Hospitals vs. midwives

I get a little tiny crusader glow when you say that, nick!! I'm glad that you're so happy with your experiences and preparations. I hope they are good tools for you and S when you need them.

Yeah, the birthing class in particular has been great. Sarah checked out all these books about giving birth but I was having trouble actually sitting down and reading them and concentrating on them; the class is awesome because the teacher is really positive and energetic and it makes it a lot easier for me to absorb the info and not be freaked out by it.

Don't be freaked out, right-on for absorption! One of the big points of the midwife & natural birth methods is that we should be LESS freaked out by all this stuff, because you can have a lot more control than you maybe expected over both the actual events and your RESPONSE to the events.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, doctors and hospitals and insurance companies GAIN something by freaking you out, which is a good reason to be at least a little bit suspicious of them from the get-go.

Last week's class was on breastfeeding and the teacher was saying that most breast pumps are made by the formula companies and will actually reduce the mother's breast milk production if used regularly (ie less breast milk, more formula usage, more $$$ for formula companies). That was pretty !? to me.

Yeah I mean just when you think there's such a thing as "too paranoid", you take another look at big business and it gets ?!?! all over again.

I don't get how this works. Don't you have an obstetrician you go to for check ups? Isn't it assumed they will be delivering the baby? Or do midwives do Prenatal checkups? Or can you just tell your doc you'll only be needing them pre and post(?) natal?

The midwives do everything, unless there's some kind of emergency during the birth, in which case the doc can take over. We see the midwives for checkups and they will be doing the delivery too. It's pretty well coordinated in our case because the midwives have their own little section within the hospital.

my wife used a pump while she was at work for a couple of years and it had no impact on her breast milk output, she would nurse in the morning and evening and the milk from the pump would go with the kids while they were in childcare.

I'm sure there are, for instance, breast pumps that are made by sane and ethical companies that have no negative impact, but they're probably not the ones whose sales reps got the contract to put, for instance, their advertising literature and/or free samples disguised as "Advice for the Nursing Mother" into the gift bags that hospitals give to departing new moms. Most of that shit is just advertising as far as I can tell (tho I have not birthed any babby so I'm just going on what I've been told).

I just read a book by a woman who is admittedly kind of extreme about reducing the amount of "stuff" we buy, use, and throw away, but one of her points is that we don't even know what's IN half of our stuff, and one example was that she gave birth in a hospital and got a bag of free shit that included a Mickey Mouse diaper bag -- which happened to be made of a kind of plastic that contains dangerous phthalates (which btw are now PROHIBITED for US importation in any product intended for kids 0-12 but this was a few years back). So not only are we hitting them with some corporate branding from BIRTH to convince you to make your offspring life-long customers of a brand, that branding tool is also free AND toxic for your baby!

Another example: special arrangements to give low-income moms a lot of "freebies" from formula companies. Again, really gross targeted marketing to people who are the most vulnerable to it, and who would prob benefit THE MOST from choosing its opposite.

I used to work at a maternity clothing store and we were supposed to hook all our customers up with all this free formula coupons & c.

So even just going to buy clothes, there it was.

yeah the midwife specifically highlighted the Medela and Ameda pumps as good, safe pumps, and I think those are pretty big brands (sold at Target etc), so def. not saying all pumps are bad news. However, she said the "bad" pumps (ie the ones that can reduce breast milk production) are usually cheaper, so again, it's people trying to save money who get screwed. Also, either Medela or Ameda pumps (can't remember which) are intentionally missing a small piece that would prevent breast milk from getting inside the motor of the pump. It's the fear that the milk can get in the motor that makes it not OK for women to share a pump (due to contamination fears), so basically whichever brand this is is doing this on purpose so they can sell more pumps. Not that this is really different from how most consumer goods companies operate, but it's interesting to me.

my wife used the medela pump, which was the one sold in the hospital's maternity store. never heard about the milk getting in the motor thing. anyway, we never used formula and my kids nursed until past the age of two. all the healthcare professionals we encountered at our hospital were super-ethical and obviously had the mother and baby's best interests in mind, but educating yourself about all the issues can never be a bad thing.

yeah my biggest issue isn't really like "doctors are evil" but just that a lot of the information about the different options and side-effects and results etc. isn't really made widely available.

With an exception for the leftover surgeons and bigshots from another era, I don't think doctors are evil either!! But I think hospitals kinda are, in the sense that a lot of them have shareholders, and any industry tailored to their benefit is really not keeping the end user in sight...or not nearly enough to suit me, anyway.

I expect this when it results in things that can be corrected by consuming different products or shopping somewhere else, but when you're in hospital, you are scared, in need, probably sick (altho not in the case of normal labor & delivery, which I don't think shd be categorized or treated as a pathology), you may not have a lot of options, and every industry involved in medical care KNOWS that, and they will quite happily knife you in the ribs while you're down.

With an exception for the leftover surgeons and bigshots from another era

And by this I mean the kind of doctor who would induce labor and/or order a C-sect in order to make their tee-time. I'm sure it still happens, but I really really hope that not as often as it did before laboring women became their own advocates and started choosing "alternate" options.

this is pretty cool, my wife's company had a "pumping room" and it should be much more widely available
http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/04/13/breastfeeding_rooms/

PS and if they don't have shareholders, they have religious affiliations. There's a joke somewhere for which the punchline is "the lesser of two weevils"....

If you really want to get angry then read The Politics Of Breastfeeding. Has loads of info on the dodgy things formula companies get up to, such as paying for the building of hospitals specifically designed to make breastfeeding as hard as possible by placing newborns in a nursery that's as far away from the mother as possible.

What kind of medical training do midwives have? Are they nurses?

In the UK they have to do a three-year midwifery degree. Or those already registered as nurses can take an extra course that lasts about 18 months.

In the US, a nurse midwife is a nurse practitioner with specialized training. They have master's degrees. Oh, and that "cheap breast pumps are designed to lower your milk output" thing sounds suspiously like something a pump company would make up to scare you into only buying their brand(s) of pump.

both my babies were via midwives and big thumbs up

1st one was in a hospital room with a midwife running the show, 2nd was in a birthing center that basically looked like a comfy living room

As a result of this thread, I told my bf today, "Just so you don't freak out in the future, I want midwife-assisted water births, and I don't care if we have to move to Germany so I can get them." Bless his little European hart, he said, "Anything you want. I don't see a problem at all, YOU have to give birth, not me. Anything else would be pretentious."

Sounds like he's good at giving the right answer. :)

Oh, and that "cheap breast pumps are designed to lower your milk output" thing sounds suspiously like something a pump company would make up to scare you into only buying their brand(s) of pump.

― Christine Green Leafy Dragon Indigo, Thursday, April 29, 2010 3:21 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It is a little more directly paranoid than I care to get, and a quick search online didn't find any corroborating evidence. However, this statement came from the doula who teaches our birthing class, who doesn't really have any personal motivation to recommend one brand over another, and I'd probably trust her over some company. In any case, we're hoping to avoid pumping and breastfeed directly as long as possible, don't really plan to buy a pump at all right now.

Yeah pumping is a major PITA to be avoided if possible, in my experience! My boobs are A+ at lactation (34 months of breastfeeding and counting) but I've never managed to express more than a single ounce in one sitting.

Spose it was easier for me though as I've been at home with the kids most of the time. Those who work and pump have my total admiration.

If you really want to get angry then read The Politics Of Breastfeeding. Has loads of info on the dodgy things formula companies get up to, such as paying for the building of hospitals specifically designed to make breastfeeding as hard as possible by placing newborns in a nursery that's as far away from the mother as possible.

― Meg (Meg Busset), Thursday, April 29, 2010 3:26 PM (11 months ago) Bookmark

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I'm totally totally wondering now. When our girl was about two months old, my wife suddenly couldn't create milk anymore. She had been pumping extensively, so we had a huge frozen store of good milk, but it started to run low and shit was getting serious. Like, uh no fuck you we don't want to use formula.

We tried all kinds of stuff that's supposed to work like mother's milk tea and fenugreek, but nothing worked. We went to my wife's doctor, where they prescribed her Reglan. Now we looked it up and Reglan is some serious shit. There was a skull & crossbones on the bottle. It is the subject of late-night infomercials from law firms that encourage you to sue because of the side effects. So we had this prescription and decided fuck no and threw it out before even taking it.

So then it hit us. After her sixth week visit with her obstetrician, he gave her the go-ahead to go back on birth control. He declined to advise us that birth control would fuck with her ability to lactate.

As a result of this disruption, my baby never nursed at my wife's breast again. She still drinks the milk that my wife pumps, but my wife and I harbor some serious resentment and regret at losing that particular area of mother/child bonding.

I had assumed that it was just simple negligence on his part, but reading Meg's post may have given me a better idea about what was going on there. Fucking christ.

:(

I'm planning on a homebirth this time. Our area is great, there's a dedicated homebirth team that provide all midwife care, not just come to see you at 36 weeks. So I've got my appointments at home and don't have to go for the pointless GP appointment at 38 weeks. The appointments alternate between two midwives and unless you're unlucky one of them should be at the birth.