the theme was pain relief during labour.... i have always been a strong advocate for epidural, when administered by a serious professional it's the best and safest way to have a baby.... let's see what happened in the class...
Strangely enough the first thing we noticed was that form the 11 couple of the first session only 5 were present.... hhhh the quality of the first lesson must have impressed them too much...
the theme of the day was
PAIN RELIEF DURING LABOUR
These are the options that were offered to us (we talked about these for 1 hour and 55 minutes) - I will try and be objective this time.....
- Gas ... yes the same one you can buy for one pound a balloon when you go raving.. you know the one that gets you high . apparently it is so efficient it comes in pipes directly into your birthing room and you can have as much as you want of it (cost to the NHS a maximum of £30 per person using it)
- Music .. you must bring your own and you can play it as loud as you want (possibly to cover up you screaming your head off in pain.... cost to the NHS ..FREE)
- Aromatherapy - all of the NHS midwifes are now trained in aromatherapy massage, you can use a range of essential oils (general cost £ 5 pounds a bottle from amazon... i suppose they buy in bulk so it's cheaper) or bring your own (NHS cost = FREE)
- Hot water bottle - bring your own as it might not be there and you need a sleeve or you might get burnt as the pain of labour might be so severe you won't feel the burning (once again cost to the NHS = FREE)
- Hypnoteraphy ... you need to do a course before it can cost up to £150 (which you have to pay for) or you can buy books on amazon (cost to the NHS £0 .... cost to you variable)
- Praying .... i refuse even to acknowledge this
- Reading .... same as before
- Walking up and down stairs ...apparently if you go up and down staircases sideways the rocking of your pelvis will help your dilation...does nothing for pain but it will keep you busy and might speed up things...
- Tens machines ... YOU MUST RENT this before from a pharmacy as the hospital will not supply this...
- Opiates ... these are not recommended as they might pass through the bloodstream o the baby making it drowsy so could bring to complications in birth
the midwife sniggered the moment she said the word, please note last week she refused to show us a forceps, or show us a birth video as it might scare people,
and then proceeded to extract from her bag of tricks the various implements needed for an epidural
the needle is very long look at it
and it has to go in your back think about it
and it might be that you get punctured
and you have to get a catheter fitted
... in other word she did everything she could to get us in the frame of mind that the epidural is really not a viable option.... (cost to the NHS ...varies, need to have a doctor (Obstetrics salary from, £29500) and a anaesthetists (Salaries start at £28000) and a midwife there as well)
also what really struck me is that in the uk the epidural is self administered... i mean the put the tube in and then they give you a button so that you self administer the pain relief drug when you are in pain....
are we serious????
In the rest of the world you have someone checking your anatomy and giving you the right amount of drug so that you do not feel all of the pain and still feel the need to push, making childbirth easier, and you are always checked by a doctor ....
So in the end we still do not know what we want to do... i think we will use the Chiesa-Canziani method we go and swing it....
I am however more and more shocked by the witch doctor approach that has been offered to us... I am not sure all of the NHS is the same, and i am pretty sure it depends a lot from the midwife you have and her degree of hippiness...still I am very disappointed and a bit worried bout the well being of my baby... i have to trust people that seems to think that dancing naked in the moonlight is a valid medical technique....
No comments:
Post a Comment