I’ve been working at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center for my OB GYN rotation- its been very difficult for me since their protocol for women giving birth is to employ Active Management of labor for all first time moms. This means that their labor is augmented with Pitocin and their membranes are often artificially ruptured to ensure that they deliver within 12 hours of admission. They are under continuous monitoring and stay lying in bed for their entire labor- peeing in a bedpan or periodically catheterized. Pitocin augmented contractions are very painful and many patients end up with narcotics or epidurals as an “act of kindness” as one of my attendings called it. I was a labor coach before medical school and have seen how powerful and effective the physiologic and midwifery model of care during childbirth can be both in my experiences here in the US and abroad in Mexico and Bolivia. Its discouraging to see hospital protocols which are based on a fundamental distrust of a woman’s ability to labor effectively with few interventions. Sexism, philosophies of risk central to the MD medical model and the increased revenue to hospitals for a high turnover of obstetric patients are big influences here.
On another note- the Family Practice residency application process begins! I will commemorate it here by posting my beautiful Curriculum Vitae. Eli formatted it for me- he is a (sexy) layout and font genius! Thanks dear!
