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Re: birth in other countriesFrom: Alana A. Millman (midwife2be@lvcm.com)Sat Oct 21 16:59:32 2000
At 03:16 PM 10/21/00 -0500, you wrote: >Alana, >why is it that you would answer my question about Norway, Sweden and >Switzerland with the system from the Netherlands? I wanted to answer in a timely manner and I don't have any links handy for those countries at the moment. I'm sure I could research it more, but to what end? Winning points? The Netherlands is the best example I can think of in birth systems. A friend of mine went to the Netherlands a month ago for a study vacation to see her Aunt, a Dutch midwife. She shared a great deal of what birth is like there and how it is accepted that all low risk women deliver in an appropriate setting for their circumstances (home, birthing center, and hospital) with a midwife and obstetricians accept their role in dealing with high risk pregnancies. But I have to say from my vacation (when I was a teen) in the Netherlands I can clearly see the cultural differences are vast. American women are raised to fear the pain of childbirth and Dutch women are not. I'm sure it is similar in many countries.
>But you don't have any first hand, personal knowledge about these All of my experience is second hand concerning these countries. I have a friend in England who is an OB/GYN and I discuss many topics with her often via e-mail. I also discuss birth with international midwives on other lists, but, no, it's not first hand. My mother attended a few births in Saudi Arabian hospitals when we lived there for seven years, well she caught the first baby in the back seat of the car and attended the next in the hospital as a sort of "doula".
>Any second hand information on how it works in Germany? My preceptor's sister delivered in a German hospital. As far as I know it's like this... The majority of women are attended by midwives in hospitals and maternity centers. BUT, let me tell you about the standard experience. The patient is admitted in active labor and watched by a midwife and nurse, with great labor support and very low anesthesia rates. When she is found to be complete she is instructed to get up and walk to the delivery room, get up on the table and deliver her baby, without much instruction and certainly no "purple pushing". That's not the first I have heard of this practice so, perhaps it is the practice in many of these countries of making fully dilated women stand and walk before pushing that avoids long second stages, perhaps I'll do a study. On average the mom's were upright for anywhere from 5 minutes to 25 minutes before they had the urge to push. The baby is not taken to be observed in a nursery, they room-in from birth on, assuming there are no major complications. They help with breast feeding as well as feed women right after birth to restore their vitality and the food is not from the hospital, they have it catered for the maternity suite. The average hospital stay is 5 -7 days and my preceptor's sister got a full body massage every day. Who wouldn't want that? The U.S. certainly has a long way to go in understanding what women want and how to find middle ground. The problems in the U.S. certainly start with women being taught to fear the pain of childbirth, the annoying hospital policies that are necessary to CYA legally, or worse yet just stupid policies, the abuse of epidural anesthesia and other drugs, and labor nurses being over worked and not taught helpful labor support techniques. Hmmm... Enter... The Doula. What do you all think of couples who hire professional labor support in order to get the birth they want at the hospital? Here is a position paper on the role of a doula, for those who are not familiar. http://www.dona.com/positionpapers.html By the way, the Dutch midwives thought Doula's in the U.S. must be needed because of guess what?................ all of our epidurals and fear based obstetrics. Alana
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