LAmom

WORLD HEALTH DAY 2005

"Make every mother and child count" is the theme of the World Health Organization's World Health Day 2005.  Maternal and child health is also be the subject of this year's World Health Report.

This is a subject near and dear to LAmom's heart.  In the upcoming days and weeks, I'll be bringing you more from the WHO data and other information about maternal/child health.

Today's tidbit: As you would expect, there's a huge difference in pregnancy-related death rates between industrialized and developing countries.  Here's an outreach program run by the American College of Nurse-Midwives (the organization through which I'm certified to practice midwifery), trying to help close the gap.

BITTER PILL

From Chip Smith: A consumer group gives out its own anti-awards for irresponsible advertising of prescription drugs.

KING/DREW MEDICAL CENTER

The hospital where I used to work has been stripped of its accreditation.

I was a Labor & Delivery nurse at King/Drew in the early 1990s.  I don't know what it was like on the other units of the hospital, but I did see some stuff in L&D that was not kosher.  Some things were just negligence on the part of one person, but others were systemic.  One of the worst things I saw had to do with overmedicating patients to speed up labor.

Pitocin is a drug that is used to start labor or to speed up a labor.  There are possible side effects, of course, including high blood pressure in the mother and decreased blood flow to the baby.

At King/Drew (back when I was there), the doctors would write orders for a standard dosage of Pitocin to be given to a laboring woman, but they would rely on the nurses to give stronger doses than what was written.  So the label on the woman's IV bag would state that a certain amount of Pitocin had been added, but it would not be the true amount.  Only the nurse knew how much Pit was really in there.  And the patient was certainly not told that she was receiving a higher dose than the doctor had formally ordered.

The doctors knew which nurses would cooperate and give a patient some "hot Pit" and which ones would not.  I had the experience of being excused from a particular patient's case because they knew that I wouldn't give anything but "legal Pit."

Here's more info on the use of Pitocin in labor.

CAN DEPO CAUSE OSTEO?

Medscape (registration required) details a study showing that Depo-Provera may cause a loss of bone mineral density.

For those who are unfamiliar, Depo is the name of the hormonal shot that's used as a contraceptive.  Typically, women will get a shot every three months.

I have long believed that it's a bad idea for us to go putting synthetic hormones in our bodies.  The beautiful and intricate cycle of our hormonal systems is best not tampered with.  A lot of people who teach on women's spirituality talk about the emotional and psychological rhythms that accompany our cycles, and the insights that those changes can bring us.  Taking hornones shuts down our natural system and robs us of those gifts.

When I was a teenager and not sexually active, a doctor tried to put me on birth control pills to treat my severe menstrual cramps.  I read the health warnings on the package and decided that I'd rather have the pain.

There is also controversy about whether BCPs and Depo act as an abortive, preventing implantation of a fertilized egg.  I'd have to say that based on my experience working in a gynecologist's office, my opinion is that hormonal contraceptives work much more to prevent ovulation, with the rate of miscarried pregnancies probably much lower than the naturally occurring rate.  When women are having very scanty periods or no periods, I don't think they're ovulating.  With the IUD, on the other hand, women tend to have heavier periods and lots of clots.  I knew a woman who could tell whenever she got pregnant with the IUD and she just expected that the pregnancy would be expelled (she was pro-choice, so it wasn't an ethical issue to her, but she could tell what was going on in her body).

But anyway, just for health reasons, I would never put that stuff in my body.  No pills, no Depo, no hormone replacement therapy.  I would encourage anyone who is interested in avoiding synthetic hormones during menopause to check out Menopausal Years, The Wise Woman Way by Susun Weed.