Not to be heard when you know what you know

"Did you know this same discussion was already going on 33 years ago when I first gave birth?" writes our imail correspondent re the episiotomy report blogged here. She refers to those Our Bodies, Ourselves gals who questioned the dictates of the "good doctors":

Women were questioning the need for routine episiotomies, that's all.  Suspicious, as with the performance of C-sections, that the "experts" do these procedures for their own convenience, not for the good of the mother or baby . . . NOT doing an episiotomy requires the doctor to take more care in the delivery . . . to ease the baby out, to prevent tearing.

Whatever her agenda, we have ours. Fascinating that old wives at the frontline decades ago are only now being "vindicated" by modrin statistical studies.  How painful not to be heard when you know what you know. That would be ourselves from day one, even though we've never given birth. We're reminded of the devastating effects of puerperal fever when home births gave way to hospital births (beginning in the 18th century?) and surgeons unwittingly infected untold thousands of healthy new mothers with the deadly germs on their unwashed hands fresh from surgery. Talk about sheeplike obeisance to authority and throwing out the baby with the bathwater. In recent times, midwives have made a comeback.  At the same time, one reads that increasingly Ob/Gyn docs are pulling in their shingle in the face of escalating malpractice lawsuits.  This ain't our field, but it's rich with the wonder and horror of the human condition.

Comments

[Teresa]

Ummm... having given birth to 2 children - normal vaginal births not C-sections... My daughter who was first was 9lb 2oz. My son who was second was 10lbs 4oz... (I decided to stop there because I couldn't handle the thought of an 11lb 6oz baby... and no I did not have gestational diabetes!) I can say without qualification that an episiotomy was DEFINITELY not for the convenience of the doctor! And no I did not have an epidural either time.

It's very easy to generalize and say - this is wrong or that is wrong. Like most other medical conditions, the individual must be evaluated at the time and place. Believe me when I say - you really DO NOT want to tear! It's so much worse and recovery takes much longer.

As in all other "studies" I'd like to know who did it and how they arrived at their conclusions. Just because the WaPo publishes study results doesn't make them gospel... look at all the crazy obesity studies lately. Playing "armchair doctor" is a lovely pastime... but I'd really like to know how many of the women who had extra tearing also had forceps delivery - guaranteed to cause extra tearing. It's not as simple as a study makes it sound. Nor is having a birth without an episiotomy - if I recall correctly - the mother has to work on doing some stretching of the skin before the baby is born.

Oh yeah, and even with my babies being extra large - I didn't have any of the complications that the WaPo says are common with episiotomies... and my last one was done over 21 years ago.