Idealistic as I am, I may find myself unhappy at times with the care at the clinic, but in the last week I have become especially appreciative of the care we give.
While the WHO recommends no more than a 10-15% C-Section rate, the US's average is around 30%. That is generally appalling enough for me. But here in the Valley, the rate is 40%, with one major hospital at 44%. This is complete lunacy in my mind, and yet, there are some things to consider... Generally the C-Section rate is so high because of the fear-based practice that OBs have been driven to practice because of the high rate of litigation. By fear-based practice, I mean that OBs do a lot of preemptive C-Sections and use a lot of medications "just in case" which in invariably end up necessitating a C-Section because the drugs put the baby or mother into medical distress. Of course the "Just in case" more often than not does more harm than good, but it at least it looks like the doctor was trying "just in case" they get sued.
So, number #1, I am very pleased to report that at Holy Family the C-Section rate is about 4%. I could go on and on about why this is, but I'll simply say that we don't mess with nature.
Point #2: As if OBs didn't have enough to worry about with getting sued, I learned on Tuesday of an OB that was actually murdered by the father--involved in the drug rings--of a mother who had died in childbirth. Woah! Since we are not interfering with the body's innate wisdom and are not using unnecessary medications and procedures it is much much much less likely for a bad outcome to occur with the mother or baby...It's not that our patients aren't suspected of being involved with the drug crowds, simply that I am confident that our care is at least safe, and that it probably won't result in my getting killed by a drug lord!
My other piece of gratitude I have here is for the patients, who all have interesting backgrounds, to say the least. A mother gave birth recently who had come from El Salvador. She had had a baby there and like in most developing countries (well and in the backward hospitals here in the Valley as well), they still take the baby away from the mother immediately upon delivery to go to the nursery. She was later told that her baby had died and was not allowed to see him. She suspected that the baby had been stolen and she never heard another thing. Because of this awful experience her delivery was hard. She likely had a lot of subconscious fear and anger, and for this reason, she did not want to push. She was crying and trying to find a way out of pushing her baby into the world, but eventually, of course, out he came. It was beautiful watching her with her baby who went immediately up on her chest. I'm happy that I got to know this patient during her care, and happy that she had a place to have her baby that was safe.
Like most patients, she was ready to go home a few hours after the birth. The only problem: she didn't have a car seat. And she didn't have money to buy one. Thankfully we had one to loan her. And Thank god for our amazing bodies that provide for us so well...at least with breastfeeding she won't have to buy anything for him for a little while... (we also loaded her up with donated clothes and diapers).
Eeep! I am continually reminded of how lucky and privileged I have been all my life. More to come about all the impressive and inspiring people I have met down here... The bilingual hairdressers who can't read or write because they never went to school, the migrant farmers, the factory workers, and the "swimmers."
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