Debate Homebirth vs Hospital free essay sample

Fundamentals of speech Debate/Homebirth Most American obstetric practice in hospitals is not based on science, but on myth. How obstetrics perform procedures may in fact be high- tech, but it is in truth not real science what you don’t know about modern medicine can have temporary or permanent effects on you, as well as on your unborn child. The choice you make in childbirth for your baby; home vs. hospital, midwife vs. doctor, and natural vs. edicated birth, will actually have an impact on your child for life. It can be good or ill. The choice is yours. Should you have your baby at home? Today in the United States, in the twenty first century, advances in science and technology made many positive changes in our quality of life, and specifically on medicine. Yet more and more women from all walks of life are choosing to give birth in their own homes – the old fashioned way. Why? The fact is, is spite of all the good that has come from scientific discoveries and experiments, medical science ahs not been able to improve upon the human body and the way it was designed to work, when our bodies are not functioning the way they were created to function, then yes, we are more fortunate than our ancestors in the modern medical intervention can help sometimes. So why are families deciding to go along with a home-birth? Though each couple may have individual reasons, the majority of them plan a home-birth because they believe that most of the time a pregnancy and childbirth are normal functions of a healthy body, not a potential life and death crisis that requires the supervision of a surgeon. â€Å"Doctors have a lot of education of pathology, drugs, surgery, and intervention of all sorts. Their education colors their prospective, and affects the way they see and treat pregnancy and birth. And while a sick woman or women with complications need that perspective and should use doctors, healthy women experiencing normal pregnancies need a whole different perspective, a different set of skills, and a lot of knowledge which is not taught in medical schools â€Å"(Dietsch, 2001) Midwives are trained professionals. A midwife, a good midwife is like her name: With Woman. Only midwifes will stay with the woman in labor, even for hours and hours, skillfully finding natural ways to ease her pain and help her through it all the way until after the birth. A doctor will never do this, he is not expected to, this is not his job. In the hospital, obstetricians do not routinely sit at the bedside of their laboring patients but they rely on machinery and others for information. Then they appear at the last minute into the delivery rooms. Most physicians do not build a relationship of supportive rapport with each patient or offer much encouragement to give birth naturally. Labor and delivery rooms nurses, by and large, enjoy giving support to woman during childbirth. Hospital life, however, involves a great deal of paperwork, personnel changes by the clock and wild fluctuations in how many women each nurse must be responsible for, nurses have no authority to stop an impatient doctor from trying to â€Å"speed up† a slow-but-steady, and normal labor. While statistics indicate that unplanned or unattended homebirths have worse outcomes than hospitals births, planned homebirths with a trained attendant have good outcomes. Midwifery is basically a system of wellness care given by professional midwives to women and infants during the childbearing year, and in many countries midwives are the primary caregivers in maternity systems with better neonatal mortality rates than ours, midwives are trained to watch for deviations from health throughout the pregnancy and labor and refer their clients to a physician if necessary. The number of direct- entry midwives has increased in the last twenty years due to more demand for their service. Most non-nurse midwives have completes a course of tudy and then furthered their education by apprenticing with a more experienced midwife. Normal household germs do not affect the mother of the baby. Childbed fever killed thousands of women in the 19th century; this was about the same time when physicians, who cared for the ill and dying, began to attend birth clinics. As hospitals became the place to go for births and deaths, infections plagued childbearing women and other h ospital patients. Maternal deaths and infection rates dropped dramatically when doctors began washing their hands between the performing of autopsies and attending a birth. Strict and expensive infection control procedures have still not eliminated hospital-caused infections from common and dangerous germs. Each family becomes accustomed to its own household germs and develops a resistance to them. Since fewer strangers are likely to be present at a homebirth than a hospital birth, the chances of acquiring foreign germs are less likely in a homebirth situation. Every effort is made to provide a clean environment at homebirths. Midwives and homebirth doctors wear sterile gloves and use sterilized instruments for cutting the umbilical cord. Hospitals nurseries are like a cradle of germs, and hospital births endanger mothers and babies primarily because of impersonal procedures and overuse of technology and drugs. Normal labor is a healthy stress for the baby, clearing the lungs of fluids and preparing it to take its first breaths. The emotional bonding that takes place in the moments after birth between mother and child and between the baby and the entire family promotes everyone’s well being, and encourages breastfeeding, and speeds the recovery of the new mother as well. This is all encouraged by a midwife. The midwives role is not to deliver the baby. Their role is to be a lifeguard, and to employ a watchful expectancy. In addition they need to make sure that every woman has a comfortable environment. Then, interfere is a problem, they need to intervene and do something. â€Å"Man was created in a certain way, and attempts to interfere must lead to complications. The human body is infinitely intricate; disrupting its natural functions inevitably causes problems. Technology can complicate a normal birth. † (Schneerson, p. 58) In a sincere effort to catch complications arly and produce healthier babies, medical science has changed the atmosphere surrounding birth, from one of a circle of a loving support around the laboring women, to one of a space age technology in a laboratory setting. Though technology can save lives in a crisis, the routine use of technology can interfere with the normal birth process. It is common in hospitals to use intravenous fluids and electronic fetal mo nitors to insure that the mother stays well hydrated and that each contraction and beat of the baby’s heart is recorded. However, many women who are allowed to move around during labor complained less of back pain, and many childbirth authorities feel the motion of walking and changing positions can enhance the effectiveness of the contractions. Some hospitals still require women to birth lying flat on their backs wit legs held up high in stirrups. Since the position defies gravity and makes pushing less effective, then metal forceps are then needed to pull the baby out of the vagina. Research shows that forceps are rarely used when women are allowed to assume a position of comfort during the bearing down stage. Obstetricians frequently rupture the bag of waters surrounding the baby in order to speed up the birthing process. This procedure automatically places a time limit on the labor, as the likelihood of a uterine infection increases with each passing hour in the hospital after the water is broken. Once the protective cushion of water surrounding the baby’s head is eliminated, the belt monitoring the baby’s heartbeat may be exchanged for a scalp electrode – a tiny probe to continue monitoring the heart rate and to collect information about the baby’s blood. Routine use of electronic fetal monitors, compared to the old-fashion method of listening to the baby’s heartbeat after contractions with a fetal scope, may actually cause more problems than it prevents. â€Å"Today at least 25% of all birthing mothers are delivered surgically. This compares to an average c-section rate of about 10% on other countries with better mortality rates. † (Carl Jones, 1987). These numbers indicate that we are not getting better outcomes with more c-sections. The U. S. has the highest obstetrician intervention rates as well as a serious problem with malpractice suits. Several decades ago, in an effort to lessen the pain of childbirth, physicians routinely gave the laboring mother painkillers and anesthetic drugs, over the years the use of most of these medications has subsided, after studies have revealed that the drugs given to the mother had adverse effects on the baby, including asphyxia, hypoxia, and even brain and central nervous system damage. Drugs are still available to laboring women in the hospital, though no drug given in childbirth has been proven to be safe for the baby. Women, who have taken drugs in labor, have decreased maternal feeling towards their babies and an increase n the duration and severity of postpartum depression. Interrupting the natural process of birth wit technological wizardry can cause more harm than good. An obstetrician is trained to use a knife, and the interventions and technology he uses the more money he gets form the patient (sounds a bit harsh, but true). With this philosophy in mind he sets the ball in motion for some random or even unnecessary interventions at births. Interventions give power, control and credit to the doctors for the birth itself and not to the mother who went through that long and hard labor. Many obstetricians have been known to say behind the scenes that they only feel they have â€Å"delivered† the baby when they perform a c-section. It is a powerful feeling to â€Å"deliver† babies rather than leaving the delivering to the mothers themselves. Closing Statement/Conclusion In conclusions, qualified homebirths attendants are available. While discussions over the pros and cons of homebirths and who should attend them continues in medical circles and around supper table. Thousands of healthy babies are being born in their own homes every year. Homebirths is not for every woman. It takes a high degree of commitment to health and learning a high level of responsibility to go against the majority who believe hospital births are better. As you consider where to give birth, read books, and talk to women who have given birth in the hospital delivery rooms, and in birthing centers, and in their homes, discuss your concerns with your physicians and your midwife. Interview several alternative birth ractitioners; assess the level of skill, integrity, knowledge and philosophy of each to discover if they are compatible with your expectations. Whereas obstetricians deliver the great majority of babies in hospitals, some are operating alternative birthing centers Family practitioners who attend births can still be found, but their ranks are decreasing because of the soaring expense of malpractice insurance. â€Å"We’ve come to the understanding that homebi rths risks are not as huge as one might first imagine, and hospital births as not as safe and sterile as one might first assume.