ultimately is what should matter to doctors.

Er no I have never bought homeopathy in a liquid form. I have dissolved it in water occasionally to give, but rarely.

Sorry! feeding necessitating one handed typing hence brief replies. Water is involved in process, is tablet form (i.e. sucrose base) at consumer level though.

Agree with jimjams and FWIW, the Faculty of Homeopathy provide a booklet (free if you're interested!) listing all doctors, nurses, dentists providing homeopathy. Here. In the U.K.

JimJams - here's from your own linnk "The General Medical Council?s position has been clear for the past five years: It is open for any family doctor to employ a complementary therapist to offer NHS treatment his practice provided the doctor retains clinical responsibility and accountability." So it's the doctor keeping clinical responsibility and accountability. If someone asks for homeopathy and the doctor refers them they are very unlikely to sue (no side effects) and might get them off his back too. Win-win situation. As long as serious stuff has first been discounted or treated with conventional medicine, as treated by a doctor. Things which I agree with and have said so many posts back.

How do you compress diluted water to make tablets?

homeopathy in liquid form

Actually that's not a true homeopathic remedy - not in the sense that a homeopath would the word - as it uses a mix of remedies. You so get remedies such as secretin in liquid form but it is rare. I've never used one and it is not normal practice.

I don't think you're really that interested in how homeopathic remedies are made though are you?

Luckily I think many doctors are interested in patient's health rather than just 'getting them off their backs'.

My old GP noticed for example that carers had higher rates of attendance at his surgeries than none carers. So he set up a support group. I think his main aim was to improve carers health rather than get them off his back . Being a doctor and all that and good ones generally being interested in the health of their patients.

Jimjams - you have such a downer on conventional medicine. As a doctor (soon going back to practice, hurray) I am interested in people's health, including emotional wellbeing. I think a carers' group is a good idea, I do voluntary work for a children's charity and use it too, so I know how helpful that is. I would stop short of selling homeopathy, though.

So what I linked to isn't real homeopathy because it contains herbs. Whereas, of course, you trust that all the stuff from China or wherever is the real stuff, because the person selling it to you told you so.

Actually, we all know how 'homeopathic remedies' are made.

Take a teensy bit of toxic substance. Chuck it in an olympic swimming pool, stir.

Take jars out of that pool and chuck them in other, separate such pools. Repeat until you run out of swimming pools.

Then make sugar pills with that water, which by now is so diluted that it contains maybe one molecule of initial substance per swimming pool.

Make sugar pills with that water.

Sell to gullible open minded persons.

Voila!

So how are tablets made from water? As you can see, I generally read the links you post, as long as they're reputable.

CoteDAzur - you're right, I'd forgotten the active ingredient which is also the carrier for all that water. Could it be the sugar giving people a high?

I read recently that 60% of orthodox treatments have not been scientifically proven ....

I believe that we should be using 'Complementary medicine' ie not using an 'either/or' mentality but using all things available to us. Doctors should recommnend alternative therapies to their patients before suggesting things like steroids for example (something that happened to me recently) and also alternative therapists should send people to the doctor if they can see they can't help. All alternative medicine has a place IMO, as does 'orthodox' medicine (I don't go running off the the doctor every time my child has a sniffle, I will use other methods first but I won't go to my homeopath if I break my leg)

Dr Barbara Starfield gave some worrying statistics in the JAMA (July 26, 2000;284(4):483-5) : The third major cause of death in the US (after heart disease and cancer) is orthodox medical treatment, including unnecessary surgery, medication errors in hospitals, other errors in hospitals, infections in hospitals and the biggest killer: Non error, negative effects of drugs.

It's the psychological effect of believing that what you just took will have an effect.

There will always be demand for snake oil and its myriad reincarnations. People who believe in these products cannot be swayed by logic, any more than you can convince a true believer that religions are invented by man and God probably doesn't even exist.

Such is human nature. Sigh.

Cote, you missed out succession.... a wave machine maybe?

faculty of homeopathy and homeopathy trust

"I read recently that 60% of orthodox treatments have not been scientifically proven"

I don't know how the % is worked out (what is the denominator, how many orthodox treatments are there in the world for all diseases etc) but at least they have a scientific basis that could, presumably, be tested.

Ghosty - I took my DD1 to a paediatrician in Romania a couple of years ago. She had worms. She was only 1 and a bit and the paed prescribed some herbal stuff. Given my DD1 was so young, I thought that was an acceptable way to go. Side-effects from conventional treatment would have been worse than the pain of worms IMO. I'm not totally closed to the idea of complementary therapies, but it's homeopathy that really makes me go and

I don't have a downer on conventional medicine. I am wary of it because it destroyed my son's life. If you scroll back through this thread you will find I have commented on my excellent GP and ds1's current paed who is great. That's hardly a big downer. I like doctors who will discuss situations openly. Good ones do. When ds1 had a suspected broken ankle (couldn't be x-rayed) the very excellent A&E consultant talked us through the options, explained the difficulties and potential problems with each approach then left us to make the final decision - whilst reassuring us if we chose to do nothing (which we did) that we could change our mind at any time and he would ensure the notes were clear that he needed to be seen by a senior doctor and plastered immediately.

That - in my opinion- is good doctoring. Listening to patients, adjusting to individual circumstances and not sneering at people for using things that's haven't been through double blind trial. A previous GP has given ds2 a homeopathic remedy herself- she didn't 'sell' it to us.

I do think that conventional drugs require double blind trials because they come with major side effects in many cases. But that's not the case for many CAMs. Take another alternative approach that we've used with ds1. - Diet modification. 6 years ago we had to endure all sorts of raised eyebrows. Now, 6 years later the work is being done which is starting to explain the reasons that parents sometimes see the beneficial effect of diet. Very nice. It's all being published in peer review journals. But ds1 couldn't wait 6 years. I dread to think what state his head would be in if he'd been repeatedly hitting it on concrete for the last 6 years. So we looked, decided the risk of side effects was negligible and he has benefitted from that approach.

If something works for us (conventional or alternative) and if the side effects don't outweigh the benefits then I'll use it.

As for the medical profession. I have met some truly awful doctors. - I think most of us have. We all have our horror stories. Although increasingly these days I seem to meet good ones. They must be improving the training.

Why does homeopathy make you go I've linked to a study that shows that in one GPs surgery at least it saved the NHS money, it makes people feel better (whether through placebo or not- it makes people feel better) and it has no side effects.

Why would you rather shove someone full of a conventional drug if you can 'get them off your back' with a cheap safe alternative?

Hi ghosty. Have been meaning to email you for ages.

Was the herbal stuff tested? I wouldn't use herbal stuff without knowing that it had been tested properly, had a decent supplier and was being prescribed by someone who had studied herbalism properly etc.

Guess we're all different.

Jimjams - I know about your son's situation, it just seems you always, always have negative things to say about medicine and doctors. It gets a bit weary reading so many anti-medicine comments on MN.

How would you know if it was tested? How would you know how decent the supplier was? Maybe you Jimjams would look into it, in fact i'm sure you would now, but take the average person using all this stuff. You read about people saying "my best friend gave me something, i can't remember what it was" and so on. Totally, totally gullible. That does make me and

I wouldn't shove drugs down anyone w/o good reason. But I wouldn't prescribe homeopathy either. They can buy that on the high street w/o my endorsement.