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Archive for the ‘Pregnancy’ Category

TIPS ON CHOOSING A CAREGIVER – Childbirth Connection

Subjects covered in this article:
** Why is choosing a caregiver one of the most important maternity decisions I will make?
** How will my choice of caregiver influence where I can give birth?
** What are important considerations when choosing a maternity caregiver?
** What are some insufficient reasons for choosing a caregiver?
** How do types of caregivers differ from one another?
** What if I change my mind and want to switch to another caregiver?

I find that when it comes to birth this is the area that women seem to jump in without really considering what they want. Some are lucky and get exactly the care they hoped for, others feel all their birth-wants are a fight, or feel pushed (sometimes gently and others with a hard shove) into the direction they were not wanting. So many of the latter then feel trapped out of dependency with a wrong caregiver who does not feel the same in return.
Changing a caregiver in pregnancy is a very scary prospect to have to deal with when all you want is consistency, refuge from the inevitable fear and safety in the care you receive for you and your child.

I like everyone else went to the obstetrician I had been to for previously, I never thought much further than I am ‘comfortable’ with him. I never considered whether he would be comfortable with the birth I wanted!
Luckily he was totally upfront when I said I wanted a waterbirth, by saying he does not do them but he would refer me to a good midwife – that in itself made me feel properly cared for. There was no judgement, or trying to talk me out of it, just upfront honesty as to how he chose to practice. He was still my back up caregiver so we went to him for those checkups that required scans or that the midwife requested a 2nd opinion.
When choosing the midwife I was just as blasé and simply went with the first of the 2 numbers he gave me, luckily it was the best lucky-pick for me.
With experience though and hearing so many stories from others that did not work out so well I have come to realise this is really the first area we should concentrate all our energy rather than focussing on which baby accessories we feel we need.

Your caregiver is the person who supports you when you feel most vulnerable and in need of someone to put your best interests first.

The cause of autism has been pinned on everything from “emotionally remote” mothers (since discredited) to vaccines, genetics, immunological disorders, environmental toxins and maternal infections. Today most researchers theorize that autism is caused by a complex interplay of genetics and environmental triggers. A far simpler possibility worthy of investigation is the pervasive use of prenatal ultrasound, which can cause potentially dangerous thermal effects.

Health practitioners involved in prenatal care have reason to be concerned about the use of ultrasound. Although proponents point out that ultrasound has been used in obstetrics for 50 years and early studies indicated it was safe for both mother and child, enough research has implicated it in neurodevelopmental disorders to warrant serious attention.

At a 1982 World Health Organization (WHO) meeting sponsored by the International Radiation Protection Association (IRPA) and other organizations, an international group of experts reported that “[t]here are several frequently quoted studies that claim to show that exposure to ultrasound in utero does not cause any significant abnormalities in the offspring. … However, these studies can be criticized on several grounds, including the lack of a control population and/or inadequate sample size, and exposure after the period of major organogenesis; this invalidates their conclusions….”

Early studies showed that subtle effects of neurological damage linked to ultrasound were implicated by an increased incidence in left-handedness in boys (a marker for brain problems when not hereditary) and speech delays. Then in August 2006, Pasko Rakic, chair of Yale School of Medicine’s Department of Neurobiology, announced the results of a study in which pregnant mice underwent various durations of ultrasound. The brains of the offspring showed damage consistent with that found in the brains of people with autism. The research, funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, also implicated ultrasound in neurodevelopmental problems in children, such as dyslexia, epilepsy, mental retardation and schizophrenia, and showed that damage to brain cells increased with longer exposures.

Dr. Rakic’s study, which expanded on prior research with similar results in 2004, is just one of many animal experiments and human studies conducted over the years indicating that prenatal ultrasound can be harmful to babies. While some questions remain unanswered, based on available information, health practitioners must seriously consider the possible consequences of both routine and diagnostic use of ultrasound, as well as electronic fetal heart monitors, which may be neither non-invasive nor safe. If pregnant women knew all the facts, would they choose to expose their unborn children to a technology that—despite its increasingly entrenched position in modern obstetrics—has little or no proven benefit?

— Caroline Rodgers
Excerpted from “Questions about Prenatal Ultrasound and the Alarming Increase in Autism,” Midwifery Today, Issue 80
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Read the full article on our Web site at: Midwifery Today

What are your thoughts – is it something you have heard of or thought about, does it make you reconsider scans or at least how many scans you have? Have we in true human fashion started using to our detriment a medical tool which was created to be used in emergencies or only when necessary and made it the norm for their convenience and our ‘fun’? Why do we have scans every visit here in SA and do we have a choice in how the obstetricians examine us (not should we but DO we)?

I had 2-3 scans both pregnancies (the visits I was at the gynae) – it was what he did and I did not question it. It was nice I suppose in some superficial ways but I never really got a thrill from seeing that little blur on the screen – now the first time i heard their heart beat at the midwife it all became real — there is no better sound than that amazing gallop of your babies heart beat.

I don’t see scans as necessary on a routine basis, in general the scan could tell me no more about my baby than what my midwife could through more hands on examination. (I never wanted to find out my babies gender pre-birth. That was their special secret and surprise to keep till they arrived).

I never really thought of the dangers of the scans to our babies at the time and I did appreciate the last scans before the birth which in the one indicated a few minor complications and the second set my mind at ease that all was perfect for going weeks longer -but I did feel it made the examination rather impersonal and rushed in comparison to those I had with our midwife. Not sure what I would have done had I known of these concerns prior to my pregnancies – maybe I would have still gone the same route … I dont know.