Listen to your heart
I just got off the phone with a pregnant woman. She had left me a message, crying, as she had been told that her baby was occiput posterior and was “a big baby” and that her OB wanted to schedule her for a cesarean section. I typically do not do phone consults, but this time, I couldn’t resist. I called her back; this is what I told her.
No one can decide for you as to how you choose to go about your labor and delivery for a non medical reason. Big babies are very hard to determine at full term and we are very often wrong about the estimate. Please see the Evidence Based Birth article on Suspected Big Babies. “Ultrasounds are right about half the time and wrong about half the time when they predict a big baby. Although 1 out of 3 US women are told they have a big baby at the end of pregnancy, only 1 in 10 babies is actually born big.”
She was told that she has a high chance of shoulder dystocia. First of all, it is not okay to use scare tactics to get a patient to decide to have a cesarean section. Per EBB, “7 to 15% of big babies have difficulty with the birth of their shoulders, the majority of these cases are handled successfully by the care provider with no harmful consequences to the baby.”
Cesarean Sections should be reserved for reasons where every other option for a vaginal delivery has been explored. EBB states, “it would take 3,700 unnecessary Cesareans to prevent one case of permanent injury due to shoulder dystocia.” While I do not look lightly at that one case of permanent damage, let’s look at the risk of a major abdominal surgery for the patient.
Please share with your OB and your Doula my Podcast on EBB, February 24th, 2021. Many of these providers admit that they do not know how to handle and promote rotation of an infant in an occiput posterior position. “We were not taught this in medical school.” Today, there are many more infants in this position than ever before, some estimates are that is has doubled in the past 20 years. All I know is that our Cesarean rate is sky rocketing and we need to look at remedies to this crisis now. As proven by my clients and their successful birth stories, malpositioning can Prevented, Identified, and Rotation can be accomplished!
Listen to your gut. She wants and believes she can have a safe vaginal birth. She is educated, determined and strong. I support her efforts entirely. I hope she decides to consult with me and that she proves everyone that does not believe in the miracle of birth, wrong.
Read all my instagram posts and go to Evidence Based Birth website to get the facts.