Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Getting tricked into a C-section

The rate of C-sections in India is way beyond average.. Somewhere I read it to be 45% and in some other article 60%.
I delivered my first baby about 4 months back and had a c-sec too.. Was it required... I am still finding answers..
I was admitted to one of the best hospitals in bangalore and was consulting a reputed gyne.

I had a perfectly healthy pregnancy... No Bp, no sugar, no thyroid, good weight gain, etc , etc..
In fact my pregnancy kept me perfectly active till the last trimester.. Even during my eighth month I was able to get on a ladder and pick things off my loft.
I was asked to get a scan done about 2 weeks before my due date... And since the scan predicted the fetal weight to be 3.4 kg I was advised to get induced..
My advice to people who go for inducing of labor is to get a clear understanding from the doc as to why it needs to be done and if there is a possibility to wait for natural labor.
Labor is natures way of preparing the baby for birth... Please don't go against nature unless absolutely required and agree for inducing of labor...
I should have asked the doc to wait till I started on labor and cut me open if the labor did not progress well...
I am a well built woman... And I feel I could have delivered him even if he went upto 8 pounds.. I later got to know that women have vaginally delivered babies of 11 pounds and more...

But I was unaware of a lot of things before I actually went thru it. And so here I agree to the docs advice and begin to get induced... One tube of the prostaglandin gel, no effect, 2nd tube , still no effect... then the third and yet I don't have any signs of labor.. How will I ?I was not yet ready... My little one was not ready too... Here I was forcing him to come into the world a lot earlier than he wanted to... I denied him the pleasure of staying inside my cozy womb till he wanted to.
The three times of inducing did have its effect on the little one though... He was distressed and passed meconium in the womb.. Then the doc declares that the baby is in distress and declares an emergency c-sec..
Didn't she realise that I was not ready for inducing.. Didn't she realise that the baby's head was not yet fixed into the pelvic cavity.. Didn't she know that there was no way he would come out vaginally and at the end of all this gimmick I would have to go thru a C... At times I feel she knew all this and just did it so that she did not have to rush to the hospital at any odd hour of my labor...
Did she think twice about how much I aspired for a natural birth.. I had told this to her umpteen times from the start of my pregnancy.
I read a lot of articles about inducing, overweight babies, c-sec, etc and I learnt that if labor was induced well in advance it would in all probability end in a C.
I am extremely disappointed about the fact that my perfectly healthy baby was in distress.
And after reading a lot of articles I am very positive that the distress was caused only due to the three times of inducing. I still feel I was responsible for him getting distressed and I feel terrible about it. Probably if I had read more during my pregnancy I would have known better.
I am not against inducing of labor or C-sections. I really appreciate the medical advances we have achieved in reducing the risks in complicated deliveries. C-section is definitely a boon in these days whereas in older days both the mother and baby were at risk of their lives.
My issue is with the misuse of these advaces. Doctors have started using these to make delivery a planned process to suit their convenience. My doc told me that if you start getting induced at 11 pm you will in all probability deliver before 5 pm the next day... It later hit me that she wanted my delivery between 9am and 5 pm on the next day.
At the end of the day, these are just hard lessons learnt...All I can do now is probably just accept the fact that it is over and done with and be happy that I have a bonny baby in my hand.

2 comments:

Sunita Venkatachalam said...

I get a feeling that you are in Bangalore? Are you? If so, can you share the hospital name and Dr's name? I'm making a list myself because I feel there are too many Dr's suggesting unnecessary C-Secs.

poppin dot mom at gmail dot com

Thanks !

The Scorpion Ma said...

Have sent you a mail... My reply was rather long so decided to email it than to post it here...