norsegirl | WTF that's inhumane!!!

I just saw an article on the news that stunned me. It's something that never occurred to me. Apparently you're not allowed to eat during labour. WTF??? I've heard of women being in labour for ridiculous numbers of hours up in the double-digits. And I don't imagine you spend a whole lot of that time asleep. It's not enough to be cooped up in a hospital in a lot of pain but you have to fast too???

Apparently it's not to keep the room sterile or anything involving the baby. The doctor interviewed in the news bit said it causes a risk of stomach acids rising up the esophagus and causing pneumonia. The reason this issue was in the news is that a recent study has found that there is no increased risk poor outcomes for the mother or baby and no increased risk of emergency c-sections as a result of eating, though it didn't directly address the pneumonia issue the doctor on the news piece was talking about. When presented with the study results he laughed and said "well, I'm not going to encourage someone chowing down on a cheeseburger while in labour". I don't think any medical professional should encourage chowing a cheeseburger under any circumstances. But surely a popsicle or a handful of crackers would be harmless and be enough to take the edge off the hunger. I can understand not wanting to eat because you're in pain, but I'm not sure I can agree with someone telling me I can't eat if I feel up to it and I'm hungry.

To the mothers in the audience... did you eat during labour? Did you want to?

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE52O56K20090325

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They wanted me fasting because the obgyn caring for me that day felt I was going to be a c-section. And pre-ops must fast.

That said, I went and had breakfast in the cafeteria when they took my 'clear fluids' tray away from me. I wasn't about to be so exhausted I couldn't push. That was about 10am-ish.

By 1pm, I was seriously questioning the intelligence of having eaten, as it was making me very nauseated. And when the hard labour started, there was no way I would have been able to eat, even if I'd been hungry.

The part that I felt truly sucked was not being able to drink anything.

Ina May Gaskin discusses the practice in her book (which I highly recommend, btw). Apparently standard American OB practice is to treat every woman as a potential C-section, hence the need to fast (it's surgery, after all). Gaskin is of the firm opinion that encouraging a woman to eat if she feels like helps give her the strength she needs to deliver.

I ate during labour. A lot. Not huge things, but fairly constant snacking (once I made Dru go make oatmeal; later in hospital one midwife fetched sandwitches for everyone).

I am convinced that this had a great impact on my being able to home-labour for more that a day and to have the strenght to push when that time finally came. (Even with the very real possibiliy of needing a c-section, my midwives never advised me not to eat.)Now some women get very nauseated with contractions, I got some but always followed buy hunger. I think that disallowing food is one of several unnecessary cruelities of the standard hospital birth model (but I am very midwife-biased!)

There was absolutely no way I was interested in eating anything while I was in labour.

You are so funny. You can have ice-chips. Just before I had Jason, as it was Good Friday, Joe and I decided to go out and have supper at a restaurant. I wasn't feeling great, but not too bad. I ate a turkey dinner, got in the car and as I got home, my water broke. So I was pretty full anyway. :-)

I thought the reason for not eating while in labour was this:

Doctors the world over have long discouraged women in labour from eating, for fear that it could lead to breathing food into the lungs in the case of an emergency caesarean while under general anaesthetic.

(Source:
http://www.unnecesarean.com/blog/2009/3/24/eating-during-childbirth-yes-you-can-says-bmj.html )

Of course if you're in labour they assume you will need a c-sections and treat you like a pre-op patient, so no eating. The article link is actually about how it's OK to eat during labour.

WTF that's inhumane!!!

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