This is Why I Don't Have Cable

Seriously. How do you people with cable manage to live functioning and productive lives? I have spent just over a week at my folks' home and the TV has reduced me to a PJs lounging, coffee binging zombie. I wish I could tell you I haven't been blogging because I have been on adventure after adventure; soaking in this quality time with the family. However, the sad truth is once my parents leave for work, I start with the Today Show and eventually make my way to Discovery Health where I watch baby and birth shows until my head is fuzzy and my child is bored. Instead of reading books and blogging while we nurse we now watch videos on CMT. This is not good. I've just got to pull the plug. I have far too an addictive personality for moderation. More power to you stay-at-home moms out there who can just watch one program and walk away.

Oh well. It's only for two more weeks. And it's kind of nice to just veg. I've certainly been enjoying it. House of Babies and Birth Day have become my two most favoritest programs. For entirely different reasons. I love House of Babies, which is a show that documents the births at the midwife led Miami Maternity Center, because it shows birth as a normal and natural event that can proceed gently when healthy moms are given the time and safe space to give birth the way their bodies were meant to. Yea! Go natural birth!

Birth Day on the other hand is a show I love to hate. It is exactly opposite of House of Babies. This show makes my skin crawl every episode. All of the births documented are ultra-medicalized hospital births. Several shows (which usually feature three births each half hour) portray nothing but cesareans! Many are even elective, and the program is quick to point out that this is a growing trend. The mothers in these births receive intervention after intervention and there is never any discussion of the risks involved.

For example I have seen several high risk births (mothers with high blood pressure, over the age of 40, or with other complications.) where the mom is casually given an epidural or other drugs; only to have the birth result in a baby born with repertory difficulties and have to be transported to the NICU. Not once has there been a discussion about the potential of an epidural to have this kind of effect on the baby. It is so sad to me that women watching this show might believe this is the way birth needs to be.

Birth Day paints child birth as a crisis waiting to happen; the only thing saving these babies from certain doom is the scalpel wielding obstetrician and the mighty pitocin drip. I was appalled to watch today’s episode which featured Loretta, a mother committed to a natural child birth. It was the first such episode I had ever seen and they made natural childbirth out to be a frightening choice for moms and babies and as a rare occurrence only desired by the fringe of society.

This particular episode happily touted that only 15% of women in labor make it without an epidural. They flashed an interview with a labor nurse who said with a smug grin that there are plenty of mothers who think they want a natural child birth. Usually only the first time inexperienced moms, whose plans often change once they meet the realities of labor. It broke my heart to hear such a pessimistic attack on a woman's ability to birth her babies without medication. Let me tell you girls: I've done it. YOU CAN DO IT!

Loretta on this episode of Birth Day was one hell of a tough cookie. Her blood pressure started to spike about the time she was 4 centimeters dilated and so they started a magnesium drip to regulate her blood pressure. This worked but it also stopped her contractions. To get things moving again they augmented her labor with pitocin. This means that she was confined to bed, on her back, with continuous electronic fetal heart monitoring and a catheter...and she NEVER asked for pain relief! She is my new personal hero.

And yet when this amazingly strong woman got down to pushing the Birth Day narrators felt the need to say that because she chose not to use pain medication the obstetrician gave her special instructions on how to push effectively because a natural child birth requires tremendous effort and stamina and prolonged pushing can cause pain. What the heck is that? This show has never in the time that I've watched it (every day for one week) made a comment about the dangers that a woman who has had an epidural may face. She may not be able to push effectively because she can not feel her body, which as a result often leads to the use of forceps and vacuum extraction witch can seriously injure a baby!

As it often does it took a couple hours for Loretta to push her baby out. This too was made out to be a near crisis. The camera flashed to the doctor who "SUDDENLY KNOWS WHAT'S WRONG!" Loretta is going to have a big baby. Give me a break. From there the program launches into all of the "complications" a big baby can cause including tears, slow deliveries, and shoulder dystocia. Shoulder dystocia (when the baby's shoulders get caught on the mothers pelvic bone and impedes delivery) is a serious emergency but to mention it this context seemed to me like a way to sensationalize this otherwise beautiful and uneventful natural birth.

Of course the obstetrician and the show hyped up the possibility of a tear. Over and over they made this out to be a serious issue. And in fact Loretta did have a pretty nasty 3rd degree tear. (3rd degree tears extend to the anal sphincter that is torn but the rectal mucosa remains intact: SO NOT FUN.) But the thing that really bothered me was that instead of using perennial compress or otherwise supporting Loretta's perineum right before the baby crowned the OB simply gave her a shot of local anesthetic to numb the area... in case you tear, Sweetie. And of course the program highlighted the 35 minutes it took to stitch Loretta back up. However, I have never seen Birth Day treat the many episiotomies they've broadcast with the same spin. Episiotomies are always shown as a quick snip that heals like a dream. The truth is a woman may or may not tear, and most of the women who do, tear far less than poor Loretta and often don't even need stitches. However, a woman who receives an episiotomy will need stitches and a long time to heal.

OK, I am all worked up now and I have probably bored many of you who have taken the time to read through this. In closing all I will say is that I think it is such a shame that programs like Birth Day and many hospitals across the country make child birth out to be a crisis waiting to happen. I believe with my whole heart that if more doctors and nurses out there were willing to have trust and patience in a woman's body the outcome would improve for mother's and babies. Most of the time a laboring woman doesn’t need pitocin, she needs to get out of bed and walk; she doesn’t need an episiotomy, she needs a perennial compress; and she doesn’t need an epidural, she just needs a medical staff that believes in her and supports her.

And now your treat for making it through to the end of my rant... a little slice of Normy-Pie. That's why your here isn't it? ;-)