(Untitled)

[bhakti]

Home-birthers have been saying this for ages, but the scientific community just caught up: telling women when to push during labor is unnecessary, and may cause problemsA couple of recent studies have found that the classic hospital model of labor-coaching, where a medical professional urgently tells a laboring woman to push at certain times, may

Comments

[queenrose24]

I hope before the rest of us gets pregnant. Fingers cross that is will happen before R goes in.

[water_childe]

So how long do you suppose it will take before medical institutions start putting this advice into action?

Honestly? Not before way too many *more* women get hurt. I've never had a much faith in medical institutions. I'd say at least a year, and possibly much much more, I'm sad to say. :(

[merlin_v12]

Wait a second, the hospitals will need to run this by their lawyers, and then the insurance companies and HMOs will need their legal staff to review it along with their actuaries and bean counters, to make sure it's cost-effective. And maybe at some point a doctor or somebody will have a look too, but that's not really necessary.
=)

[bratling]

...and HMOs ...

you may be surprised to hear that HMO's have actually been the cause of reducing common patient problems by educating doctors and nurses. it's pretty simple: if education can save you money, then spend money on education, and after you do the education, you later spend less on the things that were a problem.

i tend to distrust HMOs, but they aren't automatically evil and out to get patients!

[nightrunner42]

A good couple of decades, at least. Sadly

[bess]

Actually, if left alone and unmedicated, often women don't really need to "push" at all. The baby will just be born -- it's the most natural and unavoidable thing in the world to let that baby out at the appropriate moment. Michel Odent calls it the "fetal ejection reflex" in his book _Birth Reborn_.

As an aside, I have to consciously stop myself from bearing down along with them when my clients are told to push when I'm attending a birth.