Here, in the land of pregnant ladies (both primips and multips alike) who are mysteriously able to deliver most of their babies in just 3 pushes, one of the OB nurses was musing over a non-native delivery she had just seen in which the expectant mother (loaded up on pitocin, with FSE & IUPC in place) had to push for 90 minutes before her baby emerged.
Nurse: (somewhat puzzled) I heard that's normal...
I confirmed that yes, in the lower 48 states, many primips do end up pushing for up to 2 hours. It really gives me pause about the medicalization of labor: in medical school & residency, most of the deliveries I saw involved breaking down the bed, feet placed in stirrups for pushing; intrauterine pressure catheters to measure the force of contractions; fetal scalp electrodes to better capture the fetal heart tracing; and of course IV pitocin for augmentation/induction of labor. Here in Bethel, the bed is often kept intact and instrumentation is kept to a minimum. Shorter 2nd stage of labor, cuter babies...
1 comment:
see, doesn't bethel L and D reignite your faith in family docs doing OB?? say hi to Mary and the rest of the L and D crew for me.
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