Forced C-Section

[frazzled]

6. Yes, important to ask all these questions beforehand

These are common situations that are treated differently by different doctors/practices. My daughter-in-law gave birth a month ago (first grandchild!) and she went over all these situations with the doctors in her practice in advance. E.g., if her water broke, what was the policy on giving pitocin (there is a risk of infection if labor does not progress within a certain amount of time, but 5 hours is too little, unless there are other signs of distress or infection).

She chose a practice that included choosing a midwife. She saw the OB/GYN (actually, her main one, and then all the other doctors in the practice, in case one it was necessary for one of the others to attend her birth), but chose to deliver with a midwife connected with the practice. If a medical issue arose, the OB/GYN would come immediately. The birth took place at the city's most elite women's hospital, and she was lucky to be able to stay with the trusted midwife throughout--and all done on Obamacare insurance!!

On the other hand, natural birth can go too far. My story goes back more than 30 years ago. My own OB was out of town on the day I delivered (of course), and I had a doctor he'd arranged to cover his cases. This doctor was extremely committed to natural childbirth, which I thought was great. However, there were complications: the cord wrapped around the neck twice, heart rate kept decelerating severely and they kept pushing the baby back up as I was pushing her out. It went on forever until, finally, he said it was getting very dangerous and we had to do a forceps delivery. It all seemed fine afterward (though traumatic), but my own doctor later said he'd read the reports and NEVER would have allowed a vaginal birth under those conditions. My daughter ended up with a severe hearing impairment, and I will always wonder if that would not have happened had I had the emergency C-section. Well, no good wondering. But I admire today's mothers who ask all these questions in advance.