I see you have the machine that goes "ping"

[geminigirl]

Woah.
(Totally safe for work unless your work objects to external links about birth, but no pictures or anything.)
What sick person thought this was a good idea

Comments

[wolfden.livejournal.com]

The mind BOGGLES.

I can't believe that thing. Glad I am done with babies.

I hate the whole ideal of internal monitors and this is even worse. Argh.

[melebeth]

Maybe for monitoring cases of cervical incompetence in women with problems. MAYBE. But as an L&D intervention? You've got to be joking.

[ladygreyy.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see someone TRY and hook that thing up to me.

[alibee.livejournal.com]

Person's head, meet my foot.

[ladygreyy.livejournal.com]

The only time wearing stilettos might be appropriate in labor.

[cmariewt.livejournal.com]

Get out. That sounds ridiculously unnecessary. I just can't.... nope. Can't get my head around it.

[entirelysonja.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's really something.

That said, I actually do prefer internal monitoring to external monitoring. My OB and I had discussed it, and came to the conclusion that internal monitoring would probably make me happiest (since intermittent hand-held monitoring wasn't an option.) They had this cool snap-on system when Karl was born so we could unsnap the lead anytime we wanted. The wire went from Karl's head to a snap on my thigh, and another wire snapped onto that and went to the monitor.

But I think those cervical clips are scary. What happens to all those clips and leads when the baby is actually being born?

[fetteredwolf.livejournal.com]

I hope you don't mind me intruding on your journal, especially intruding on your journal to disagree! ;) I found you through friends of friends, and noticed this post.

It's funny, because just the other day (exactly a week ago, actually) my nephew was born with a lot of brain damage due to not enough oxygen at birth, and as our family was grieving my significant other said: "If men gave birth there would be enough research done so that they would have monitors inside the uterus and could prevent this from happening!" -- and here there is such a thing. If my sister in law tries again, she would benefit from something like this.

(I should end this comment by saying we got some good news the other day- the baby had less subcortical damage than originally suspected, and can breathe and eat on his own, and has stopped seizing. So we'll just take it one day at a time and see how things develop.)

[geminigirl]

I don't mind. I'm sorry to hear about your nephew, but I'm glad the damage is less severe than originally thought.

I will point out that internal fetal monitoring already exists-it's not the preferred method of monitoring because it's more invasive and provides more pathways to infection, among other things. They can also sample fetal blood taken from the scalp to get information about fetal oxygen levels. But this, as the web page points out, provides even more pathways to infection, is likely to force women to labor on their backs, which isn't the best or most comfortable position to labor in for a lot of people, and it dehumanizes the labor process even more than it already is many times. The technology to prevent the kind of thing that happened to your nephew does exist sort of; it's just not necessarily the most commonly used technology cause most of the time, it's overkill, and more risky than it is beneficial. It's just hard to determine when it's in the best interest of the mother and baby and when it's just more than is needed.

[whobunkyboo.livejournal.com]

The 'screws into the baby's head' was a pretty big WTF for me...

[geminigirl]

Current internal fetal monitoring does that, and there's a time and a place for it, but to make it standard practice, as this seems to aim to to just...there are no words.