Monday, August 8, 2016

Why Should I Be Your Birth Doula?


"It is my belief that birth is a sacred experience.  
I am amazed and in awe by the birth process. 
I find so much joy and satisfaction in supporting and nurturing mothers 
during this magical experience"


Birth is such a unique experience for each couple. My doula and massage services are perfect for whatever birth experience you want to create. I love supporting women who want to have a natural childbirth, but I believe that medicated births are also an amazing experience. I have had much success using my doula skills; massage therapy, energy work and guided visualizations for women who want to have a natural childbirth. I have relieved a lot discomfort and stress. Birth can be beautiful experience with minimal pain.


My skills are also very beneficial for a woman who elects to us medication. Whether or not to use medication is a personal decision and no one can tell a woman what she should do for her birth. I honor couples choices for their birth and offer compassionate, non-judgmental support. Birth is such an amazing experience no matter what choices you make. It is such an honor for me to be invited to a couple's birth.
  
Giving birth with confidence means that you have the trusted support of an experienced Doula.  I have experience in hospitals, birth centers, and home settings. I have assisted women in natural childbirth, as well as births using pain management. I have assisted in twin births, lotus births, and water births. 


My massage therapy background can help alleviate some of the discomfort of natural childbirth.  Husbands love having someone else do the massage so that they can focus on giving their spouse loving support. My training in acupressure can help keep contractions regular as well as speed up the labor process. It can release endorphins that can take the edge of labor. It also releases oxytocin that can help prevent hemorrhaging after labor.


During our visits, I will help empower and prepare you for your birth.  I can help co-create a plan that is perfect for you. This may include: regular prenatal massages; finding appropriate childbirth classes; learning and practicing different techniques; and writing a birth plan. 



"Nothing is more important than the birth of your child. It should be an experience you will always cherish. As your Doula, I will support you in having the birth that you want, in the manner that you have chosen."



Tiffany Rose
Sweet Pea in the Pod
www.sweetpeainthepod.com

(928)963-1808
Sedona, Arizona

To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate....That is the Question

As a parent myself, this was one of the most difficult desicions I had to make as a parent. There is so much talk these days about the safety of vaccines. This is a personal decision that only a parent can make. Some parents believe that it is necessary to fully vaccinate, others selectively vaccinate and others have chosen to not vaccinate at all.

The recommended amount of vaccines has gone from being around 25 in the 70's when I was growing up to now recommending around 70 vaccines by the time a child is in college. It is still unknown what affects this increase in toxins will have on our children. It is already being theorized that vaccines add toxins to children's sensitive systems. These toxins in addition to the other toxins and chemicals in our environment (pollutents, preservatives, cleaning products, wheat glueten soda, processes foods, meats with hormones, ect) have caused disorders like ADD, ADHD, Autism, and Cancers.

Doctors or Oriental Medicine and Homeopaths can treat children if they get sick and help prevent them from contracting diseases. This reduces the need to vaccinate. For parents who wish to vaccinate, they can give remedies to lessen the toxic effect of the vaccines on the body.


There are some helpful resources available to help a parent make decisions about vaccination.

One suggestion for parents who choose to vaccinate is to follow the alternate vaccination schudule. This is based on the Chinese system. They wait to do their vaccines and spread them out further over time.

Although it is important to take into account some important factors- like if the child is going to be in daycare after birth, if the baby is breastfeed, if the baby has a healthy immune system, ect.
Dr. Sherry Tenpenny has a DVD on Vaccines. She goes through each one and discusses her view about whether that vaccine is a safe choice. It is filled with statistics and data. Dr. Tenpenny has the view that vaccines are not safe and explains her opintion of each childhood vaccine. She is also on Facebook with reugular updates.


Dr. Mercola is also anti-vaccine. He has a website and is also on facebook.


Dr. Sears has a book that describes each vaccine. He is not as biased with his view. He just states the facts and wants parents to make their own decisions.


And then there is the American Pediatric Association and there view is that children need to fully vaccinate.


It is difficult to find a doctor who is willing to see your children if they are not fully vaccinated. Doctor's of Oriental Medicine can treat illness when they arise, without the need of pills and antibiotics. If a parent still wants a physician, I have found a couple in the area who are ok with either not vaccinating or selectively vaccinating.



Sweet Pea in the Pod
www.sweetpeainthepod.com

(928)963-1808
Sedona, Arizona

Sacred Birthing


How can we make birth that is sacred and right to begin with, become even more right in order to support the full Divinity of each child? How can we increase our understanding and action to best support our babies? If we look to our baby’s birth as our gift to and from the Divine, we will most likely choose to be in a state of heightened consciousness and choose wakefulness of body, mind and heart.

Sacred Birthing allows birth to step into the Sacred- birth without trauma uplifts the life of your baby and the evolution of humanity. It's practices support a baby's whole being. By awakening to timeless spiritual wisdom, Sacred Birthing becomes a parent's guide for protecting their baby's consciousness as it moves from spirit to earth.

An enormous scope of birth wisdom has been lost through time. Giving birth is the highest degree of honor, for it is our act of co-creation and is our personal gift to our baby. Not only is it an honor to create and nurture another being within, but to release and offer this baby in gratitude for our life and nurturing from the Earth and cosmos is a fulfillment of the Cycle of Life. For generations, we women have let ourselves miss the opportunity to give birth to align with our true self. We have, on some level, agreed to be anesthetized in birth to highlight this forgetting.


Birth is the greatest influence of a baby's entire life; birth crystallizes a blueprint that remains with us for life. At the time of birth, in order for the soul to be most fully received, the baby-body must be in an open state- emotionally and physically. This requires that the mother be fully conscious in the process of giving birth; that she is not energetically depressed by the action of drugs. Medicated births depresses a baby-body's vibration. If the baby-body is depressed, it is only able to accept that depressed equivalent of its soul's vibration. This means that the baby will spend a great part of his lifetime recouping the vibrational excellence that could have been hers from the moment of birth. Sacred Birthing uniquely speaks to how a baby can be born without the 'normal' harm to the body/soul connection.

Many souls wish to take part in this time of rising consciousness and are asking to return to Earth to be on hand as she evolves. These babies hold great power in the times to come. In their absolute love, there is nothing more powerful. They are our leaders who will inspire change by their presence, even as babes in arms. They affect everything simply by their presence. They hold and inspire a new paradigm by leading with the heart, and will show us how to have love permeate all aspects of life. In the next years, these babies will teach us in a new manner if we are willing to open to them. We must give these babies the gift of a "soft birth" which will allow them to remember who they are, where they are from, & what their purpose is on Earth.

I learned during a Sacred Birthing Workshop in Maui that a natural childbirth can have little or no sensations of pain. I had heard of this being done using guided visualization & hypnotherapy, but not using the suggestions that the instuctor/midwife was teaching. Her name is Sunni Karll, she is the author of the book Sacred Birthing. It is her belief that in a heightened state of vibration(energy flow), pain can not exist.

"From the phase of transition to birth, a father may double his partners strength & vibration in labor. This happens by looking into each other's eyes. The mother should open her eyes during each rush & look deeply into her partner's eyes. In this way you may find yourselves diving into each other's hearts. In the silence between rushes, close your eyes & both go within." Sunni Karll

To obtain the highest state of vibration at birth, a woman must start working during her pregnancy. "The vibration of birth is rarely higher than the highest vibration achieved during pregnancy." Sunni Karll

Emotional baggage must also be cleared during your pregnancy, this can include your fears about your upcomming birth as well as traumatic birth experiences from other children or even your own birth. Childbirth education classes are a great way to eleminate any fears about birth. When I was younger, before my first birth, I didn't take a childbirth education class. I thought it would just scare me about the birht process. But the opposite is true. You will actually learn how natural & safe the birth process can be. You must also remove any fear about becomming a new parent.If necessary take parenting classes, read books, join support groups or if necessary find a councelor to help you with your fear.
"The higher vibration of the baby's soul will bring up baggage in each parent during pregnancy, in order to be cleared. Pregnancy is the time to break these patterns so they are not dragged into the birth itself". Sunni Karll"

There are connections between our death and our next birth. If you have had an abortion, and the soul you carry now is the same soul who was aborted(as is often the case), the soul often replays that by needing to be born in a hospital. Parents can release this need, by talking to the sould and exlaining the circumstances of the decision for abortion. With the partent's own self-forgiveness, the baby can then heal. The baby can then shift and choose a different birth scenario of higher vibration" Sunni Karll

There is no place for fear in the birth process. When we are in a place of fear, we tense up. Once we are tensed up, our muscles contract. When our muscles are tight, we will experience more pain. The more pain that we experience in birth, the tighter our muscles will contract, then we will experience an even greater level of pain. This is called the pain cycle. In order to have a minimally painless birth, we must be in a state of relaxation!
If a couple chooses, I can take these Sacred Birthing principles of needing to be in a heightened state of vibration, as well as the techniques suggested by the "mother" of alternative birth- Dr. Gowri Motha and I can add them to my birthing tools. I have come up with a pregnancy and birth plan which will allow a woman to raise her levels of vibration.




For more information on Sacred Birthing












Sweet Pea in the Pod
www.sweetpeainthepod.com

(928)963-1808
Sedona, Arizona

7 WAYS TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM UNNECESSARY AND HARMFUL OBSTETRICAL INTERVENTIONS (including “Pit to Distress”!)

#1  Interview different birth attendants/practices before or during early pregnancy and CHOOSE a birth attendant that practices in a way that aligns with your personal childbirth/postpartum philosophy, is appropriate for your health status, and (optimally) who practices a midwifery model of care!

I wish I could scream this from the roof tops!  Sometimes I feel like a broken record I say this so often but I say it so often because it is SO important!!  The bottom line here ladies is that if you think you can pick any care provider you want and then just write a birth plan that clearly states your philosophy and preferences and just get what you want…..THINK AGAIN!  Birth attendants are creatures of HABIT more than anything else.  If they cut an episiotomy on the majority of their patients then what makes you think that if you ask, they won’t cut one on you?  In fact, not only will they cut one on you but they will come up with some bogus reason why it was necessary.  Likewise, if your birth attendant induces most of their patients, what makes you think that he won’t start pressuring you to set up an induction date once you hit 37 weeks! 

Think of it this way, if the birth attendant has a high elective induction rate, they probably feel more comfortable managing pitocin induced or augmented labors as opposed to spontaneous labors and hence, they will probably try to do everything in their power [including persuasion (e.g. the “convenience” card and the “aren’t you sick of being pregnant” card) as well as scare tactics (e.g. the “big baby” card, the “I might not be there to deliver you if you don’t” card, or my favorite the “if you don’t your baby might be stillborn/dead baby” card)] to convince you that your labor needs to be induced or augmented with pitocin.  Why?  It probably is a mix between how they were taught (i.e. medical model of maternity care), what they are used to (a self fulfilling prophecy), and a desire to be the one in “control.” 

Writer Lela Davidson quotes professional childbirth educator and doula, Kim Palena James in her article Create a Better Birth Plan: How to Write One and What It Can and Cannot Do For You:

“Too many parents create birth plans with the expectation that it will be the actual script of their baby’s birth. There is no way! Nature scripts how your child is born into this world: short, long, hard, easy, early, late, etc… The health care providers you choose, and the facility they practice in, will script how you and your labor are treated. The variations are vast. I wish every expectant parent spent less time writing birth plans and more time selectively choosing health care providers that align with their philosophy on health care, match their health status and their needs for bedside manner.”  (Emphasis mine)

So PLEASE for the LOVE of all mothers and babies, PLEASE do your homework! 

Of course there is always the chance that you do interview a particular birth attendant and they act one way in the office with you and then, WHAM!, are a completely different person when you step foot on L&D.  I see it happen ALL THE TIME where I work.  Just because a doctor gives you his home phone number and is sweeter than sugar in the office, doesn’t mean he won’t section you just to get to the company Christmas party!  (This actually happened to a patient I took care of!  NO lie!)  So what can you do about that! 

Jill from Keyboard Revolutionary recently blogged about this:

“Ya know, sometimes I feel bad for the good physicians out there. I know they exist. We all do. We’ve all shaken our fists in righteous indignation at the rants of Marsden Wagner. We’ve listened intently to the poetic, thickly accented declarations of Michel Odent. We’ve swooned over the tender ministrations of “Dr. Wonderful,” a.k.a Dr. Robert M. Biter. God bless those diamonds in the rough, particularly in the obstetrical field. It must be twice as hard to shine when the lumps of coal around you are so horrifically ugly.

I was pondering just now in the shower how so many of us think we’ve got a real gem of an OB (or any other doctor, really) until show time, and suddenly we’re hit with the ol’ bait-and-switch. Sometimes there are warning flags along the way, sometimes not. Sometimes the flags don’t pop up until it’s too late. It sucks that for many women, we don’t realize what a crock we’ve been fed until we’ve already digested it. How do you know whether you’ve got a bad egg or your own Dr. Wonderful?”





#2  Ask the RIGHT QUESTIONS and the RIGHT PEOPLE when researching potential birth attendants.
Two of my favorite posts from Nicole at It’s Your Birth Right! are her posts about choosing the right birth attendant entitled Choose Wisely I and Choose Wisely II.  She writes:
 “The decision about WHO is going to be your birth attendant should NOT be left to chance.  Where you deliver, how you choose to labor, what you chose to do while pregnant and in labor, while these things are definitely important, without the proper WHO, the plan will have difficulty coming together.

I get questions, all the time from friends, friends of friends and even strangers.  They want my thoughts about pregnancy, labor and childbirth. I have spent HOURS talking with women providing answers and information they should be able to get from their prenatal provider/birth attendant.  I think to myself at the end of those conversations, “Why isn’t she able to get this information from her?  If  he doesn’t make her feel special, does not answer her questions, and doesn’t agree with her philosophy on childbirth and labor, why on earth is she allowing him to be her birth attendant?!”

When I pose this question to the women themselves, the answers unfortunately never include “Because I did my research and I found him to be the best match for me and my desired childbirth experience.”  Most of the answers I receive fall into [one of] four categories, none of which are good enough reasons alone to choose a prenatal care provider/birth attendant.   They are: “She delivered my sister/girlfriend”, “She is my gynecologist,” “He is the best/most popular person in area,” and “Her office is so close and convenient to my office/house.”

Now I am not trying to say that you shouldn’t trust your sister, sister-in-law, or best friend’s opinion about her personal birth attendant but if you are going to ask such a person for advice please remember that she probably has only had limited experience with that birth attendant as compared to, say, an L&D nurse or doula, and it is important to ask her exactly why she loves her birth attendant so much.  Does she love him because he trusts in birth and strived to facilitate a positive and empowering birth experience for her or does she love him because he was the only OB in the area that would agree to induce her at 38 weeks because she was sick of being pregnant?  There is a difference!!

If you have done some research and found a birth attendant that you think you really like, I would recommend tapping into some community resources to get the “inside scoop” about your birth attendant.  Here are some ideas:

1)      Contact your local grassroots birth advocacy group like International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) or BirthNetwork National and try to attend a meeting.  The women that attend these meetings are often in tune with the birth culture in their community and can be GREAT resources for which birth attendants are true and which are really wolves in sheep’s clothing!  Also, don’t count out ICAN as a resource even if you have never had a cesarean.  We have a quite a few moms currently in my local ICAN group that are first timers and decided to start attending because they said they were learning so much about birth in general from our meetings!

2) Sign up for a childbirth preparation class that is NOT funded/run by a hospital and ask the instructor for her opinion on different birth attendants.  It is the only way to guarantee that your instructor is not held back from speaking her true feelings since hospital based childbirth instructors are working for the interest and promotion of their hospital by the very nature of their job.  Independent childbirth instructors like Lamaze, Hypnobabies, Birthing From Within, Bradley etc. etc. can be GREAT resources as to which birth attendants follow which philosophies because often times their clients come back and tell them about their experiences.

2)      Consider consulting or hiring a doula.  A doula is a great resource as to the true nature of a birth attendant because she is someone who is actually in the labor and delivery room with her clients and has as close to an “insider’s view” as you can get without actually working for the hospital.  If you hire a doula to be with you during your labor, they will also advocate for you, your needs, and your birth plan as well as provide essential labor support that (unfortunately) even the most well intentioned nurse might not have the time to do. 




#3  Do NOT agree to an induction of labor unless there is a legitimate obstetrical, maternal, or fetal reason for delivering the baby before natural spontaneous labor begins!!  PLEASE Do NOT agree to an unnecessary elective induction of labor. 

This might seem like a no brainier ladies but so many get sucked in!  They don’t call it “the seduction of induction” for nothing! 

Bottom line is if you want to protect yourself from such an asinine, unnecessary, and dangerous intervention as “Pit to Distress” then DON’T agree to be induced unless there is a very important medical reason!

BABIES AND MOTHERS HAVE THE BEST OUTCOMES WHEN THEY ARE ALLOWED TO BEGIN LABOR SPONTANEOUSLY AS WELL AS LABOR AND DELIVER WITH MINIMAL INTERVENTIONS!

In the Lamaze Institute for Normal Birth’s MUST READ patient education bulletin entitled Care Practice #1: Labor Begins on Its Own, author Debby Amis, RN, BSN,CD(DONA), LCCE, FACCE, and editor Amy M. Romano, MSN, CNM write:

“There is growing evidence that induction of labor is not risk-free. In 2007, Goer, Leslie, and Romano reviewed the entire body of literature on the risks of induction in healthy women with normal pregnancies and found that when labor was induced, the following problems may be more common:

·         vacuum or forceps-assisted vaginal birth;
·         cesarean surgery;
·         problems during labor such as fever, fetal heart rate changes, and shoulder dystocia;
·         babies born with low birth weight;
·         admission to the NICU;
·         jaundice;
·         increased length of hospital stay.”




#4  If you have to be induced or augmented with pitocin for a true medical or obstetrical reason, be honest with your nurse about how you are feeling and have one of your labor companions keep track of how often your contractions are coming.

And this does NOT mean for your labor companion to “monitor watch”!!  It’s not a TV for goodness’ sake!

Research has shown that due to the risks of pitocin, continuous electronic fetal monitoring (CEFM) is a safety requirement for anyone being induced or augmented with it.  However, remember CEFM is a machine and machines have limitations.  The tocodynamometer or “toco” is “pressure transducer that is applied to the fundus of the uterus by means of a belt, which is connected to a machine that records the duration of the contractions and the interval between them on graph paper.”  However, depending on your body type, how “fluffy” your abdomen is, your position, and your gestational age, the toco might not be recording your contractions appropriately.  You might be having contractions every minute but the machine is not registering them.  This is why I always remind women that they have to tell me how they are feeling. 


If you are being augmented or induced with pitocin your nurse SHOULD:

1)      Be palpating (feeling) your fundus (top of your uterus above the belly button) before, during, and after contractions periodically throughout your labor to judge how strong they are (mild, moderate, or strong).  Palpation before and after contractions also assures the nurse that your uterus is actually coming to rest (is soft) between contractions, which assures that the baby (and mom!) are getting a break!  Remember, unless you have an IUPC (intrauterine pressure catheter) in, the toco can only tell the nurse how far apart and how long the contractions are NOT how strong they are!  That’s right!  Unless you have an IUPC in, the height of the contractions on the monitors is ABSOLUTELY MEANINGLESS!  So therefore the only way for the nurse to know how strong the contractions are is to TOUCH your belly and ASK you!


2) Ask you about your pain level (for example to “rate” your pain on a scale of 0 to 5 or 0 to 10) regularly during your labor unless you have specifically asked her not to ask you about your pain.


3) Give you periodic updates on your progress and the progress of the pitocin.

[Note: I can only speak for myself here but what I do when I have a patient on pitocin is first and foremost to explain the process of titrating the pitocin and what the desired outcome is (and according to our hospital’s policy the desired outcome is moderate to strong contractions that are coming every 2-3 minutes, or 3-5 in a 10 minute period), as well as keep her informed throughout the process when I am increasing or decreasing the pitocin and for what reason.  For example, I might say “It looks to me like you are contracting every 4 minutes.  What is your pain level?  Do you feel like you are getting an adequate break?  Would you like to change position?  I would like to increase to pitocin to achieve a more regular pattern.  What do you think?” or “It looks like the baby continues to have variable deceleration in his heart rate despite all of the position changes we have tried.  I am going to give you a small IV fluid bolus and turn the pitocin down some to see if it helps to resolve the decels.  The baby’s variability is still very reassuring and she is still having accelerations so she is doing well.  I just would like to keep her that way!”  Your nurse should be keeping you “in the loop” so to speak and if she is not, it is your right to ask questions!]

It is also important to remember that that running pitocin is much more of an art than a science.  Therefore you might think she is being “mean” if she is increasing your pitocin since you are only contracting every 6 minutes but remember, running the pitocin lower than is needed to cause cervical change isn’t going to help you either.  No nurse wants her patient to end up in the OR for “failure to progress” because she didn’t turn the pitocin up enough.  There is a happy medium somewhere that most nurses are trying to find.  So please, know that sometimes, even if you really feel like those “every 6 minute” contractions are strong enough already, it is important for the nurse to titrate the medication to achieve an effective labor pattern that promotes a vaginal delivery with a healthy baby. 

If your nurse is NOT doing these things then it is your right to ask questions!!!  However, please remember for your own sake that when asking questions, one attracts more flies with honey than vinegar.  Don’t start yelling at her or demanding a new nurse.  Give her a chance and ask questions first!  She might just be so busy that day that she is in the zone.  Most nurses are happy to teach when asked!




#5  Learn about and practice non-pharmacological methods of pain relief as part of your childbirth preparation and consider not getting or postponing an epidural until all other methods of non-pharmacological pain relief have been exhausted. 

Okay, I know that this one is a bit controversial but please here me out first. 
It is the truth that pitocin contractions, especially when the pitocin is being abused, are typically stronger and longer than spontaneous labor contractions.  Also, being that you have to be on continuous monitoring can also limit your movement and hence, one of your most effective and instinctual coping methods for the pain.  For this reason, many people feel that it is crazy for a woman to go though a pitocin labor without an epidural.  And when “Pit to Distress” is in play, it is truly unbearable to both experience and to witness.  However, if pitocin is administered compassionately and appropriately it is important to know that an epidural is NOT an absolute necessity.  I have seen many women do it without an epidural and many who have done it with an epidural.  So if you have to be induced with pitocin and you desire an “unmedicated” birth, your hands aren’t completely tied.  You CAN do it.  However, I have said time and time again, I would rather a woman have a vaginal delivery with an epidural than a cesarean section without.   That being said, the pitocin and epidural partnership has a dark side too. 

While an epidural can help the woman relax and allow the pitocin to work more effectively, most birth attendants that practice “Pit to Distress” persuade and even bully their patients into getting an epidural specifically so the nurse can “crank the pit” without the woman objecting.  But I would like to remind you that even if you can’t feel those contractions, your baby IS feeling them.  Also, epidurals themselves CAN and DO cause fetal distress and anyone who tells you that epidurals pose no risk to the baby is being dishonest!  At my work, we nickname this the “ten by ten”.  That is, almost without fail, many women who get an epidural are is likely to experience a whopping fetal heart rate deceleration lasting approximately ten minutes about ten minutes after she is put back to bed, which of course throws everyone into a tizzy. 

All of a sudden mom finds herself with her face planted into the bed, her ass in the air, a mask of oxygen on her face, an anesthesiologist pushing adrenaline into her IV to increase her blood pressure and a doctor with his hands up her vagina screwing a monitor onto the baby’s head.  Most babies do recover from said decel and go on to deliver vaginally.  But it is NOT rare for the baby to NOT recover which lands mom…you know where….in the OR.  And guess what!  Since she already has that epidural in place, why they can just cut her open even faster!

Please know that I am not condemning any woman who requests an epidural in labor, especially if she is on pitocin.  I just want all you women out there to know that sometimes that epidural that they keep waving in your face is just a way for them to shut you up so they can CRANK the pit.




#6  If you feel like you are contracting strongly at least every 2-3 minutes (3-5 in a 10 minute period) and the nurse or birth attendant desires to increase your pitocin, you might want to consider requesting a vaginal exam. 
Now, I know limiting vaginal exams is very important to many women as they are invasive and uncomfortable/painful.  I completely understand!  However, if your care provider wants to increase the pitocin and you feel it is unnecessary, asking for a vaginal exam is a way to reveal if you are making any cervical change.  If you ARE making cervical change then there is no real need to continue to go up on the pitocin!  Remember the TRUE goal of pitocin administration is to stimulate an effective labor pattern that causes cervical change.  It is NOT (despite how many birth attendants practice) just about getting a patient to “max pit.”  Every woman is different! 




#7  You could always try writing something about pitocin administration in your birth plan. 
For example: “If deemed necessary, I would like to try non-pharmacological methods of labor augmentation and induction including (blank) first before resorting to pharmacological methods.  However, if my birth attendant and I agree that pitocin will be administered to me, I request that the pitocin be administered following the “low dose” protocol and is increased in intervals no closer than every 30 minutes, allowing my body an appropriate amount of time to adjust and react to each dose increase.

I will be very honest with you.  If your birth attendant or hospital does not practice in this way, it is doubtful that this request will be granted.  However, I suppose it can’t hurt and is worth a shot!  At least it can provide a sympathetic nurse with another platform on which to argue with the birth attendant if necessary (like, “But Doctor X, your patient has specifically requested a low dose pit protocol!”

This should be a last resort!  Remember, writing something in your birth plan does not guarantee you it is going to happen if your birth attendant doesn’t practice that way!  Please refer back to point #1 about choosing the RIGHT birth attendant for you!!! 


The proceeding information was from nursingbirth.com



Sweet Pea in the Pod
www.sweetpeainthepod.com

(928)963-1808
Sedona, Arizona

"Pit to Distress": Your Ticket to an "Emergency" Cesarean?

Here is some important information about how some physicians choose to use Petocin to induce labor. The link below is from a blog article from the following source:

http://www.theunnecesarean.com/blog/2009/7/6/pit-to-distress-your-ticket-to-an-emergency-cesarean.html



                                                                            
Jill from Keyboard Revolutionary wrote about a new term that she recently came across- “Pit to distress.”

“Pit to distress.” How have I not heard about this? Apparently it’s quite en vogue in many hospitals these days. Googling the term brings up a number of pages discussing the practice, which entails administering the highest possible dosage of Pitocin in order to deliberately distress the fetus, so a C-section can be performed.

Yes folks, you read that right. All that Pit is not to coerce mom’s body into birthing ASAP so they can turn that moneymaking bed over, but to purposefully squeeze all the oxygen out of her baby so they can put on a concerned face and say, “Oh dear, looks like we’re heading to the OR!”


Oxytocin is a hormone released during labor that causes contractions of the uterus. The most common brand name is Pitocin, which is a synthetic version. It’s often used to speed or jump-start labor, but if the contractions become too strong and frequent, the uterus becomes “hyperstimulated,” which may cause tearing and slow the supply of blood and oxygen to the fetus. Though there are no precise statistics on its use, IHI says reviews of medical-malpractice claims show oxytocin is involved in more than 50 percent of situations leading to birth trauma.

“Pitocin is used like candy in the OB world, and that’s one of the reasons for medical and legal risk,” says Carla Provost, assistant vice president at Baystate, who notes that in many hospitals it is common practice to “pit to distress” — or use the maximum dose of Pitocin to stimulate contractions.


It’s also used on this AllNurses forum:
I agree, and call aggressive pit protocols the “pit to distress, then cut” routine. Docs who have high c/s rates and like doing them, are the same ones that like the rapid fire knock em down/drag em out pit routines.


“Pit to distress” appears on page 182 of the textbook Labor and Delivery Nursing by Michelle Murray and Gayle Huelsmann. In this example, the onus is on the nurse to defend the patient from the doctor if he or she sees the order “pit to distress” by immediately notifying the supervisor or charge nurse.

   
Jill asks the questions, “OBs, do you still think women are choosing not to birth at your hospitals because Ricki Lake said homebirths are cool? Do you still think we are only out for a “good experience?”

I imagine that all of us who have openly questioned the practices of obstetricians in the U.S. have been hit with the same backlash. We must be selfish, irrational and motivated by our own personal satisfaction. We’ve been indoctrinated into a subculture of natural birth zealots and want to force pain on other women or just feel mighty and superior. We fetishize vaginal birth and attach magical powers to a so-called natural entrance to the world.

Nah. It’s stuff like “pit to distress” that made me run for the nearest freestanding birth center. If I had to do it all over again, I’d stay home.



Have you heard this term before? What is your experience with “Pit to distress?”


Before you comment here, please go applaud Jill from Keyboard Revolutionary for blogging about this term and enjoy her brilliant and honest commentary.

More discussion of “Pit to distress” on the Internet:
The then labor and delivery nurse who blogs at At Your Cervix wrote this in April of 2007:
I see the wide use of cytotec (misoprostil) for inductions. I see what it does to a woman’s uterus and to her baby. Not to mention - it’s not FDA approved for use as a labor induction agent in pregnant women! I see many, many women being induced with a “hospital made” form of prostaglandin gel to induce labor. I also see a HUGE number of pitocin inductions/augmentations, where pitocin is titrated at such high doses, so quickly, that it’s like we’re trying to blow the baby out of the woman’s uterus.
Many of the obsetricians that I work with are eager to “get her delivered” as quickly as possible. There is also the “pit to distress” or “make the baby prove itself” - in other words, keep cranking that pitocin up until the baby crumps into fetal distress and the obstetrician does a stat c-section —- all so the doctor can be done, and get out of the hospital. Why wait 12-14 hours for a natural labor, when you can be done in less than an hour?
Our induction rates are through the roof. The nurses are rarely told the unit statistics, and when we are given them, they seem grossly understated. The L&D nurses know how many patients are induced or augmented, day after day, because we are the ones there, admitting the patient, and running their pitocin. We see them in massive amounts of pain from what is a very unnatural process designed to speed up the labor process, thus leading to increased epidural rates due to the higher levels of pain from synthetic oxytocin versus natural oxytocin.

The term was discussed in this Alexian Brothers Medical Center Employee Newsletter
Back in 2006, our tradition, like most maternity units, was to induce mothers when the fetus reached term gestation which was 37-40 weeks gestation. The medication, oxytocin (Pitocin), was administered to high dose levels to affect delivery. At times, the over-zealous use of oxytocin led to uterine hyperstimulation (terminology changed in September, 2008 to tachysystole), where the contractions were occurring too close together to allow the fetus sufficient time to recover before the next contraction would begin. The notion of “Pit to distress” was commonplace back then.

It was mentioned in this Mothering message board thread about Cytotec:
With a reactive baby (either by NST or auscultation) 25 mcg cytotec can be placed in the back of the vagina for cervical ripening 24 hrs prior to hospital induction and the mom sent home to wait, after observing her and baby for an hour. The vast majority (like 90%) will go into spontaneous labor before coming in for their “scheduled” induction. My biggest problem with cytotec is that we just hit moms with it over and over again, and then , surprise, when it does kick in, there’s too much on board, sorta like “pit to distress”.

Pit to distress was mentioned in the comments of the post My Rant on Pitocin on Knitted in the Womb after the blog’s author, a former chemist and doula, was scolded by an anonymous OB nurse for not understanding the difference between microunits and milliliters when it came to dosing Pitocin.

I’m a trained chemist. I hold a bachelors degree in biochemistry, did some course work towards a masters in chemistry, and worked for 6 years in an R&D lab in the specialty chemicals industry. I probably know WAY more about different units of measure than you do. I used “microunits” and “milliliters” in my discussion appropriately.
I’m not sure why I have to resuscitate a newborn to have “been there,” but since it seems to be very important to you, I’ll talk about it. 90% of the time labor should go just fine, with no need for resuscitation—this according to the World Health Organization. Of the other 10%, not all of them would require newborn resuscitation. If you’ve found that a large percentage of the births you’ve been at have required resuscitation, perhaps you should look at the medical interventions that might be causing that. From my end, the only clients I’ve had who had babies who required resuscitation were cases where there had been “Pit to distress.”


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