Posted by Melissa Maimann on May 6, 2009 in
Birth,
Caesarean,
Obstetrics For further information, contact Melissa Maimann at Essential Birth Consulting.
Link to article
OK, so you may be wondering what on earth this article is doing on my blog. Well, it’s about Vioxx. And if you had a caesarean in the early 2000s, you may well have been prescribed this drug for pain management. I was always suspicious when a minority of hopitals I worked at prescribed this drug, as the majority of hospitals prescribed the more common frugs such as Voltaren or Nurofen for post-op pain relief.
Merck is the same company that claims to have the cure for cervical cancer in the form of the Gardasil vaccination. Many have reported side effects after using this vaccination.
AN international drug company made a hit list of doctors who had to be “neutralised” or discredited because they criticised the anti-arthritis drug the pharmaceutical giant produced.
Staff at US company Merck &Co emailed each other about the list of doctors … who had been negative about the drug Vioxx or Merck and a recommended course of action.
… It is also alleged the company used intimidation tactics against critical researchers, including dropping hints it would stop funding to institutions and claims it interfered with academic appointments.
“We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live,” a Merck employee wrote …
Merck & Co and its Australian subsidiary, Merck, Sharpe and Dohme, are being sued for compensation by more than 1000 Australians, who claim they suffered heart attacks or strokes as a result of Vioxx.
The drug was launched in 1999 and at its height of popularity was used by 80 million people worldwide because it did not cause stomach problems as did traditional anti-inflammatory drugs.
It was voluntarily withdrawn from sale in 2004 after concerns were raised that it caused heart attacks and strokes and a clinical trial testing these potential side affects was aborted for safety reasons.
… Merck last year settled thousands of lawsuits in the US over the effects of Vioxx for $US4.85billion ($7.14 billion) but made no admission of guilt.
The company is fighting the class action in Australia.
The Federal Court was told yesterday that Merck wanted to gain the backing of researchers and doctors – or “opinion leaders” – in the fields of arthritis to help promote the drug to medical professionals when it was launched in 1999.
… internal emails … showed the company was not happy with what some researchers and doctors were saying about the drug.
“It gives you the dark side of the use of key opinion leaders and thought leaders … if (they) say things you don’t like to hear, you have to neutralise them,” he said …
The court was told that James Fries, professor of medicine at Stanford University, wrote to the then Merck head Ray Gilmartin in October 2000 to complain about the treatment of some of his researchers who had criticised the drug.
“Even worse were allegations of Merck damage control by intimidation,” he wrote, according to Mr Burnside.
… Mr Burnside told the court Dr Fries went on to describe instances of intimidation, including one colleague who thought his academic appointment had been jeopardised and another who received phone calls alleging “anti-Merck” bias.
… Merck had been systematically playing down the side effects of Vioxx and said the company’s behaviour “seriously impinges on academic freedom” …
“In every possible way the company exerted itself to present the impression to the world at large that Vioxx did not provide any increased cardio risk … when (a) it probably would and (b) it probably did,”…
Melissa Maimann, Essential Birth Consulting 0400 418 448
Tags: Birth choices, Caesarean, Complicated pregnancy or birth, Obstetrics, Public and private hospitals
For further information, contact Melissa Maimann at Essential Birth Consulting.
Link to article
THE death of a British mum in despair at not being able to breastfeed properly should well shock the world but will not surprise some mothers … Sitting among the flowers and cards, clutching her first-born child, my sister Lia could do nothing but sob.
Left alone in her hospital room and attempting to breastfeed her new daughter for the first time on her own, she felt her anxiety skyrocket, the mother guilt take over.
A broken emergency buzzer didn’t help, nor post-birth hormones and lack of sleep.
But almost two hours after she’d begun trying to attach her baby’s small mouth to her painfully engorged breasts, my niece was screaming and so was her struggling mum.
… Her experiences with the births of her next two children were equally traumatic, marred by a recurrent sense of inadequacy and in the case of her third, mastitis so bad she was forced to temporarily relinquish care of her family to seek medical help.
News, then, of the death of 30-year-old British mother Katy Isden, who fell to her death from a New York apartment block after becoming depressed over her bid to breastfeed, should well shock the world but will not surprise mothers with tales like my sister’s.
… “The pressure to breastfeed, the anxiety to be this super person, is just no way to live.”
The coroner said that although Mrs Isden had been depressed when she died, it was not clear if she fell or jumped. He therefore recorded an open verdict.
… The research about the benefits of feeding babies “naturally” – delivering vital nutrients and a bond between mother and child – appears black and white.
But for many it’s anything but a natural experience; rather a grey area of conflicting advice and a trauma that can torture women.
… there is no doubt support is the key to relieving the pressure.
Extra funding for the Australian Breastfeeding Association’s national helpline resulted in a 30 per cent increase in those seeking help since March, with more than 28,328 calls taken between October and April.
… “So many of us have issues,” she said. “This is a matter of seeking assistance, not being left to feel like a failure.
“The solution is for the community to get behind mothers rather than patronising them with the ‘breast is best’ slogan. It’s what’s best for you and your baby that counts, not breastfeeding at any cost.”
The ABA’s 24-hour helpline is 1800 Mum(686) 2 Mum (686)
Support is most definitely the key to successful breastfeeding, which is, without a doubt, the safest way to feed a baby – safest for mother and safest for baby. But I do wonder if we set women up to fail. Our current obstetric system churns women out as mothers who have “failed” even before they hold their baby for the first time. They “failed to progress” in labour, they were a “failed induction”, they had an “incompetent cervix”, they “failed to dilate”, their pelvis was too small. However you phrase it, the message is clear: women’s bodies don’t work; their bodies are broken. Is it any wonder that with this mindset in action, they also fail at breastfeeding?
To look at it from another perspective, breastfeeding can be effortless and enjoyable. If we look at what goes on in birth, before the breastfeeding experience, we see that a relaxed and healthy breastfeeding experience is correlated highly with a natural birth (no induction, no epidural, no caesarean etc). If you like, natural birth primes mother and baby for breastfeeding. Maybe we’re expecting too much of mothers and babies to breastfeed successfully after their induced, pethidined, epiduralised, and surgically-extracted birth. Babies are traumatised by their birth experience, as are mothers. The cocktail of natural hormones that lights the path for a successful breastfeeding experience is grossly absent. Not just absent, but the very hormones that are the anti-dote to the natural-high-hormones, are present in ever-abundant quantities.
Women report feeling a disconnect with their baby when they meet their baby for the first time after a labour and birth that has been marked with various interventions. They report not bonding. That they really had to work at the relationship with their baby. And some women even resent their baby. All of this is very uncommon after a natural birth without drugs, induction, epidural, forceps, episiotomy and of course caesarean.
The best way to achieve a natural birth is to choose a care provider who specialises in natural birth. Currently, we have 2 types of maternity care providers: midwives and obstetricians. Obstetricians are surgical specialists. That may come as a surprise for some! But it’s true: obstetrics is not a medical specialty. It’s a surgical specialty. Obstetricians, on the whole, do surgery. And most do it very well. Thankfully!! Midwives on the other hand, are natural birth specialists. We’re trained in recognising normal, keeping pregnancy and labour normal, and in getting help when things are no longer normal. If you see a midwife and have a natural birth, you’re highly unlikely to ever have the issues with breastfeeding that are described in this article. Not to mention, if you did have problems with breastfeeding, your private midwife would be following you up for 6 weeks after your baby is born, so you would have a midwife on the end of the phone, 24/7 who knows you well, who has known you the whole of your pregnancy. The continuity of care provided by a private midwife is known to reduce breastfeeding complications and postnatal depression, whether you birth at home or in hospital.
Melissa Maimann, Essential Birth Consulting 0400 418 448
Tags: Babies, Birth trauma, Breastfeeding, Caesarean, Complicated pregnancy or birth, continuity of care, midwife, Midwifery services, Normal Birth, Obstetrics, postnatal depression
For further information, contact Melissa Maimann at Essential Birth Consulting.
Link to article
Study results suggest that women do not really see decision-making about birth method as their “choice” and challenge the notion of choice currently prevalent in international debates about cesarean delivery for maternal request (CDMR).
CDMR is currently perceived as a leading reason for increasing cesarean section (CS) rates by obstetricians worldwide.
… study researchers explored the views and experiences of 454 primigravid women accessing National Health Service maternity care to analyze decision-making surrounding birth method.
In total, 72 percent of the 397 women who returned their questionnaires reported that they would prefer to give birth vaginally, while only 3 percent reported a preference for planned CS.
By late pregnancy the proportion of women expressing a preference for CDMR declined to 2 percent, while those reporting a preference for vaginal birth increased to 80 percent. Furthermore, only one woman out of 454 women consistently expressed a preference for planned CS.
… Moreover, women accepted that their actual birth method would be determined by the circumstances of their pregnancy, and questionnaire responses indicated that over 55 percent of women believe their right to choice should be overridden by healthcare professionals.
Carol Kingdon (University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK) and co-authors recommend, in light of the study findings, that birth options should be revisited and discussed at different time-points throughout pregnancy.
Melissa Maimann, Essential Birth Consulting 0400 418 448
Tags: birth, Birth choices, Birth trauma, Caesarean, continuity of care, Home birth, hospital birth, intervention, midwife, Midwifery, Midwifery services, Normal Birth, Obstetrics, Public and private hospitals, women's rights
Posted by Melissa Maimann on May 6, 2009 in
Birth For further information, contact Melissa Maimann at Essential Birth Consulting.
Link to article
Study findings suggest that exposure to occupational factors such as a temporary work contract, long working hours, shift work, and physical demands during pregnancy increase the risk for low birthweight and preterm delivery.
… Physical work demands significantly predicted low birthweight (≤2,500 g), while having a temporary contract predicted preterm delivery, with corresponding odds ratios (OR) of 4.32 and 4.58, respectively.
Working long hours or doing shift work were associated with a birthweight of 3,000 g or less, but not significantly.
… “This study underlines that more attention should be given to women’s working conditions during pregnancy,” said lead study author Isabelle Niedhammer (University college Dublin, Ireland).
Melissa Maimann, Essential Birth Consulting 0400 418 448
Tags: Babies, birth, Complicated pregnancy or birth, Home birth, hospital birth, intervention, midwife, Midwifery, Midwifery services, Normal Birth, Obstetrics, Public and private hospitals
