The Incredible Post of the Month from the ICAN yahoogroup comes to us from Jen in CA. Jen reminds us that we're all in this together, no matter how many cuts we have.
What is especially interesting is rather than banning actions that
increase the risk of UR, such as induction/augmentation in VBACing
women, they ban VBACs. What's next? Banning vaginal birth all
together because they don't want to take the 0.5% risk of cord
prolapse? This is just getting so lame.
I think ALL birthing women need to protest.
I personally would not feel safe at a hospital that does not permit
VBACs, whether my uterus was scarred or not. If they cannot
accommodate a medical emergency such as uterine rupture, how could they
possibly respond and treat other real, but rare, labor emergencies such
as cord prolapse or placental abruption, both of which require the baby
being born ASAP usually by immediate c-sections? How could any mother
labor in confidence knowing that if something went drastically wrong,
that hospital could not quickly respond?
At which point, why even go to a hospital? I always thought that was
the point of hospitals in terms of birth - to treat the very rare
complications that require immediate surgical intervention. If
hospitals eliminate their ability to rapidly respond to a medical
emergency requiring a surgical birth, how is laboring at a hospital
like that any different than laboring at home? People labor in the
hospital for that minute "what if" chance thinking that they will be
safe. Thinking that laboring at a hospital is safer than home. But if
a hospital labels itself as non-VBAC friendly, they have labeled
themselves unsafe for any laboring woman.
Hospitals which do not permit VBACs are unsafe to all women and laboring
women should avoid them. We need to send a message with our money and
our babies by only laboring at VBAC-friendly hospitals - the only safe
choice for any laboring woman. Maybe we should just all birth at home
so they can feel the impact when we don't go to their hospital AT ALL
unless we actually need surgical birth.
Email all your pregnant/childbearing age friends and tell them that St.
Luke's has said that they are unsafe location to birth. Stress how if
they can't respond to UR, they can't respond to any birth emergency.
The only way St. Luke's will change their policy is if they see a drop
in their revenue from women choosing other locations to birth.
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