I found the following important article about the damaging affects of Pitocin, a drug routinely used in hospital birthing by obstetricians for inductions and augmentation of labor. Pitocin is specifically only approved by the FDA when medically indicated. I have added an important note at the end of the article about the emotional and psychological affects of this drug, which is rarely talked about. Here is the web site at which I found the following article:

http://www.birthroutes.com/2010/05/pitocin-not-approved-by-the-fda-for-elective-or-nonmedical-inductions-.html

May 30, 2010 – Pitocin not approved by the FDA for elective (or non-medical inductions).

PITOCIN (oxytocin) Mnfr: MONARCH PHARMACEUTICALS, INC

PITOCIN has been approved by the FDA for the medical induction and stimulation of labor. Pitocin has not approved for the elective induction or stimulation of labor.

Source: FDA APPROVED OBSTETRICS DRUGS: THEIR EFFECTS ON MOTHER AND BABY

Which means, that the common use of Pitocin in hospitals for inducing a mother post dates (without medical reason) is highly dangerous. The risks are too high for a non-medical induction. The use pitocin in labor to ‘speed things up’ is not FDA approved. You can refuse pitocin augmentation unless medical indicated that there is a reason other than someone’s bed space and watch ticking.

“Oxytocin crosses the placenta and enters the blood and brain of the fetus within seconds or minutes. There appears to be a correlation between fetal exposure to oxytocin and autism in the exposed offspring.”

The manufacturer of oxytocin warns the provider in the package insert:

Continue reading PITOCIN – A COMMONLY USED DRUG IN CHILDBIRTH – WHAT’S WRONG WITH IT?

I found this on the Alliance for the Improvement of Maternity Services  (AIMS) web site, and I think that it is very important that every birthing family fully understands their rights if choosing labor and birth, or just birth, in hospital. It is also important to know these facts when you are considering the safest place to give birth. Knowledge is power, and only when you are fully aware of the implications of the decisions you are making, can you truly be in power and truly be making real choices for yourself and your baby’s health and future emotional, physical and emotional well-being. Karen

Many pregnant women are not fully aware of their right of informed consent or of the obstetricians’ legal obligation to obtain their patient’s informed consent prior to treatment. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) first publicly acknowledged the physician’s legal obligation to obtain his or her pregnant patient’s informed consent in its 1974 publication, Standards for Obstetric-Gynecologic Services, (pg 66-67) which reads:

“It is important to note the distinction between ‘consent’ and ‘informed consent’. Many physicians, because they do not realize there is a difference, believe they are free from liability if the patient consents to treatment. This is not true. The physician may still be liable if the patient’s consent was not informed. In addition, the usual consent obtained by a hospital does not in any way release the physician from his legal duty of obtaining an informed consent from his patient.

Continue reading THE PREGNANT PATIENT’S BILL OF RIGHTS

We recently had a new baby come into our family, and I was reminded once again, how much change needs to happen when a little one comes into the family. Everyone has to make space for the new member, both internally, and externally in the family roles and dynamics. In birthing families everyone’s roles are shifting. We are all taking on new roles, and it is very helpful to think about this so that you can be clear about what your role is, and how you want to behave.  It is also important for each person to think about what they want from the other members of the family in this transition. E.g. mother is becoming grandmother, daughter is becoming mother, son is becoming a dad, father is becoming a grandfather, and born siblings having to move over for the younger member. There is a process that we are all going through to make these shifts, both internally, and in our outer roles. A pregnant family may have very different needs and requirements of their other close family members at this time.

Continue reading Pregnancy, Birth & Family Dynamics: What It Takes To Get Ready

I found this piece on the Hypnobabies Blog/Hypnosis for Childbirth

http://hypnobabies.wordpress.com/2010/06/01/mom-fires-ob-during-birth-when-threatened-with-a-cesarean/

June 1, 2010

I LOVE this birth story, because it shows how moms can be so powerful during their births!   Mom was induced at 42 weeks, but insisted that the pitocin was turned up slowly and refused to have her water broken.

Continue reading Mom fires OB during birth when threatened with a cesarean!

In France ALL women who have given birth, even normally, or who have had abdominal surgery of any kind are automatically referred to a physical therapist who knows how to work with the pelvic floor. It totally makes sense to me that this would happen routinely, because both birth and surgery can leave us with many issues to deal with afterwards that are not in the domain of doctors or obstetricians to understand or treat.

Unfortunately, this common sense practice is not happening in America, so we have to be resourceful and find our own support at these important times. For many women it is not possible to return to full health and comfort in their body without help.

It is for these reasons that I am highly recommending Isa Herrera’s book “Ending Female Pain: A woman’s Manual – the Ultimate self-Help Guide for Women Suffering from Chronic Pelvic and Sexual Pain.

Continue reading Pelvic Issues After Birth, Especially Cesarean Section

This paper (The Vulnerable Prenate) is an edited and elaborated version of the same-titled paper presented at the 1995 San Francisco APPPAH Congress, and is also published in the Pre- and Perinatal Psychology Journal, 10(3), Spring 1996.

Abstract:

Based on the author’s extensive work with patients, this article clarifies the conditions under which prenatal experiences may be lifelong and describes the theoretical and research perspectives necessary to understand the effects of prenatal traumatization. In addition, since the incidences of personal and societal violence are at an all-time peak and increasing, the author discusses the effects of pre- and peri-natal trauma on aggression and violence. (end)

The prenate (i.e., the unborn baby) is vulnerable in a number of ways that are generally unrecognized and unarticulated. Most people think or assume that prenates are unaware, and seldom attribute to them the status of being human. I recall a recent train trip, where an expectant mother sat in a smoking car filled with boisterous and noisy people. I asked her whether she had any concern for her unborn baby, and whether she thought the smoke or the noise would be bothersome to her unborn child. Her reply was, “Well of course not, my dear. They are not very intelligent or awake yet.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Continue reading The Vulnerable Prenate by William R. Emerson, Ph.D.

If you have read something here in my blog, or on my wonderfully informative web site, and you have some questions about their content – call me for a free half hour consult.

Or, if you are curious about my work or about it’s suitability for you or your child, call me for a free half hour telephone consult.

I am available to come and talk to your group in the Bay area.

Call me! 707 829 1764

Induction is when your doctor starts your labor for you, instead of waiting for it to happen naturally when your baby is ready. It is becoming standard practice for obstetricians to induce labor. There is no good medical reason for, or research supporting, this procedure which is being carried out so widely. It is obviously very convenient for the doctor. Often it is sold to mom’s as being a good thing to be able to schedule your labor for when you want it to begin.

Pitocin, the drug of choice for inductions, is specifically approved by the FDA only for induction of labor when it is medically indicated. See the article about Pitocin in the Birth section of this blog for more information. Pitocin is a synthetic form of oxytocin. In a normal birth the baby is the one who initiates the labor, releasing a chemical which begins the contractions. When baby does not get to start her own labor, she misses a crucial piece of important imprinting that will make it hard for her to initiate in her life. She will find it difficult to feel her own internal impulse to initiate and start. What does this mean? Think about how many times a day you move through the sequence of beginning something, moving through the middle of the activity to the end, finish it and then integrate your experience afterward. What comes first in this process is the impulse inside of you to do the activity or project. When your child has had their labor induced this very important internal impulse can often not be felt by them. Often people who have been induced will forever be waiting for something or someone from the outside to come and make ‘it’ happen for them, this is the imprint in action. They can’t get going by themselves, they have lost the ability to have a felt sense of their own inner impulse to initiate. Another way this can manifest, is that your child may be able to initiate but it will have the quality of Pitocin about it, which is speedy, revved, unrelenting, with no space for relaxation or letting down. (See Elective Cesarean Section article for more information on sequencing trauma). There is a big difference between doing something in your own time, when you are ready, and doing it on someone else’s time when you are not ready. People who have been induced can find it difficult to be told what to do, or when to do it. They can also need someone else to tell them what to do, and when. It just depends on how it imprints.

Continue reading INDUCTION OF LABOR: It’s Detrimental Effects on Baby

About Cesarean Sections:

Cesarean section (c-section) is major abdominal surgery. Around 5-10% of the emergency c-sections carried out in hospitals are real emergencies, medically necessary, and saving lives. The average cesarean section rate for the US in 2006 was 31.1%. This varies greatly between different hospitals and physician’s, and can go higher than 50/60%. Non-medically indicated c-section are carried out by obstetricians who are concerned with their time management, schedule, liability insurance and litigation pressures, and their income (they are paid more for c-sections and can ‘deliver’ more babies faster this way). In the Netherlands where midwives attend most births, and obstetricians are only called in for a real emergency, they have a c-section rate around 10%. This rate used to be even lower there until women began to birth more in the hospitals and then it went up. Even in hospital births women there are assisted by a midwife with no surgeon present. Drugs are not considered a normal part of birth in the Netherlands, and in the hospital the anesthesiologist only works office hours. If you are there when they are not – no drugs. The Netherlands is a great example of how we could be doing it, and I am using their rate of 10% of births as a baseline rate for necessary and healthy use of surgery in birthing, even though I believe it can be lower. So many women have been given c-sections now, that the c-section rate has risen to some extent because of repeat c-section by doctors who refuse to do a vaginal birth after a c-section – VBAC. This makes it harder for us to know what a healthy c-section rate could be in the U.S.

Most obstetricians have never even seen a normal birth. Our birthing women and babies are attended by highly trained surgeons, which could explain why there is so much surgery at birth! I heard Marsden Wagner, M.D., M.S., speaking, author of Born In The USA: How A Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed To Put Women and Children First, at a conference. He described a presentation he was making at an obstetrician’s conference (he was once a pediatrician and an obstetrician) and he asked everyone in the audience who has seen a normal, natural birth to put their hands up – there are no hands. I highly recommend his unique book, written as one who was on the inside of our maternity system and is now an outspoken advocate for changing it.

Here in the U.S. we have shocking levels of unnecessary c-section’s. High levels of medical interventions in birthing are happening routinely in all U.S. hospitals. Jennifer Block in her book Pushed: The Painful truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care interviewed a number of OB/GYN’s about this issue in her book and it is clear from their responses that c-sections are done for Continue reading Trauma Caused By ‘Emergency’ & ‘Failure to Progress’ C-Section’s to Mom & Baby