Induction

[RaeRaeMama]

Why is nobody talking about how medicalised the NHS has made birth?

I didn't know the shit storm I was walking into when I got pregnant with my first. I think a lot of the treatment of women is absolutely disgusting and I cannot understand why we are all letting it continue.

@RaeRaeMama Some people need the medical intervention though 🤔 Did you have a particularly hard time with your first? Or do you just feel like you didn’t have the knowledge about what was going on?

Because it's solely a women's issue and they aren't popular or important to men who tend to be in positions to make changes.

I think maternity and post natal care clearly need a lot more money and to be more woman centred. Having said that, there is a need for some element of a medical process - tests, scans, monitoring of bp, foetal heartbeat etc are all totally reasonable things to do.

Women are talking about it, though it closes tonight you might be interested in this OP.

Government Women’s Health Consultation www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4186491-Government-Women-s-Health-Consultation

Maternity care was totally women-led until two things happened: the invention of forceps (by a French man IIRC) and the use of chloroform (aka Twilight Birth) for pain relief.

The inventor of forceps kept the details of his invention secret, and only wealthy people could afford his services, which made this intervention socially respectable.

Similarly, Queen Victoria's use of chloroform during childbirth gave it social acceptance.

Both of these developments were driven by men who kept a ' close shop' with other medical colleagues - all male, of course. And both of these developments require the labouring woman to labour on her back. Until then women had laboured and given birth in up right positions.

So these developments, while otherwise helpful for women in labour, changed her support by women to instruction by men, while simultaneously putting her into the most vulnerable and unhelpful position.

@RaeRaeMama

Why is nobody talking about how medicalised the NHS has made birth?

I didn't know the shit storm I was walking into when I got pregnant with my first. I think a lot of the treatment of women is absolutely disgusting and I cannot understand why we are all letting it continue.

But it’s been made medicalised in response to evidence such as Saving Babies Lives report….to try and reduce the number of still births/morbidity. An opposite arguement could be that if the evidence wasn’t responded to (or not gathered in the first place) then that would be a major women’s issue of women’s needs being ignored.

With the new Nice IOL guidelines if they get approved things will get worse from an induction point of view. There is already a bit of a push back against this as some midwives are saying it’s too medicalised.

But how do you draw a balance. On one hand it seems more intervention for some will save their unborn child. But it will also for a larger number of women increase their intervention and result in more sections, instrumental births, pph, epidurals, etc. I certainly think there needs to be more of a conversation and informed choice surrounding induction.

Also Milli Hill wrote a book about it - “give birth like a feminist”. There are other books too, “Birth without violence” is an old one but perhaps still relevant. Anything by Ina May Gaskin, Michel Odent, Sheila Kitzinger.

Try the website of Sara Wickham for up date research on interventions.

What’s your preferred alternative for women with hypertension or other complications, would it be better if they got ill, or worse, because that’s more natural? What about their babies? There are lots of people talking about more natural birth, I heard nothing but “natural is best” during my pregnancy. The Royal College of Midwives agree with you. If you had a traumatic birth or felt disrespected you can ask for counselling or give feedback to your birth team, it is well worth it. Maybe consider a doula for your next birth if you don’t have a birth partner who is a strong advocate for your preferences? But please, please think about the implications of what you are asking for, for those women and their babies who do need medical help. I hope you find ways to channel your anger into the right places without hurting others (responding to that consultation sounds like a great idea), and I hope your next birth, if you are planning one, is more what you had hoped for.

The NHS is not quite as bad as some places for medicalised birth. Privatised systems naturally favour intervention as they are profit driven. However I agree that we could certainly improve things in the NHS regarding evidence based, woman centred care. I agree wholeheartedly with a lot of what Milli Hill says in her book, it is well worth a read.

I had a shit medicalised hospital birth first time round, then read Kitzinger's Birth Your Way and cried as I realised it was entirely unnecessary. I then had an independent midwife - the same at every antenatal appointment, labour and part natal visits. And there were lots of AN and PN visits. I felt totally supported and at ease. After the first birth i was in so much physical pain as well as mental. I was so angry at DH for not supporting me. It was barbaric and the post natal care was dangerously dire. After my IM births I could have run a marathon I'm really not into hippy stuff but the female support - including all the information passed on- during pregnancy from the IM made it all possible.

[quote KM38]@RaeRaeMama Some people need the medical intervention though 🤔 Did you have a particularly hard time with your first? Or do you just feel like you didn’t have the knowledge about what was going on?[/quote]
No I didn't, because I used my savings and hired a private midwife so I had more control over what happened. But I was very pressured for my baby being "late"

@CovidCorvid

I would argue that the interventions cause more harm than good

I read yesterday that in the past 16 years induction and interventions have increased but still birth rates have not fallen

I agree that a good midwife is key also for getting over a less-than-ideal birth.

@DaisiesandButtercups

Yes I read Give birth like a feminist in my first trimester and I've read Sara Wickham's Inducing Labour

I am so sorry OP that you had such an awful experience

You are right a lot of the treatment of women is disgusting and we should not let it continue.

@Forgotthebins

Perhaps if the NHS weren't trying to induce the majority of women with healthy babies and no complications, then they could focus their energies on mothers and their babies that really need close monitoring

My water's broke but labour never fully established, so I had to be induced. It all ended with an EMCS because my baby's heart rate was dropping. He had the cord wrapped around his neck. It was very medical but we're both alive and grateful for the NHS.

I don't really understand the point of your post. If anything I think we ought to be examining the pressures placed on women (including by various hypnobirthers) to have a non-medicalised birth when this is often not the appropriate route. They sell you on these ideas of using a birthing pool which is actually only suitable for a small proportion of women.

@Forgotthebins

Also, I had a very positive birth. The only parts of my pregnancy that were ruined were by the NHS trying to pigeon hole me.

I am upset and disgusted on behalf of other women, particularly first time mothers who go into this thinking they can trust the medical professionals to give them the facts so they can make an informed decision. When actually they can't.

@FricasseeTurnips

I had a shit medicalised hospital birth first time round, then read Kitzinger's Birth Your Way and cried as I realised it was entirely unnecessary. I then had an independent midwife - the same at every antenatal appointment, labour and part natal visits. And there were lots of AN and PN visits. I felt totally supported and at ease. After the first birth i was in so much physical pain as well as mental. I was so angry at DH for not supporting me. It was barbaric and the post natal care was dangerously dire. After my IM births I could have run a marathon I'm really not into hippy stuff but the female support - including all the information passed on- during pregnancy from the IM made it all possible.

Yes because if women were given one consistent midwife from start to finish then they would be able to have more individualised care

@DaisiesandButtercups

I didn't have a bad birth

If you back decades further before induction was more common stillbirth and maternal rates were higher. Medicine, labour, birth aren't exact sciences there is so much we still don't know and can't control.

Yes more can be done in the UK to reduce stillbirth and MAMA - Mums and Midwives Academy is helping change things.

I had 4 inductions for being overdue, I waited to +17 for one and tbh my placenta was manky and thick meconium in my waters, I think I made the right decision not to wait longer.

Just so I understand @RaeRaeMama.

You had a positive birth.

You had the resources to leave the NHS and pay for a private midwife who by the sounds of it supported you to make the decision you wanted.

But you felt the NHS pigeonholed you.

So now medical help at birth is wrong?

@YourSexNotGenderIsOnFire

My water's broke but labour never fully established, so I had to be induced. It all ended with an EMCS because my baby's heart rate was dropping. He had the cord wrapped around his neck. It was very medical but we're both alive and grateful for the NHS.

I don't really understand the point of your post. If anything I think we ought to be examining the pressures placed on women (including by various hypnobirthers) to have a non-medicalised birth when this is often not the appropriate route. They sell you on these ideas of using a birthing pool which is actually only suitable for a small proportion of women.

Why do you think this?

Why was your baby in distress? Did you have an infection following you waters breaking or was it because of the drugs used to induce you which are known to cause distress to the baby?

Amen, OP.
Giving in to the bullying around IOL is the worst mistake I have ever made.

NICE etc are not looking at the whole picture. The first year post-partum is the time in a woman's life when she is most likely to commit suicide. If we were trying to reduce mortality we would balance how heavily medicalised births are a risk factor for post-partum depression with the medical risks around not inducing. But we're not, because the life of a foetus is more valuable to us as a society than that of a grown woman.

Its not such much that birth is medicalised its the way that you are told that this is whats going to happen.

For me, I was told that I would be induced at 40 weeks, because that's what they did for mothers over 40. At no point was it presented as an option, just thats what was going to happen.

@Forgotthebins

I used my savings to pay a private midwife to help me because I was having a poor experience with the NHS , and yeah, I was fortunate enough to do that.

I had a positive birth because I spent my pregnancy researching and reading so that I could make informed decisions throughout about mine and my child's health

My point is not that medicine shouldn't be used, but used when appropriate and that we should be improving our maternity services to help women so that it isn't considered the norm that birth is dangerous for everybody. Because it's not.