Skeptical
So one of the things which I have been wondering these last few days is why this last birth (the stillbirth) was so lovingly handled by the hospital staff and docs. I wonder if they handled this mama with kid gloves in large part because everyone knew that the baby had died: they felt deeply and genuinely sorry for her loss, but in reality this made their job easier in some ways. They no longer had to worry about baby's wellbeing.
My question is, would they have been so quick to assent to her every want (no exams, no monitoring, allowing her midwife to perform almost all clinical tasks) if her babe still had a heartbeat? Or did baby's death reduce their set of variables so significantly that most of the "routine" things which are so prevalent/irritating/frequently completely unnecessary in normal birth were no longer worth adding to her already heartbreaking list of concerns.
I'm not sure why but a piece of this feels decidedly ass backward.
I shall continue to ponder and perhaps be able to articulate this better at some later stage.
My question is, would they have been so quick to assent to her every want (no exams, no monitoring, allowing her midwife to perform almost all clinical tasks) if her babe still had a heartbeat? Or did baby's death reduce their set of variables so significantly that most of the "routine" things which are so prevalent/irritating/frequently completely unnecessary in normal birth were no longer worth adding to her already heartbreaking list of concerns.
I'm not sure why but a piece of this feels decidedly ass backward.
I shall continue to ponder and perhaps be able to articulate this better at some later stage.
posted by Louisa at 9:06 AM
3 Comments:
I know what you are trying to say: why is it ok to have an assaultive methodology when baby and mum are healthy when we can see how kind and caring they are during the delivery of a stillbirth? Why does there have to be a difference? Why can't the med staff be kind and loving even when they feel the need to push for interventive procedures like continuous EFM or augmented labor? What makes it ok for mothers having normal births (or not so normal births) to be treated like objects/nuisances?
In my experience, hospitals handle death fairly well. After my father died we were given all the time we needed with him and treated with respect and patience while we grieved and made his arrangements.
I blogged once that I wish the hospital I birthed in had been half as considerate as the one my father died in, actually; it was such a huge contrast. But I do think it's the lack of variables; there is nothing left to go "wrong."
I attended a 22 week mama this summer... alone, her husband was overseas.
I am still in awe of the respect and care this mama recieved in such a trying and sad time. I did comment to the neo-natal neurologist (who was the woman who cared for my daughter during her transfer) about it. She confided to me, rubbing her rounded abdomen, that she has chosen midwifery and homebirth... because she has worked the system too often. She shook her head and said, too often we care for the dead and dying the way we should be treating the living.
It is so true.
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