i do get this attention from my ob.

Oh and let me guess, your a midwife?

sunflower,
if you get hour or more visits with your ob, you are among the minority, I promise you. I don't mean time sitting in the waiting room or getting tested by a nurse-i mean actual one on one time with the doc. Great! And please know that's very uncommon in our "modern" society.

I am not a midwife, although I have spent the entire time i've been a mother (17 years) studying, gaining experience, and becoming a perinatal counselor. I will not have the time to spend being on call 24/7 until my own children are grown, but all three of them were born at home with a midwife, and I have attended quite a few home and hospital births.

I really don't think there is anything wrong with stating what I have learned. I chose a midwife for my own first child many years ago because I had learned to be distrustful of the american medical system in general-that pregnancy was the first time I heard of midwifery. Since then, I have learned quite a bit, through my studies, through experience, and through the vast amount of knowledge gained through a nationwide network of birthing professionals.

As always, I encourage you to do some studying and research of your own, outside the typical medical mainstream, and find out for yourself.

The united states currently ranks very poorly among "westernized" countries for maternal and fetal mortality and morbidity-that's according to the world health organization, by the way. The main reason is the high level of medicalization of birth, which leads to more complications than it prevents.

Blessings,
fiora

how is a midwife being non-medical yet taking vitals and blood/urine samples? Listening to the heartbeat and other things like that are all considered "medical"

also you say that sunflower is in the minority by receieving comprehensive care from her ob, put us in that same minority. Our doctor would spend 30 to 60 minutes with us at every appointment and he listened to our concerns and answered all of our questions. Time was not an issue for us and my wife actually cried when we were done going to their office because he is such an awesome doctor, we developed a very good relationship with him.

You may not like the medical system but at the end of the day, ob docs are not involved in some cockeyed conspiricy to poison babies with tylenol.

If you are not taking more than 4 grams of tylenol a day or if you are only taking tylenol when needed, you are very unlikly to be harmed from it.

First of all I want to thank everyone for their input, it is always greatly appreciated. I did want to mention that I was only looking for temporary relief over the weekend until dr's opened up (not the rest of pregnancy). Anyways...After seeing both my ob and my dentist today here is the plan. Ob prescibed percocet, said it is the safest drug for the babies (safer then tylenol 3). My dentist wouldn't touch my tooth, said it was to bad. I have an appointment tomorrow morning with the oral surgeon who will either do a root canal or extrct the tooth.

Ouch. : / hope it's feeling better soon! Toothaches stink!

All I know is I was told not to take advil or anything except tylenol once and a while was okay

I suffered from a massive toothache problem during my first trimester. My doctor prescribed t3 for my pain, which did not even touch the pain.

I finally went and he pulled the tooth out. I have been pain free since. He used minimal freezing so it was quite painful at times.

I am now 27 weeks pregnant and everything was pretty much perfect with the baby, besides a dialated kidney.

I know my wisdom teeth were killing me. And I was offered something other than tylenol, if it wasn't working. I opted not too. Only because the pain, by that time was dulling and I didnt' feel the need to take something that wasn't as safe as tylenol. The pain has gone away and I know that I didnt' take anything unsafe.

As for spending time with my ob....I spend 30-60 mins a visit and also inbetween visits. I have had the same ob and from day one she has spent time with me and spoke with me and helped me understand everything that is going on with me.

I spend plenty of time one on one with my doctor. I was at my last appointment with her (her personally, mind you) for 45 minutes. Asking questions. Talking, etc. My doc is also my pcp and will be my baby's pediatrician. Is that a relationship a midwife can offer?

I am so glad that so many on this thread seem to have good relationships with their ob's and are getting such great attention. Really, that's amazing to me after years in the field. You've all gotten very lucky.

It's not the norm. And no, it's also not "medical care" to take basic vitals or urine tests. The difference between medical care and non-medical care is what you do with that information. Midwives do not prescribe medications or surgical procedures, for example-although with experience they may have a good idea of what a doctor will prescribe if a referral is necessary. Midwives provide in home or in hospital care that is a completely different approach to birth, where the mother is empowered to care for herself mentally and physically and to strongly give birth, rather than having the birth "done" to her through drugs, interventions and surgical procedures. That doesn't mean a midwife can't understand or work with a doctor's medical procedures, when necessary-just that the medical approach to birth is not the way she works.

Fiora

Nurses do not write prescriptions either and yet they provide "medical care". I don't know about where you live but taking vitals and urine samples and advising a patient/mother as to what is happening durring the labor and delivery is absolutly considered "medical care".

Again it is just a simple interpretation of the wording but in the world of medicine, when being advised as to your medical and mental health, it is medical care.

i live in oregon. Midwifery here is not considered the "practice of medicine", which is very specifically defined. A midwife offers advice and assistance with the care of a normal physiological process, and is not considered a "medical provider". However, a licensed midwife-and any other midwife in this state-is required to know how to take the necessary monitoring of signs and symptoms, including performing well woman care, taking vitals, etc. This is not the practice of medicine-it is knowing how to assess wellbeing.

Technicalities being what they are, I would think the state of oregon's medicaid system and licensure system has paid some attention to this.

Again, the difference is in what is done with the information-an ob has prescriptive privileges.

By the way, in oregon, a counselor-providing mental health care-may be a licensed medical professional, like a psychiatrist, or a licensed pychologist-which is non-medical, or a clinical social worker-also non-medical, or simply a non regulated counselor. The difference that makes a psychiatrist "medical" is that they have completed a medical degree and have prescriptive privileges. All of them provide excellent mental health care-but with a different focus.

Fiora

what are you talking about? I can have the same type of birth in a hospital. I don't have to have drugs if I don't want them. If I do I have the comfort of knowing that I can have them. My doctor is not going to interfere with my birthing process unless medically necessary. There aren't going to be any unnecessary surgical procedures. I have talked with her about it and am giving birth naturally. Anyway the point is that option is available to me. Have you seen some of the hospital birthing suites lately? A lot of them are more comfortable than my home plus I can feel secure knowing that if anything goes wrong i'm already in a real medical facility with real medical personnel to assist me. It's great you're trying to plug your business and everything but i'm not sure when the last time you checked out how this all works nowadays. You can have everything pretty much the same way but feel safe knowing that you're with trained medical professionals. Also (don't take this the wrong way) but realize that giving birth is an individual approach and every mother should do what makes her feel safe and secure so that she can give birth more easily. Your idea of the ideal birth may not be someone else's. And I think that a lot of people are getting offended because it appears like you are "knocking" their birth choice.

Diddo!!!!

I agree, iy is your choice and what you feel more comfortable with, just like some women want to have a water birth, good for them others prefer a birthing bed with the stirrups and all. Some want to have them at home others in a hospital in case something goes wrong, as you never know. Heck, look at those who have them in cabs and do just fine. Bosh, look at the olden day, gos, we have come a long ways, heck, you used to stay in a hospital for a week and mainly natural births, gosh, what a nice rest before reality. Now their are a lot of unneccessary c-sections but it is still choice.
If I were pregnant I would not want to take a tylenol3 or a percoset as those are classified as narcotics just as ibuprofins caan hurt your stomach and aspirins are blood thinners, I am no ddr, it is just what I have learned, not until the baby-to-be is in the birth canal awaiting to be born because what works on some people works different on a fetus especially later, different things work differerently on others I would say to take that tooth out. It is kind of funny they used to say that you lose a tooth with a pregnancy.
The best to all!

i am neither trying to "promote my business", because as I have repeatedly said before, I am not currently working as a midwife-i will not be doing that until my own children are grown and I can afford to be on 24/7 call and have a more variable income.

And yes, I have seen the newer hospital birthing suites, and have been very glad to see more "baby and mother friendly" practices instilled in many hospitals in this country-which by and large has been through the intensive and unrelenting work of midwives and labor support doulas (who are often midwives in training) over the past 30 years going into hospitals and showing them how this is helpful. Parents who did not like the ways they were treated in those "old days" also were instrumental.

Finally, I am not trying to "offend" anyone. Just give information. Midwifery and home birth are valid and healthy ways to give birth, and are, by legal definition, nonmedical. You are not necessarily a medical provider just because you can take fetal heart tones or know the position of the baby by feel, or because you know what that might mean. Heck, anyone who wants to can order an ultrasound device to listen to their baby's heart tones now days-they are marketed to parents. Does that make every parent a "medical provider"?

And yes, tigresacanal24, you do always have the option of giving birth without narcotic pain relief in a hospital. It's not that easy, though, when an ob decides to "induce labor" -that is done with artificial oxytocin, called pitocin. Use of induction methods often makes the pain more intense, requires breaking the amniotic sac for internal monitoring or puts a woman on the bed with a electronic monitoring system wrapped around her belly. That leads then to time limits that are imposed on the birth because there is now a higher likelihood of infection, and so on. It is also not that easy when a woman is told, from the beginning of her pregnancy, that there is "no reason for her to feel all that pain" or offered an epidural throughout her labor, rather than encouraged to work with her body's normal responses.

I am not trying to offend-just stating factual information that has been collected for over 30 years, and the trends are towards more narcotic use (through epidurals) not less right now.

Midwives can also work in a hospital environment, and often do. All i'm saying about that is that the focus and way of thinking about childbirth is different-therefore the approach to care is different and the likelihood of interventions is lowered. That's easily verified through a bit of study-and i've given some resources for those statistics if you care to look them up.

Sorry if anyone feels their choices may be getting "dissed" . I definitely agree that every mother should have the choices before her and should make the choice that is best for her and her own situation. All i'm doing is trying to give a bit more information, because I found myself being attacked, about what midwifery is. That actually adds to your choices-doesn't take anything away.

Blessings,
fiora

whatever, i'm going to just let it go because you seem prejudiced against the medical profession for some reason. Things have changed and the situations that you are describing sound like something from my mother's era. If you or someone you know had a bad birth experience in the hospital because of a cold, uncaring doctor or nurse, then i'm sorry. But honestly what you're talking about sounds nothing like anything that I or any of my friends have experienced with our doctors. Nowadays most people take an active role not only in their own health but in their own birthing experience. You'll find that the reason these things changed is because of the people themselves. Period. That's all of the players involved, the parents, the patients, the doctors, the midwives. I would like to think of it more as a cooperative effort that allows for the best from all areas... It's not simply a choice of one or the other anymore.

i agree, the options wemon have now are a lot better than before even just a few years ago. I know that there are doctors that are over berring and want one to do it their way but if the patient stays with the doctor than that is their own personal problem.

Thanks, gen. :lol:

he overdosed her giveing her 3 times the normal dose what kind of dad is that i dont think there is anything wrong with tylenol as long as you take the right dose