I often read a blog called Florence Dot Com that covers safety issues in health care.  The author is a nurse, a very smart nurse with a lot of letters after her name, Barbara Olson, RN, MS, FISMP.  She tackles things like medication errors, process issues, and how to prevent health care workers from killing people.  I have been mired in the muck that is the Michael Jackson case, talking about the egregiousness of how his doctor put ethics on a shelf for a paycheck.  I went over to Flo’s site and was pleasantly surprised to read a birth story.  Yeah!  (It was written just for me I know).

Back in the day Barbara was an L&D nurse, and she saw first hand the medical interventions that led to surgical births:  “In 1988, the Cesarean Section rate in metro Atlanta hovered around 35%. I was an intrapartum nurse, who had dutifully pushed more than my fair share of laboring patients to the OR due to presumed fetal jeopardy, only to watch–delighted and perplexed–when the vast majority of infants came out screaming: pink, flexed, and oxygenated. I was certain there were better ways to have a baby.”

And, she found a better way.  I will not give out the details of her birth, please go to her site and read them for yourself.  But, one aspect really got me thinking (and I hate to think).  The staff and midwife were getting frustrated because Barbara was stuck in a very long pushing phase.  Nothing was working to get the baby out:

“Why won’t you push your baby out?”

There was a very long pause. “Oh, Margaret,” I said, “I’m really afraid to be a mother.” And I cried.

WOW.  There are some very emotional and personal issues involved in having a baby.  Let’s never forget the woman in labor and only focus on the baby.  Click here for the finale of this birth story.  Please leave comments on this wonderful woman’s site!

Happy Wednesday (hump day)

RR