Trillian said: "an induction will be far more difficult for her than letting baby choose their own birthday"
Well, we did mention to her when we first met, that my wife went into labor at about 2-3am both times.
chocolatecatty said: "Is this a midwife who you have been consistantly seeing or was this the first time you met her?"
This was about the fourth time.
I should probably mention in the midwife's favour, she has been fine about our "non-conventional" statements and decisions. For instance, we researched vaccination quite thoroughly when problems occurred upon vaccinating our first son. Therefore when we first met her, we said under no circumstance would we be accepting Vitamin K in any form (injection or oral). She asked why and I summarised what I had found. (That cutting the cord before it has stopped pulsing could be one reason some babies are Vit K deficient... The simple act of breastfeeding provides baby's gut with the correct flora to begin producing Vit K naturally... Unless the birth is highly stressful, there's minute risk of bleeding... The concentration of Vit K is many times the dose required by even an adult... etc.)
She listened to our decisions/concerns - and really, we haven't been able to tell either way if she agrees or disagrees with those decisions. With the Vit K, she said something like, "Obviously you've put the effort in and I'm not here to change your mind. It's just that I'm legally required to check you understand any risks to cover me/us/Hunter Health."
With the 41cm measurement, she has been a bit more matter-of-fact though... Scare tatics is possibly a little strong - it's more like... "Unless you're dead set against the scan, you really should have it to check there's not a problem." The things I mentioned above (shoulder distocia, ruptured uterus) were her answers in reponse to our questions like, "What is the test looking for - and is it even accurate?" Then she gave some possible worst-case scenarios. Then we asked "So what would then happen if the baby did turn out to be too big."
In other words, we wanted to know what kind of things they would expect us to do after the test. Because if some doctor would then press for induction or c-section, based on a few centimeter difference (or innaccurate test result) - there's no point doing the test in the first place. (Plus our new concern over ultrasounds possibly putting baby's cells through a blender.)
She even said at one stage, "Ok then, if you don't want to, don't have it." (But as these folks always do, she again then gave the reasons why we should.)
On the other hand, she did say my wife should consider induction a couple of weeks early because of the few cm difference. I guess it's hard to tell where unbiased information ends and scare tatics begin.
I had said to my wife after the appointment, I think the problem today is too much information - and they don't even know what to do with it all. I'll never forget during a scan of one our earlier children, they told us one kidney was larger than the other. This sent us into a worrying-frenzy, until someone mentioned days later the difference was actually a couple of millimeters. (How ridiculous to make us worry over that. No-one's body is exactly symmetrical on both sides anyway!)
So after our constant battles over refusing vaccination on safety/health grounds, we are always in "mistrust mode" - always on the lookout for misinformation.
I noted the "large" (healthy) sizes of some of your own babies - and the photos in another thread of that male widwife in the USA (I think) - and showed them all to my wife. We've decided to do the gestational diabetes test because it can be corrected by diet if the test shows positive. We've decided against the scan.
Thank you all for the welcomes and replies.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks