Saturday, February 20, 2010

Allowing women to make their own decisions......


Here is the follow up to the Empowering women - not as easy as you think scenario

....the woman is GBS positive with query ruptured membranes....she has commenced IV antibiotics, the advice given to her by the doctor is to be induced immediately 1700hrs....as the doctor feels she will not go into labour on her own...she is currently contracting 1:10 mildly. After being given all her options by the midwife....

The woman chooses not to be induced until the morning and goes against the medical advice given (this is all clearly documented).... she does choose to stay in hospital and wait until the morning.... her hope is to go into normal labour.... the outcome of this scenario is that the woman continued to walk around, eat, drink and no monitoring, until in established labour.... she progressed into normal labour and birthed at 0739hrs that morning....an assisted birth....

This was a good outcome by a woman who knew what she wanted and was willing to standby that decision despite the advice given by the doctor....she determined the risks and made her mind up with the information given... together with what she had anticipated for her birth (her birth plan was a natural normal birth) and an induction of labour was not in that plan (as it meant, restrictive movement, monitoring) however she made the best compromise she knew how..... to achieve what she wanted..... well done... congratulations......

2 comments:

SaraB said...

'allowing' women to make their own decision?? I'm sure that was a typo Pauline and what you meant was 'enabling' :o) xx

InfoMidwife said...

thanks for dropping by SaraB and yes you are absolutely correct...to enable, the aim is to empower...

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