Too many ultrasounds is never enough
Women I have known when pregnant have had ultrasounds (multiple - dating, morphology, maybe it has Downs Syndrome / nuchal fold, later scans, fluid level scans etc) without fail - I am yet to find someone who hasn’t had one in their pregnancy. I am very much of the "it’s a diagnostic tool not a screening one and unless there is a reason for it, don’t go doing it" school - I am not convinced that high energy ultrasound does no harm to a developing fetus. Now someone learned has come out and said the same thing and I’m thrilled that someone other than researchers are saying this in research-speak but I am not hopeful that anyone will take any notice of this (read more here). Can you imagine the outcry if someone didn’t have a scan and then had an interuterine death, or miscarriage, or a baby with a congenital defect? How would you feel as a midwife if you supported a woman to make whatever choice she made, and then the outcome wasn’t positive (ie had a scan to discover a lethal defect, or didn’t have a scan and had a congenital defect discovered at, or shortly after birth?)? Not that having the scan would actually change the outcome for the majority of situations but being prepared sometimes is a good thing, I guess. Although what also happens when the scan gives the all clear, but then the babe is born with a condition?
**************
I recently went on a tour of a private hospital in town that has a floor of postnatal beds, a few delivery rooms *squick* and a nursery for babes that are sick but not highest-level sick. The tour was mostly "make sure your insurance is up to date in case Baby needs $800-$900/day care in the nursery" and "har har don’t be afraid of the delivery tray cause har har we don’t do c-sections in here - they go downstairs" and "Dad can stay over but it will cost $50 a night and we’re trying to arrange with a local 5* hospital for you to stay there if you have an uncomplicated delivery" and creepy looks in rooms that had neatly made beds that were very narrow and doors that were very.wide so that said beds could be wheeled in and out easily. And lots of comments like "if you want a break from Baby" and "when you want to bathe Baby" and "we use brand x of formula and if you want something different then please supply it yourself but your fees cover nappies and clothes while you’re here har har"…
**Words in red are not mine but do, to me, represent less than ideal language.
*****************
These two comments have something in common - the thing that most bothered me about the tour the other day, and the scan-happy mentality that I see in hospitals, is that the women have a look on their face… the look says:
- $ can buy a good birth
- technology is good, and a birth with technology is good and safe
- this is what is a good birth
- this is a good place to birth
- $ can buy me a healthy baby
- birth will not effect me because I have paid for insurance for it
- technology will save the day
- technology is safety
