Geography DOES Make a Difference...Right?!

I am sure you have heard of Facebook. Recently, after joining and browsing the many groups that exist on the website, I heard about a group for L&D (Labor & Delivery) nurses. The group contains dozens of pages of comments by L&D nurses. One of the comments caught my attention.

I'll preface this story by saying that I am so blessed to be connected with a network of birthing professionals from many parts of the country and, indeed, the world. I am connected to an international network of HypnoBirthing practitioners, a national network of professionals from various disciplines and modalities working towards choice and mother-friendly care in birth (formed as the Chicago Birth Summit Task Force, at the November '08 Chicago Birth Summit), and the wonderfully abundant birthing community of San Diego, where I am blessed to spend my winters. Because of this, I am aware that Chicago is highly, highly medical compared to other areas. We are not a good place to give birth.

Back to the story--the L&D nurse on the Facebook group talked of the differences between her current community, somewhere in PA, and her old community, somewhere in NY. Apparently, she had just moved from NY to PA...and emphatically expressed her happiness about the move! She said that docs will "section" a mother after just a half-day of laboring through an induced labor, whereas in PA they will actually wait 3-4 days!! (Chicago tends to be around 24 hours, at least with the mothers I teach.)

The nurse went on to explain that these NY docs just didn't want to be there all night and wanted to be home for dinner. And, by the way, the reasons given for c-section were suspected macrosomia (a.k.a., a "big baby," who was only 7lbs) and, of course, failure-to-progress (yes, with only a 1/2 day to labor).

Another nurse chimed in to say that PA isn't necessarily so great. Where she works, she says, docs will "section" because they want to get to the golf course or they want to avoid a call in the middle of the night. Maybe it's not about geography.

Maybe it's the providers; because moms give birth just fine when the doc doesn't just "section" them. Babies aren't always on the verge of doom during labor, like some providers make it seem. But they can say that and no one questions them.

Remember THAT when in labor at 4pm on a Friday night or on a beautiful Chicago summer day. What IS the urgency, here?