Robin Frolic

Congrats, F1SH3, you were one of the 3 in 4 that escaped a cesarean. But that doesn't mean that birthing in hospitals isn't inherently risky, or that your baby didn't suffer other side effects due to common hospital procedures. For example - was your baby's cord clamped immediately after birth? That would have deprived him/her of up to 30% of his/her blood supply, which means s/he needed to spend precious energy in the first few days struggling to increase his/her blood supply. Did they put erythromicin eye ointment in the baby's eyes? That made your baby unable to see properly for the first hour or so after birth, which is an incredibly important time when the baby is supposed to be focusing intently on mama's face. If your wife had EFM (electronic fetal monitoring, using the ultrasound belts), there's been studies linking ultrasound exposure to cell death and permanent changes in the fetal brain.

While I'm glad for you that your wife and your baby turned out fine, you're not going to succeed in trying to debate your anecdotal positive experience against my years of training in midwifery and extensive ongoing research about labor and birth. I KNOW this subject inside and out, so if the best you have to bring is "well, we were okay! and she didn't even get a deliberate and almost-always unnecessary deep cut through her muscle and nerves, so it must have been good!" then it's just not going to work. Instead of viewing it as some kind of supporting evidence that the hospital is a good place for low-risk birth, I'd advise you to thank your lucky stars that your wife and baby escaped relatively unscathed despite the risks.

I'm not one of those people who believes hospitals never have a place in birth; they do. FOR EMERGENCIES. For times when birth is not progressing as it should. But they do not have a place in routine, low-risk birth, unless you feel like deliberately placing the birthing woman and the baby at much higher risk for complications and damage.

Not so much graphic and disgusting, and this is only a very small list, but it should give you some idea.

1) Lying on the back significantly increases the risk of malpresentation (when the baby drops in a poor position). Women birthing who are not confined to hospitals are almost never on their backs; it is not a natural, instinctive position to assume, and in addition, it decreases oxygen to the baby because the baby's weight is directly on the mother's posterior vena cava. Malpresentation often ends in cesarean.

2) Induction places a large number of risks both on the mother and baby. A partial list for the mother: blood pressure issues, risk of uterine rupture is increased, risk of a "failed induction" (meaning they tried to induce her before her body was ready to go into labor) turning into a cesarean, increased risk of malpresentation, it requires continuous monitoring, and it significantly increases pain (thereby increasing the possibility of an epidural, which has a long list of risks both for mother and baby). A partial list for the baby: decreased oxygen availability, fetal distress/heart rate dropping, contractions that are much longer and stronger than anything encountered in normal life (meaning, the baby is squeezed for much longer, and harder, than would ever happen in nature).

3) Epidurals are another risky procedure. For the mother, they can cause hypotension (an extreme drop in blood pressure), prolonged dilation stage of labor, puncture of the dura and accompanying spinal headache, infection, long-term backache (that's quite common), nerve damage, reactions to the anesthetic itself, significantly increased risk of augmentation, increased risk of cesarean, and in very rare cases there has been permanent paralyzation or even death. For the baby, they can cause significantly increased risk of fetal distress, insufficient oxygenation, difficulty breathing after birth (which requires the use of oxygen and other interventions to help the newborn breathe, some of which can be quite traumatic and almost all require being removed from the mother), and difficulty breastfeeding (formula use leads to increased rates of SIDS as well as MANY other illnesses and chronic conditions, some of which are potentially fatal and almost all of which detract from quality of life).

4) Vaginal exams, which are a common part of laboring in the hospital, are extremely painful and increase risk of infection for both mother and baby. Infection or fever in the baby is quite serious and usually requires a spinal tap (a very painful procedure) if it's suspected. It may even require the baby being in the NICU for observation.

5) Amniotomy (breaking the bag of waters) increases risk of malpresentation, fetal distress, and infection.

An intervention causing more interventions is often referred to as "the intervention cascade". For example, woman checks into the hospital, is given a vaginal exam and hooked up to EFM.
Vaginal exam -> increased risk of infection -> starts "countdown timer" of 24 hours in which she has to give birth or receive a cesarean

EFM -> difficulty picking up heartrate -> internal EFM (where a small screw is placed into the baby's scalp, with a line running back through the cervix and vagina to a machine that detects the baby's heartrate) -> internal EFM requires lying down in bed -> lying down in bed increases pain -> epidural -> risks of epidural

Induction -> requires continuous monitoring -> requires being in bed -> usually requires epidural due to significantly increased pain -> requires continuing blood pressure monitoring as well as the fetal monitoring -> woman is unable to walk and go to the bathroom, therefore requires a catheter to urinate -> pitocin and epidural also increase risk of malpresentation -> increases risk of instrumental delivery (vacuum or forceps) or cesarean -> instrumental delivery can cause structural damage to the baby, cesarean often causes breathing difficulties -> invasive and stressful interventions to help baby breathe

I could go on with a lot more examples, but I think you get the idea.

If anyone wants a lot of further info, an easily available and good resource (meaning, written for the average person, so it's not difficult to get through, and you don't need to have years of specialized training to understand it) is The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer. It goes through the most common hospital interventions and details the pros and cons. If you have a medical background, Goer's Obstetric Myths vs Research Realities is more extensive, but it would probably be difficult for a layperson to wade through.