I have an update to the lady I wrote about on 10/2 regarding her VBAC. Apparently someone at CNN realized this was insane and a follow-up article came out on October 15th. Kudos to CNN, big thumbs up to the ACOG (never, ever thought I'd say that), and double boo to Banner. Why the thumbs up to he ACOG - because they had this to say to Banner:
Banner Health, which owns Page Hospital, says it decided to stop performing VBACs at Page when ACOG, the obstetricians' group, established guidelines for hospitals that Page Hospital was not adequately staffed to satisfy.
The ACOG guidelines recommend "24/7 coverage of both physician and anesthesiologist," and that "two physicians be immediately available during the entire period of labor," Banner Health said in a statement.
But ACOG spokesman Gregory Phillips says that's not what the guidelines say. "These appear to be Banner's interpretations of the stated recommendation," says Gregory Phillips.
The ACOG guidelines recommend that doctors consider several factors when determining if a VBAC is possible. For example, two criteria that can be considered are whether there's physician availability throughout active labor, and whether anesthesia and staff can be available for an emergency C-section.
Since the ACOG guidelines came out in 2004, more and more hospitals have refused to do VBACs. Today, nearly half of hospitals won't do VBACs, either because the hospital has banned them or because doctors won't do them, according to a survey of nearly 3,000 hospitals by the International Cesarean Awareness Network, a grassroots group that has fought against VBAC bans.
Typically, health care professionals rally around other health care professionals in these types of situations regardless if they are 'right' or 'wrong.' Mardsen Wagner calls it camaraderie and talks about this in his book (that I'm half way done reading) Born in the USA.
Anyway, the fact that ACOG is telling Banner, in a sense, that they're wrong feels like a win to us. I'll take it where I can get it.
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On a personal note, S. and I are still at this trying to conceive game and growing very impatient. I know it's all in Jesus' hands and so does S., but some days are easier to accept than others. I've also started bringing up talks of adoption. Research on that subject has started, and we decided to give to spring of next year before we get fired up on adoption. I'm actually really excited about adopting. It's something I've always wanted to do, my heart has always felt a calling.
I also wanted to take this opportunity to apologize to all the ladies who waited a while to get their little one and my advice was always "relax, let it happen, stop trying, etc." I understand now why it was so frustrating to hear, how nice you were by grinning and saying "thank you", and how you really just wanted to tell me to be quiet. I appreciate all of the "advice" I've been given on the subject, really I do, but after a year of attempting to produce an offspring and getting the same retort, I'm going slightly crazy here.
Steven and I can not wait until we can post pics of our new family member (whether from our blood lines or someone elses).
No worries missy, you'll get your little one soon. I can totally relate to the waiting game. Took us a year and we had a miscarriage in the meantime. Waiting SUCKS. I've learned now though that a year is pretty average wait time. Let me know if you want some info on what finally made things work for us. Nothing original really, but still.
ReplyDeleteLove you, hang in there, it will happen one way or another.
Thanks, Nessa! :)
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