Week_9_Final

Prenatal care in America is different than anywhere else in the world. It would seem that concerning your prenatal care, one specifically chooses their care provider. Most of the time that care provider would be an Obstetrician. There is a select group of women that has chosen to stray away from the mainstream prenatal care and; would like to take a more holistic approach with a midwife. Birthing with a midwife at a birthing center is safer, has a lower C-section rate and is often less expensive. Natural Birthing versus Birthing in a Hospital Prenatal care from a Midwife versus an Obstetrician is generally the same. You can have Midwives that practice in the Obstetrician’s office. In some hospitals you can even find a birthing center. The presence and roll of a midwife, and an obstetrician are quite different. When a woman seeks prenatal care from a Midwife, they are often looking for that personal caring touch and close relationship. Many times, you will have one or maybe two midwives that you will see throughout your entire pregnancy. She is there to see you from beginning to end with a less evasive approach to your care. They focus on what is best for the baby and the mother. When you have your vitals taken, weight checked and your urine dip, they do it all right there themselves. In my personal experience, they had me do it all myself and report it back to them with the exception of taking my blood pressure and my temperature. When it came to the prenatal care of women in the Obstetrician’s office, I found that they were a little on the rude side, seemed to rush the patients and the wait time was longer. The routine procedure for prenatal care in their office is usually having a nurse take your vitals, weight and urine dip; you would then see the OB for about 15 minutes’ before they moved on to the next patient. I have found this beyond frustrating and so have a few of my friends. Using the holistic method of prenatal care versus clinical care can show significance differences in medical care. . When seeking a midwifery experience the approach they take is gentle. They are calm and do not seem rushed, and even the instruments they use are soft compared to the cold feeling of the Ob’s. Midwives will often take to a natural approach to manage your morning sickness or other ailments. When this cannot be achieved they will then look for other means of treatment. Usually a midwife will only write a prescription for ailments that cannot be treated naturally unlike an OB who will usually always suggest using pharmaceuticals. The cost of prescriptions and prenatal care is expensive and taking a more natural route of care is most often frowned upon, especially by OB’s. Prenatal care in an OB office is often met with the “Doctor’s know best attitude”. When it comes to clinical care, you are automatically told to take certain “routine” test such as an amniocenteses or gestational diabetes test. Ob’s will often just prescribe you a medication to take care of your ailment versus trying to find natural methods of curing those ailments. When it comes to labor, a woman laboring Natural versus laboring with medication can show extensive difference in the time it takes a woman to have her baby. When a woman is in labor, it is painful and will often want some sort of pain relief. Holistic pain management can come in many forms. A doula is often there to encourage you that your body can manage the pain naturally; by using pressure points and soothing tones. One can also find minor pain relief with fresh oxygen or even a little bit of gas. Medication for pain management in a hospital environment is usually offered several times when a woman is in labor. They often will ask you if you need any pain relief such as an epidural or spinal block. At times you can request intravenous medication if the thought of an epidural is not an option for you. Medical interventions play a big part in the medical community. It seems, because they have them that they must use them. It has often been thought that medical interventions such as Pitocin will cause you to have a longer labor, which in return can cause the baby then become stressed out, and in return the heart rate drops which leads to an emergency C-section. When you are using a midwife, they let you labor how you feel you should. They encourage you to do what feels natural to your body. When longer labors occur sometimes a transfer to the hospital is needed. When a woman has trouble laboring in one position, simply changing your laboring position is the best thing to help speed labor along. They encourage you to move as your body contracts and breathe through each contraction one at a time. Obstetricians are dealing with complications and long labors by pushing medical interventions upon the expecting mother in labor. It seems to me that women have their babies on their Doctor’s schedule. If your labor is not progressing fast enough, they may give you Pitocin or break your waters and sometimes both. You are told to labor on your back with your legs up by your head, and told when to push. If you are not progressing as fast as the Doctor likes, and other medical interventions have not worked or even drew the labor out longer, you will often be sent for an emergency C-section. Birthing in America with a midwife is often frowned upon, even though they have statically been proven to have lower medical interventions and hospital transfer rates. They are also a fraction of the cost of using a standard OB/GYN. America has a very high Cesarean section rate, which is higher than almost every third world country. A woman named Ina May Gaskin (owns “The Farm” in Summertown Tennessee, USA) has delivered over 800 babies, with a very low number of those births were C-section babies. Proof that medical intervention may play a major role in the rate of C-sections in America. The cost of medical care for pregnant women will continue to rise and it seems as though they are trying to discourage the use of Midwifes.