The Anti-Home-Birthers’ Alternative to Home Birth

In February, the New York Times ran six short pieces on home birth in its “Room for Debate” online feature.  I am going to discuss each of the pieces in posts over the next few days.

One of the featured pieces is titled “Home Birth is Not Safe,” written by two doctors who have made a number of anti-home-birth contributions to the medical literature.  Their NYT bio line says,

Amos Grunebaum is the director of obstetrics and Frank Chervenak is the obstetrician and gynecologist-in-chief at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill Medical College of Cornell University.

Their work brings up a number of interesting issues to consider about home birth safety, but they also appear to conduct their research with an anti-home-birth agenda–Chervenak has written articles stating that it is unethical for MDs to participate in home births in any way and that it is the professional responsibility of all health workers to forcefully persuade women to birth in hospitals.  All birth data in the United States has limits, but Grunebaum and Chervenak’s use of vital records data to draw sweeping conclusions about home birth outcomes has been broadly criticized (e.g. here, here, and here).

Grunebaum and Chervenak say,

[i]n our research we have found that in the United States at least 30 percent of home births are not low-risk and that two thirds of home births are delivered by midwives who are not properly credentialed.

While I have argued that a woman has the right to birth wherever she chooses, regardless of risk, one might ask why a woman at high risk would choose to give birth at home when she has a hospital as an alternative.  Some women may be compelled to do so for religious reasons (and may not have full control of their choices), but it is also true that some well-educated, well-informed women also make the choice to have high-risk births at home.

Grunebaum and Chervenak acknowledge some of the problems with hospital-based obstetrical care that drive women to seek out home births even when their medical profiles indicate that they may need the kinds of medical interventions that are only available in a hospital-based setting.  They particularly note high numbers of “unnecessary C-sections” and lack of “compassionate care” in hospital births.

They propose as a solution that “the profession [of obstetrics] should strive for home-like hospital births.”

We know from his bio that Chervenak is in charge of the obstetrics unit at NY Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical College (NYP-WC).  If women are to shun home birth in favor of hospital birth, a good hospital environment must already be in place.  Let’s take a look at what he and his colleagues are doing to reduce unnecessary C-sections, provide compassionate care, and strive for home-like settings.

New York state now requires hospitals to report certain data, including C-section rates.  NYP-WC’s is 31.6%, a smidge below the national average, but hardly indicative of a culture that is eschewing unnecessary C-sections.  For the last year reported, there were only 38 VBACS at NYP-WC.

NYP-WC’s episiotomy rate is a whopping 25.7%.  Episiotomy is rarely necessary, and this rate is far, far above the home birth rate of under 2%.  According to a 2005 JAMA review by Katherine Hartmann and her colleagues, a national episiotomy rate of less than 15% should be “immediately within reach”–10 years later, NYP-WC is not on board, even though the national rate was already close to 15% by 2010.  Nearby Bellevue Hospital has a rate around 2%.   Compassionate care should not include cutting gashes in women’s vaginas for no reason.

Planned home births are generally attended by midwives.  Both certified professional midwives (who cannot attend hospital births) and certified nurse midwives (who most commonly work in hospitals) subscribe to “The Midwives Model of Care.”  The American College of Nurse Midwives summarizes this philosophy of care on its website–some notable components include:

• Complete and accurate information to make informed health care decisions
• Self-determination and active participation in health care decisions
• Acknowledg[ing] a person’s life experiences and knowledge
• […] therapeutic use of human presence and skillful communication
• Watchful waiting and non-intervention in normal processes
• Appropriate use of interventions and technology for current or potential health problems

Grunebaum and Chervenak brag that “we have a midwife teach our residents at NewYork-Presbyterian.”  However, they do not employ midwives to attend births.  Zero births at NYP-WC are attended by a midwife.  In addition, because they are a teaching hospital, NYP-WC has many births attended by residents whom the woman may not even know.  No one invites complete strangers into their home to attend their births.  Most women who have home births are seeking the Midwives Model of Care, but though Grunebaum and Chervenak acknowledge that CNMs can safely attend hospital births, they choose not to offer this option.

The hospital’s maternity unit has a “Patient and Visitor Guide: During Your Stay” that lays out standard processes and procedures on the unit, gives prospective patients an overview of what to expect, and lays out hospital and maternity unit policies.

The guide begins by saying that the hospital offers “Family Centered Care,” though what this means is not explained other than to say that rooming-in with the baby is encouraged.

They proceed to say that the woman’s care team may involve “your attending obstetrician, who is often your personal obstetrician or the doctor who admitted you, …[and] other medical or surgical specialists, as well as fellows or residents…[and] a pediatrician.”  But that’s just the doctors!  They say that the nursing staff is “constantly present” and indicate that there will be many nurses involved in care.  Other people involved in the hospital birth experience are care coordinators, unit clerks, physician assistants, lactation consultants, social workers, dieticians, nutrition assistants, housekeepers, patient escorts, and volunteers.  There is also a Rapid Response Team for emergencies.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure that many people could fit in my house.

The Labor and Delivery Unit is described as “comfortable, family-friendly, [and] private with soothing natural light.”  The birthing rooms are

spacious and light-filled birthing rooms [that] combine comfort with leading-edge technology. All suites are private and equipped with a special multi-positioned birthing bed, as well as state-of-the-art equipment for monitoring and delivering your baby. Your progress will be monitored regularly throughout labor, and your nurses will help you explore which comfort measures work best for you.

My home has a queen sized bed.  The most leading-edge technology in it is my iPhone.

Then we move on to pain management, and the real trouble starts.  Many women choose home birth because they want to be able to access a wide variety of non-pharmacological pain management strategies.  In my research, a frequent complaint from women who were not interested in epidurals was the pressure from hospital staff to have an epidural.  Here is what the guide says about pain management (emphasis mine):

The intensity of discomfort during labor and delivery varies from person to person. Some women may manage well with relaxation and breathing techniques. However, most women choose some type of pain relief. The majority of women receive analgesia (relief from pain without losing consciousness) from an anesthesiologist….The most effective methods for relief of labor pain are regional anesthetics in which medications are placed near the nerves that carry the painful impulses from the uterus and cervix, lessening pain and facilitating your participation in your delivery. Our anesthesiologists commonly use an epidural, spinal, or combined spinal-epidural to minimize pain.

Nothing is mentioned other than relaxation, breathing, and calling the anesthesiologist.  However, in home settings (and even at other hospitals) many women choose “pain relief” from any number of options that do not require an anesthesiologist, such as walking, changing position frequently, sitting on a birth ball, taking a warm shower, or submerging in warm water.  They may also get pain relief assistance from massage or from non-drug-based interventions such as acupuncture.  This is not a complete list.  It should be noted that all of these other options could be made available at home–the only one that could not is the anesthesiologist.  No mention is made of the risks of anesthesia nor of what can be done in the event that the epidural or spinal doesn’t work.  Choosing pain relief does NOT have to mean choosing an epidural–unless you are at this hospital, where according to the state more than 85% of women have epidurals (and that doesn’t include spinals and other medical methods).

Many of NYP-WC’s policies and standard procedures would preclude use of most pain relief options anyway.  Here’s what happens once a women is admitted to her birthing room:

your nurse will assess your blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, and place you on a fetal monitor. The nurse will monitor you throughout your labor and help you explore which comfort measures work best for you. An intravenous line may be placed to give you medication and fluids. You may also receive ice chips to help quench your thirst. Do not eat any food without your physician’s permission.

Not only are these policies not home-like, they aren’t even evidence based:

• According to the Cochrane Reviews, continuous electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) in low-risk births increases a woman’s risk of an unnecessary C-section. Because the risks-benefits ratios of EFM and intermittent auscultation, in which a health care provider listens to the fetal heart rate with a Doppler or fetoscope at regular intervals, are similar, Cochrane recommends that women be given information and then choose for themselves.
• IV fluids can also lead to complications, such as too much fluid in the mother or newborn.  In addition, having an IV in place is conducive to starting a cascade of interventions, as having the IV in place makes it easier to begin a Pitocin drip.
• The Cochrane Review on eating and drinking in labor concludes, “Since the evidence shows no benefits or harms, there is no justification for the restriction of fluids and food in labour for women at low risk of complications.”

(see original here)

Only two people can be with the woman in labor.  Last I checked, I was allowed to have whoever the heck I want in my house.

The hospital does not allow videorecording of the birth.  At home, you could live stream your birth if you were so inclined.

Rooming in is offered but not required.  Obviously at home, there is no nursery staffed by nurses.  In addition, rooming in is the standard for Baby Friendly Hospitals, as non-medically necessary separations can negatively impact breastfeeding.

One of the things many women appreciate most about their home births is the freedom to move around and to birth in any position they choose.  An acquaintance of mine who had an accidental home birth said that although she hadn’t planned it, she liked the experience, especially because “no one made me get on the little table.”  Another acquaintance said that as she was birthing, her OB asked that she get on her back for each contraction because, the OB said, “that’s the way I prefer to deliver.” Still another friend said that although there was a squat bar available in her birthing room, her OB refused to let her use it and threatened to leave if she would not lie on her back.

Notably, NOTHING is said in the guide about freedom of movement or position during labor or birth.  If a woman is tethered to a monitor and has an epidural, her movement would be curtailed even if hospital policy did not restrict her.

Finally, in the “Patient Responsibilities” section, the guide lists this “responsibility” (all emphasis mine):

Follow the treatment plan recommended by the health care team responsible for your care and the care of your baby. This group may include doctors, nurses, and allied health personnel who are carrying out the coordinated plan of care, implementing your doctor’s orders, and enforcing the applicable Hospital rules and regulations.

In your own home, you make the rules.

If Grunebaum and Chervenak want women to choose their hospital’s maternity care over a home birth, they’ve got a lot of work to do.

VBAC vs. Forced Cesarean: Facts, Opinion, and Informed Consent

Rinat Dray was forced to have a cesarean in 2011 at Staten Island University Hospital.  Dray had two previous cesareans and chose a doctor who said he supported her desire for a VBAC and a hospital with (by American standards) a low cesarean rate and a good VBAC rate.  But once she arrived at the hospital in labor, according to Dray (as reported by the New York Times),

The doctor told her the baby would be in peril and her uterus would rupture if she did not [have a cesarean]; he told her that she would be committing the equivalent of child abuse and that her baby would be taken away from her.

She still refused the cesarean, and she was supported in her refusal by her husband and her mother.  The hospital strapped her down and wheeled her into surgery as she begged them to stop.  A note in her medical record by Dr. James Ducey says, “I have decided to override her refusal to have a C-section.”  During the surgery, the doctor punctured her bladder.  You can hear a podcast on RH Reality Check in which Dray discusses her case along with professionals in obstetrics, law, and ethics.

Dray is a Hasidic Jew, which likely means that she wants a large family.  While there are risks to vaginal birth after cesarean, in most cases there are even greater risks to having many cesareans.

In the podcast, Dr. Katharine Morrison, MD, FACOG (Director of Buffalo WomenServices, which I wrote about here) says that she reviewed the record and it did not appear that there was an emergency situation or that a cesarean was needed at all.  But even if a cesarean has appeared necessary to preserve the life or health of Dray or her baby, as Dr. Howard Minkoff, chairman of obstetrics at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, said in the NYT article, “I don’t have a right to put a knife in your belly ever.”

One would think that a case in which a psychologically stable woman refused surgery and was then strapped down, sliced open, and had her bladder perforated would be apparent to anyone as a horrendous breach of human rights.  (And actually, she was asking them to wait a little longer, not saying she would not agree if she felt a cesarean was truly necessary).

All one has to do to see where a woman falls in the human rights spectrum of many is to read the comments on the New York Times piece.

The comments fall into a number of categories, including some that unequivocally support Dray.

Many, however, unequivocally support the the doctors or the profession of obstetrics.  Here is Northstar5:

If this woman had 2 prior C-sections then the doctors are absolutely right that vaginal delivery was exceedingly risky. I almost laughed when I read that the woman is charging the doctors and hospital for “improperly substituting their judgment for that of the mother.” What?? That’s what they are supposed to do. They are doctors, she is not.

Some defend the doctors doing whatever they like to avoid risks of malpractice:

Attempting a vaginal birth after two c-sections is extremely dangerous and reckless. The physicians involved would likely have been sued regardless of the method of delivery, so I applaud them for at least saving a life in this case.

I’m not sure where the commenters get their medical information, but the doctor agreed in advance to attend Dray at a vaginal birth.  You can read the entire American College of Obstetricans and Gynecologists’ practice statement “Vaginal Birth After Previous Cesarean Delivery,” which specifically says, “women with two previous low transverse cesarean deliveries may be candidates for TOLAC [trial of labor after cesarean].”  I highly recommend that you visit Jennifer Kamel’s website VBACFacts.com and read “13 Myths about VBAC.”  Repeat cesarean and VBAC both have risks.  The newest ACOG obstetric care consensus statement on cesarean points out the risks of cesarean over vaginal birth.  Cesarean nearly quadruples the risk of maternal death, and risks of maternal morbidity and mortality go up with every cesarean.  This would be a particular concern for a woman who wanted a very large family, as many Hasidic women do.  Here is a consent form that clearly lays out the risks and benefits of repeat cesarean and VBAC.

Some commenters are completely on the side of the fetus–if the mother’s status is reduced to that of a container, so be it.  Here’s NYC Commuter:

In this case, the hospital and doctors have not one patient, but two. One is an adult who appears competent to make medical decisions. The other is a fetus, at term, who has no voice. The courts have repeatedly affirmed that the state has a duty to protect citizens that cannot protect themselves. If a fetus is believed to be “alive,” then an argument can be made that it must be protected as well. Pregnant women have been forced to receive imprisoned to prevent them from harming their fetuses (e.g. drug abusers), take medication (e.g. for treatable diseases), and even receive c-sections if the baby’s life is judged to be in direct jeopardy.

I have written about the ethics of privileging the well-being of a fetus over an adult woman many times, including here, here, and here.  ACOG also agrees that a woman should have the right to make her own decisions, even if it may negatively impact the fetus.  One recommendation from ACOG’s Committee Opinion, “Maternal Decision Making, Ethics, and the Law” says,

Pregnant women’s autonomous decisions should be respected. Concerns about the impact of maternal decisions on fetal well-being should be discussed in the context of medical evidence and understood within the context of each woman’s broad social network, cultural beliefs, and values. In the absence of extraordinary circumstances, circumstances that, in fact, the Committee on Ethics cannot currently imagine, judicial authority should not be used to implement treatment regimens aimed at protecting the fetus, for such actions violate the pregnant woman’s autonomy.

In addition to wanting to protect the rights of physicians and fetuses over those of pregnant women, many commenters simply condemn Dray as selfish, selfish, selfish.  Here’s Beth Green:

What an incredibly selfish woman putting her unborn child in harms way. She got her several hours of trial-labor and no baby, so according to the standard of care she got a C-section and a healthy baby.

Some also posit that Dray is not only selfish but also psychologically compromised.  Here’s Dave:

This case is not about the “debate over C-sections.” This case is mostly about psychopathology, but there is a larger point. Rinat Dray’s actions harm us all. In her narcissism, she was willing to sacrifice her child to maintain her sense of control. This bears repeating – we are dealing with someone who would rather her child suffer than allow a section. So I’m sure she cannot put herself in the place of others, and she will not understand this, but she makes it all the more difficult to deliver babies in the US. Once all the OB/GYNs suffer these indignities and these lawsuits from those with personality disorders, who will deliver babies safely?

And here’s Reader:

A mother in labor who focuses more on her joy of delivery rather than trying to ensure that she delivers a healthy child who could be stuck with birth defects for up to an average of 7-8 decades thereafter is not rational, is selfish and needs to have her head examined.

What we get above all else if the “all that matters is a healthy baby” trope.  Here is NMY:

I have absolutely no sympathy for this woman at all. Her sense of entitlement is simply galling. She’s having a baby. The most important thing here is to ensure the delivery of a healthy baby, not to satisfy some preconceived notion that she should have a vaginal delivery.

Here’s Jen:

The OBGYNs can’t win. Now they are going to get sued for performing c-sections. It used to be they got sued for not doing the section soon enough. This lawsuit is absolutely ridiculous and I hope the physicians win. Do you want a c-section and a healthy baby or a VBAC and a dead baby? How can any mother refuse a c-section when the physician is telling you the health of your baby is at risk?

Here’s Stephen:

Sorry, but the health of the fetus should trump the intellectual desires of the mother….There are too many C-sections performed to be sure, but isn’t the point of labor and birth to deliver a healthy baby?

Here’s Lynn in DC:

She had this child in 2011 and all of her children are healthy so what’s the big harm here?

Aside from the fallacy of believing that Ms. Dray could not have both a respectful vaginal birth AND a healthy baby, a healthy baby is not all that matters.  A healthy mother matters too.  As in Ms. Dray’s case, having a perforated bladder and the trauma of being strapped down for a surgery that she actively refused did not result in a healthy mother.  Not being dead is not good enough.

 

 

 

Birth in Brazil–and America

The cesarean rate is Brazil has been high for a long time, and it is getting higher.  In private hospitals, almost all women deliver by cesarean; in public hospitals it’s about half.  According to Ricki Lake, who went to Brazil in the process of filming The Business of Being Born, “There was actually a joke circulating that the only way to have a natural birth in Rio was if your doctor got stuck in traffic.”  Brazil’s childbirth practices have come to attention recently because of Adelir Carmen Lemos de Góes, who on April 1, 2014, was taken by police to have a forced cesarean under court order.  Here’s an account of what happened from The Guardian:

…Brazilian mother Adelir Carmen Lemos de Góes was preparing for her third birth. Despite living in a country with one of the highest caesarean rates in the world (82% for those with private insurance and 50% for those without), she was looking forward to giving birth vaginally after previously having caesareans she felt were unnecessary.  However, in the midst of her labour, six armed police banged on her front door. Despite there being no question of reduced mental capacity, doctors had obtained a court order allowing them to perform a caesarean…Adelir was taken from her home, forcibly anaesthetised and operated on without consent.

Attorney Jill Filopovic writes,

A Brazilian court granted a prosecutor’s request for the appointment of a special guardian. And just in case it was unclear whose life gets prioritized when a woman has a c-section against her will, the judge specified that when there is a ‘conflict of interests of the mother with the child’s life … the interests of the child predominate over hers.’

Filopovic quotes Dr. Simone Diniz, associate professor in the department of maternal and child health at the University of São Paulo: 

In our culture, childbirth is something that is primitive, ugly, nasty, inconvenient….It’s part of Catholic culture that this experience of childbirth should come with humiliation.

The Atlantic subsequently ran a longer piece by Olga Khazan, “Why Most Brazilian Women Get C-Sections,” which, also points to a confluence of attitudes, practices, policies, and norms that lead to a trend toward universal cesarean.  Humiliation isn’t hard to come by in Brazilian obstetrics.  Khazan reports,

Many physicians’ attitudes toward childbirth weave together Brazil’s macho culture with traditional sexual mores….When women are in labor, some doctors say, ‘When you were doing it, you didn’t complain, but now that you’re here, you cry.’

Mariana Bahia, who participated in protests against forced cesarean, noted:

There’s no horizontality between patients and doctors.  Doctors are always above us.

And Paula Viana, head of a women’s rights organization, said,

We have a really serious problem in Brazil that the doctors over-cite evidence [of fetal distress].  They think they can interfere as they would like.

But much of what these various articles says about childbirth in Brazil is eerily similar to what happens in the United States.  Khazan quotes Maria do Carmo Leal, a researcher at the National Public Health School at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation about birth practices in Brazil:

Here, when a woman is going to give birth, even natural birth, the first thing many hospitals do is tie her to the bed by putting an IV in her arm, so she can’t walk, can’t take a bath, can’t hug her husband. The use of drugs to accelerate contractions is very common, as are episiotomies.  What you get is a lot of pain, and a horror of childbirth. This makes a cesarean a dream for many women.

In the United States, Pitocin induction and augmentation are ubiquitous , and episiotomies, though less common than in Brazil, are still greatly overused.  Almost all U.S. hospitals use IV hydration as a matter of policy (rather than allowing women to eat and drink as they please, which is the evidence based recommendation).  And in the U.S., taking a bath in labor may be impossible, as many hospitals do not provide bathtubs out of a misguided fear of women attempting waterbirths. The website My OB Said What documents a seemingly endless stream of U.S. health professionals’ humiliating comments, such as referring to a pregnant women as a “little girls,” criticizing their weight, or belittling their pain.

Court ordered cesareans occur in the United States as well, as Erin Davenport documents in “Court Ordered Cesarean Sections: Why Courts Should Not Be Allowed to Use a Balancing Test.”  Davenport notes that forced cesareans are generally ordered because of concerns for fetal welfare–as in Brazil, U.S. courts often privilege the rights of the fetus over those of the pregnant woman.

Alissa Scheller created infographics on Huffington Post showing how states’ policies are used to persecute and prosecute pregnant in the name of fetal welfare.

National Advocates for Pregnant Women, whose research supplied much of the information for the above graphic, documents the legal control of pregnant women that occurs in the name of fetal rights, such as prosecuting a woman for murder after a suicide attempt while pregnant (in this case, the baby–born by cesarean–was alive, but died a few days later).

While the cesarean rate in the United States is much lower than in Brazil, a third of U.S. births are by cesarean, more than double the “threshold not to be exceeded” identified by the World Health Organization.  Khazan notes the parallels between Brazil’s medical system and the the system in the U.S.–both incentivize cesareans:

With the higher price of the private system [in Brazil] comes better amenities and shorter wait times, but also all of the trappings of fee-for-service medical care. C-sections can be easily scheduled and quickly executed, so doctors schedule and bill as many as eight procedures a day rather than wait around for one or two natural births to wrap up.

As in Brazil, though some cesareans performed in the U.S. are certainly in the interest of maternal and/or fetal well-being, many are in the interest of the obstetrician’s well-being.  There is still a convenience factor; in addition, OB-GYN Dr. Peter Doelger said doctors and hospitals are protecting themselves by following protocols based a fear of litigation:

So you’re stuck with this situation where we’re doing things, not based on science.  [The increase in C-sections is] really based on protecting the institution and ourselves. And, you can’t blame them. Getting sued is a horrible thing for the physician, a horrible thing for the nurse, and a horrible thing for the institution.

And the woman?  Well as long as the baby is healthy, does she matter?

Time, Money, and Vaginal Birth

New recommendations from both the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal Fetal Medicine (SMFM) seem revolutionary.  Their new joint consensus statement advises abandoning the time restrictions on labor established by misguided adherence to Friedman’s Curve.  Here are some of the new recommendations, which are designed to lower the primary cesarean rate:

• Allowing prolonged latent (early) phase labor.
• Considering cervical dilation of 6 cm (instead of 4 cm) as the start of active phase labor.
• Allowing more time for labor to progress in the active phase.
• Allowing women to push for at least two hours if they have delivered before, three hours if it’s their first delivery, and even longer in some situations, for example, with an epidural.
• Using techniques to assist with vaginal delivery, which is the preferred method when possible. This may include the use of forceps, for example.

Aside from being written as if an epidural is unusual (60%-80% of first time mothers have epidurals), these guidelines have amazing potential to lower the rate of cesareans by justifying longer time for women to labor and reducing obstetricians’ justifications for their “failure to wait.”

The question remains, however, whether these new guidelines really will change practice in any meaningful way.  Even the joint consensus statement from ACOG and SMFM says,

Changing the local culture and attitudes of obstetric care providers regarding the issues involved in cesarean delivery reduction also will be challenging.

They go on to note that systemic change (meaning things like changes in required hospital protocols) is likely to be essential for significant practice change to occur, and they also argue for tort reform (discussed below).

People often say that obstetricians perform cesareans because the reimbursement is higher, and there are studies that indicate that this is true.  Doctors, however, are not always paid more for cesareans, and when they are, the difference is often only a few hundred dollars–not chump change, but probably not the major motivator for those in one of the most highly paid medical specialties.  The increase in birth costs for cesareans is primarily for the hospital resources: the operating room, post-operative care, and a longer hospital stay for the woman and her baby.  Contrary to what some studies have found, according to a conversation I had with Alabama Medicaid officials, when Alabama changed its Medicaid reimbursement a few years ago to be the same for cesareans and vaginal births, officials were disappointed to find it did not reduce the cesarean rate.  Here is a graph based on CDC data from Jill Arnold’s CesareanRates.com:

So what does drive high cesarean rates if it’s not all about the financial greed of physicians looking to make a couple hundred bucks through slice and dice obstetrics?

Some cite malpractice suits as a major motivator.  While malpractice premiums do appear to impact c-section rates, the effect is relatively small.  Rather than actual malpractice suits, according to Theresa Morris’ Cut it Out, it is  fear of them that drives OBs toward cesareans.  According to Childbirth Connection’s comprehensive report, Maternity Care and Libility, ACOG’s 2009 survey of OB practitioners reported that liability fears had led 29% of respondents to increase their use of cesarean and 26% to stop performing VBACs. Here’s another graph from Jill:

In his excellent New Yorker article on “how childbirth went industrial,” Atul Gawande points to the predictability and reliability of cesarean over vaginal birth, which makes doctors likely to choose cesarean over less invasive procedures (such as forceps deliveries) that may be risky in the hands of those without enough training, experience, or practice:

Is medicine a craft or an industry? If medicine is a craft, then you focus on teaching obstetricians to acquire a set of artisanal skills….if medicine is an industry, responsible for the safest possible delivery of millions of babies each year, then the focus shifts. You seek reliability. You begin to wonder whether forty-two thousand obstetricians in the U.S. could really master all these techniques….[O]bstetricians decided that they needed a simpler, more predictable way to intervene when a laboring mother ran into trouble. They found it in the Cesarean section….We have reached the point that, when there’s any question of delivery risk, the Cesarean is what clinicians turn to—it’s simply the most reliable option….Clinicians are increasingly reluctant to take a risk, however small, with natural childbirth.

Yet c-sections also pose real risks, as this table from the joint consensus statement indicates:

Table 1. Risk of Adverse Maternal and Neonatal Outcomes by Mode of Delivery
Outcome	Risk
Maternal	Vaginal Delivery	Cesarean Delivery
Overall severe morbidity and mortality*†	8.6%	9.2%*
	0.9%	2.7%†
Maternal mortality‡	3.6:100,000	13.3:100,000
Amniotic fluid embolism§	3.3–7.7:100,000	15.8:100,000
Third-degree or fourth-degree perineal laceration||	1.0–3.0%	NA (scheduled delivery)
Placental abnormalities¶	Increased with prior cesarean delivery versus vaginal delivery, and risk continues to increase with each subsequent cesarean delivery.
Urinary incontinence#	No difference between cesarean delivery and vaginal delivery at 2 years.
Postpartum depression||	No difference between cesarean delivery and vaginal delivery.
Neonatal	Vaginal Delivery	Cesarean Delivery
Laceration**	NA	1.0–2.0%
Respiratory morbidity**	< 1.0%	1.0–4.0% (without labor)
Shoulder dystocia	1.0–2.0%	0%
Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; NA, not available; NICU, neonatal intensive care unit; OR, odds ratio; RR, relative risk.

(Note that cesarean’s near-quadrupling of maternal death risk is not causing a call to ban non-medically essential cesarean).

Another factor in physician preference for cesarean–one that is closely tied with money–is time.  As one prominent obstetrician once told me, the money itself isn’t the issue–what’s a couple hundred dollars to someone whose salary is well into six figures?  It’s time.  A cesarean takes 40 minutes.  A vaginal birth can drag on for hours and hours, and the timing is completely unpredictable.

This report on Maternity Care Payment Reform from the National Governors Association explains that the optimum timing possible with cesarean is personally convenient as well as financially lucrative–but not because of the payment for the cesarean itself:

[P]lanned cesarean deliveries have lower opportunity costs for obstetricians and facilities. For facilities, spontaneous vaginal deliveries may be more difficult to plan and manage compared to scheduled cesarean deliveries. With a planned cesarean delivery, hospitals can schedule operating room time and ideal hours for nursing staff. For providers, scheduling a cesarean birth ensures that they will be the ones to perform the delivery and they will not have to transfer care and associated payment to a colleague or be delayed from office or other hospital duties.11 In addition to securing reimbursement, having scheduled births allows providers more time to schedule billable procedures.

Even in vaginal births, the emphasis many obstetricians put on time is obvious.  Elective inductions allow for births to be scheduled at the physician’s convenience (and while this may sometimes be convenient for the pregnant woman also, you can bet that she does not get to pick a time that would be inconvenient for her doctor).  ACOG guidelines on labor induction and augmentation discuss the reduction in labor time that can occur with Pitocin administration in positive terms (without any indication that this is preferred by laboring women).

In my tours of hospital labor units, it has not been uncommon for every laboring woman on the board to have a Pitocin drip to “help them along.”  A friend of mine–one who was amenable to a highly medicalized birth and had an epidural in place–said her obstetrician walked into the room when she had dilated to 10 centimeters and said, “Okay, you have two hours to push this baby out and then I’m going to have to do a cesarean.”  This did not even meet old time guidelines, which indicated a three hour pushing time for first time mothers who had an epidural.

The website My OB Said What? is full of anecdotes about practitioners who value their own time over the normal progression of  labor.  A few examples:

• “Well she pushed for over two hours, I would have just sectioned her.”– OB  who was not caring for the mother during labor, after learning of the mother’s vaginal birth. 
• “But then we’ll be here ALL DAY!” – OB, with wild flinging of arms into the air,  in response to the suggestion that breaking the bag of water be delayed until a mother being induced  continued to dilate more then the current 2 CM of dilation she was at.
• “You can’t pay me enough to sit here waiting for you to deliver to make up the time lost with my children.” –OB commenting on Twitter.
• “You’ll have to be pushing by 1, I have some place to be at 2 this afternoon.” –OB to woman on Pitocin induction who was also having her membranes ruptured at 2cm dilation.

Some doctors also feel a therapeutic mandate to “do something,” which is often counterproductive in a normal labor.  Obstetrician and ethicist Paul Burcher notes that a “therapeutic imperative” is essentially another term for “the inertia that prevents physicians from abandoning ineffective therapies because no better alternative yet exists.”  Burcher is writing about bed rest, but as with threatened miscarriage, the current “better alternative” in a normal labor is to do nothing at all.  As Dr. Burcher says,

It takes courage to do nothing, but when we have nothing of benefit to offer we must refrain from deluding ourselves and harming our patients.

Here’s hoping that ethics will trump time and money and lead to genuine change in practice.  But given the historic difficulties obstetricians have with implementing evidence based practice and the slow obstetric response to reducing (rather than increasing) intervention, given the average time it takes to put an innovation into routine practice, we may have at least 17 years to wait.

Forceps in Birth: Woman as Test Animal

This post will tell a story about a birthing woman being used as a test animal for training in using obstetrical forceps.

Forceps can be an important tool, but learning to use them is difficult. Before the invention of the Chamberlen forceps in the 1600s, removing a stuck baby from the birth canal was a gruesome process, involving anything from surgical instruments to kitchen gadgets (usually the baby was already dead when the removal process began).

Few people got to use the Chamberlen forceps for a long time.  The family kept them highly secret, and while many babies and some mothers still died when these forceps were used, not all of them did. The Chamberlens must have seemed like miracle workers every time they were able to end an obstructed birth with a live mother and baby.

Eventually the secret got out, and through the 1700s and 1800s, there were many redesigns of forceps to attempt to make them safer.  By the early part of the twentieth century, as birth moved increasingly into hospitals, about half of babies were delivered with the assistance of forceps.

Here is a graphic video depicting a successful and relatively gentle low-forceps delivery–if you are squeamish, you might skip watching.  (Note that in this birth there is no episiotomy and the doctor supports the woman’s perineum as the head emerges–this is not typical):

Developing expertise in safe forceps use can take years.  Modern day doctors are much more likely to turn to cesareans when problems arise in the birth process.  But many doctors do still receive rudimentary training in forceps use.  Training is usually done through simulation, but eventually it requires a birthing woman to train on. El Parto Nuestro says,

“Forceps training” are carried out without the woman’s consent and without medical indication, that is, during birth deliveries which are progressing normally without any kind of emergency that requires interventions. The absurd reason for this unnatural practice is just so the students can learn.

No woman in her right mind would consent to unnecessary use of a procedure with risks that include urinary and fecal incontinence and an infant with a fractured skull.  According to Dr. Atul Gawande, using forceps safely requires a high level of skill and expertise, which ‘means that the outcome is always uncertain, even for experienced surgeons.’ Thus, practice may be conducted on women who don’t understand what is going on and are perceived as not having the means to complain even if they do.  Such was the case of Nancy Narváez, a low-income immigrant woman in Barcelona.  According to this press release, Nancy and the friend who accompanied her

witnessed how different students tried one after the other to pull her baby out with the use of forceps, under the supervision of a tutor, who even screamed at one of them, “not like that, you could break the baby’s head!” Finally, the tutor had to pull Nancy’s baby out, who suffered severe craneal fracture, intracraneal bleeding, cortical-subcortical infarction and convulsions which required a [hospital] transfer…[The hospital] confirmed that the baby was also suffering from an epidural hematoma caused by obstetrical trauma during an instrumental birth delivery, hypotonia (lack of muscular tone) and ischemic infarction in the area of the craneal fracture. She was operated on to drain the hematoma. A [neonatology] report…verified that the ischemic injury had caused neurological motor damage to the right hand side of her body; for which she would need physiotherapy.  As to the mother, a large episiotomy was carried out on her to insert the forceps.

Poor and oppressed women’s bodies have often been used for medical testing and training without informed consent–or any consent at all.   For instance, fistula repair was perfected on unanesthetized enslaved women, and Depo Provera was tested on poor women in Atlanta before much was known about it at all.

Forceps can be a preferable alternative to either vacuum extractors or cesarean if the birth attendant is well trained in their use.  Simulations can give good practice on conducting forceps deliveries.  But if the training must ultimately be conducted on a living woman who does not need the intervention (because when forceps are needed, there’s usually an emergency that involves getting the baby out fast), at what expense are we doing this training?

Note: for a potential alternative to forceps that is currently in development, see this post.

Planning

Family planning is a virtue (unless you are of a few extreme religious persuasions).  Wedding planning is expected.  Vacation planning is a necessity. But planning for a birth?  For some reason, people find this controversial.

Anti-homebirth activist Amy Tuteur says, “Birth plans engender hostility from the staff, are usually filled with outdated and irrelevant preferences, and create unrealistic expectations among expectant mothers. But the worst thing about birth plans is they don’t work. They don’t accomplish their purported purpose, make no difference in birth outcomes, and, ironically, predispose women to be less happy with the birth than women who didn’t have birth plans.” (Tuteur cites some evidence to support her views, though her opinions seem to contradict the research findings.  For instance, one study she cites says, “The majority of women agreed that the birth plan enhanced their birth experiences, added control, clarified their thoughts, and improved communication with their health care providers.”)

From Anonymous, who claims to be a physician, posting a comment on Stand and Deliver: “In regards to birth plans. They are all nonsense. When it comes to the delivery room most if not all mean nothing. Your in pain you said I don’t want drugs you change your mind you get drugs.” (grammatical errors are in the original comment, and what birth plan has ever said, “no one should let me change my mind about anything in this plan ever, no matter what”)

From a patient handout from a Texas OB (posted on The Unnecesarean), “I do not accept birth plans. Many birth plans conflict with approved modern obstetrical techniques and guidelines. I follow the guidelines of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology which is the organization responsible for setting the standard of care in the United States.” (I have found that almost all of the OBs in my research insist that they follow ACOG guidelines.  And they definitely do follow some of the guidelines.  They apparently are able to block out the ones they do not want to follow–I have yet to meet an OB who does not violate at least some ACOG guidelines at least some of the time.  This OB, for instance, insisted on continuous electronic fetal monitoring and birth in the lithotomy position, stated that amniotomy and episiotomy would be conducted at his discretion and without discussion, and recommended routine elective induction between 39 and 40 weeks)

From a commenter on a birth plan post on The Stir on Cafe Mom: “almost all of our family friends had complications with their births, and none of them went the way that they had planned. Because i’ve seen this happen many times, my reaction is to just go with the flow.  Sure, there are are some things I would prefer not to happen, but I can’t actually control how my baby decides to arrive. I mean that’s the thing about life, in general what will happen will happen and you can’t always plan for everything.”

If you don’t believe in planning your family, you are unlikely to be upset by yet another pregnancy.  If you make no plans for your vacation, you are unlikely to feel cheated if you stay home watching TV for a week.  If you don’t make any plans for a wedding, a quick ceremony with a justice of the peace is probably not a disappointment.  Nor is rain.  But we generally make some plans for these events, even though there is no way to guarantee that our plan will come through exactly as we had hoped.  No one criticizes people for having plans for major life events that are not birth.

As Cristen Pascucci of Improving Birth said, “Birth is one of the last places in America where a modern woman is expected to lie back, shut her mouth, and take what’s done to her.”

It should not be controversial to expect to have a say in what might happen with your own body, even if what ultimately happens may not be what you expected.