Believe me, I wish we could stop showing those TV drama programs about birth over here, too. They’re so misleading, because of course only the scary, dramatic births are the ones that make the cut for the show, and I feel like they rarely focus on normal, “boring” uncomplicated labor.

Thanks for sharing!

I contrast, here’s what’s happening here in New Zealand, although as you’ll read, we need to educate mothers more and stop showing American rubbish like ‘Maternity Ward’ on TV here to help effect change!

Lyn

Maternity hospital may bar mums-to-be
06 December 2006
By KAMALA HAYMAN and JOANNA DAVIS

Radical plans to tackle overcrowding at Christchurch Women’s Hospital may mean low-risk pregnant women are barred from giving birth there.

Under proposals yet to be put out for consultation, pregnant women who are deemed unlikely to have complications during labour would be directed to primary birthing units, such as Lincoln, Rangiora or Burwood, or advised to have a home birth.

An epidural for pain relief would not then be an option.

The scheme has been welcomed by midwives, but they concede mothers may have “a mixed reaction”.

The new Christchurch Women’s Hospital has been under pressure since it opened.

Bed numbers remain the same as at the old Colombo Street hospital (134), but the number of births has skyrocketed.

An extra 500 babies were born in the new hospital’s first year after opening in March 2005, taking the total close to 5000 babies.
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The pressure is set to increase when St George’s Hospital stops elective caesareans next July.

The private Merivale hospital has been doing 340 caesareans a year but says its Canterbury District Health Board funding has not kept pace with rising costs.

Christchurch Women’s Hospital clinical director of obstetrics Di Poad said several options were being looked to enable extra caesareans to be done, “but we will need a lot of discussion before any decisions are made”.

Hospital beds were already 80 per cent to 97 per cent full, while the recommended occupancy rate was just 80 per cent. Two unfilled vacancies for obstetricians added to the pressure.

Poad said she was not surprised by the increase in hospital births as women were having babies later in life, increasing their risk of complications.

She said she was not involved in talks on bed numbers at the new hospital. “There were a lot of predictions about trends, some of which have not come to fruition.”

The College of Midwives’ Canterbury-West Coast chairwoman, Rose Barker, said only informal talks had been held on any new booking system.

“But there clearly needs to be some kind of strategy,” she said.

“Christchurch Women’s is a tertiary facility and there are a lot of women who don’t require tertiary care that are in there.”

The hospital was so full the care of high-risk women was being compromised, she said.

“The staff are really busy and are constantly having to prioritise what’s more important,” she said.

Barker said women may be worried about the risk of complications, “but there are very few emergencies around birth that are split-second”.

Midwives were trained to provide first-line care, such as oxygen, if complications arose and women or babies needed to be transferred to hospital, she said.

Emily Hastie, 32, had her first baby at Christchurch Women’s soon after the new hospital opened.

She had an epidural and at one point during the 18-hour delivery was warned she may need an emergency caesarean. In the end, baby Mila arrived normally.

Hastie said she would be worried if she could not have her second baby, due in June, at Christchurch Women’s.

Colin Chin, one of only two Christchurch GPs still offering full maternity care, said women should have a choice about where they gave birth.

“Most mums who deliver will have no problems at all, but it’s the 15 per cent who can have a haemorrhage or foetal distress or other complications,” he said.

Chin, of Doctors on Riccarton, said overcrowding at Christchurch Women’s meant he advised his patients to transfer to another unit (Lincoln, Burwood or St George’s) after the birth.

However, he recommended nearly all his patients gave birth at the base hospital. “It’s got the best back-up and all the facilities are there.”