My husband (being the techie cutie that he is) reads CNET news, a website about computers, the Internet, and groundbreaking technology as part of his morning routine. The other day, while I was enjoying my Kashi cereal and checking out the latest blog posts on my Google Reader, my husband hollered over to me from his office and said,“Hey Melissa, have you heard of LaborPro?” Until that moment I was having a pretty good Sunday morning. I mean, I woke up refreshed and smiling, the sun was shining, and I was looking forward to what I felt was going to be a “good” day at work. But my attitude quickly turned from happy-go-lucky to blinding rage when he uttered those eight little words.
(Okay, okay, so I think I am being a bit dramatic. Maybe blinding rage is a bit strong. But I was pretty upset!!)
So what is LaborPro and why did it put me into such a tizzy you ask? According to Trig Medical’s website (the Israeli company that is developing and recently won a Frost & Sullivan Technology Innovation of the Year Award for this GARBAGE), LaborPro is “a novel labor monitoring system that using ultrasound imaging measures continuously and objectively fetal position, presentation and station along with cervical dilatation. LaborPro quantitatively assesses and records vital labor parameters in real-time to enable obstetricians to make informed and accurate decisions throughout the labor process to improve both the quality and cost of obstetric care.”
Photo Credit: http://www.trigmed.com/index.php
The website lists LaborPro’s capabilities as able to:
- Determine continuous station & position of fetal head by ultrasound imaging,
- Provide radiation-free pelvimetry & birth canal modeling.
- Perform one-step computerized “non-invasive” trans-vaginal digital examination (I’ll touch on that in moment)
- Determine intermittent or continuous accurate measurement of cervical dilatation
- Record comprehensive labor data recording
It also toutes its “unique benefits” as the following:
- Non-invasive, precise measurement of station & position
- Improves assessment of non-progressive labor
- Supports decision-making before operative delivery
- User friendly, on-screen display of all labor parameters
- Enhances patient comfort and sense of security
Okay okay okay….Just HOW does it do this you ask? Well it’s EASY! (*rolling eyes*) Well according to the website’s one mintute educational video (check it out here, it’s worth it). FIRST you have to place “just four little electrodes” externally on the mother’s pelvis in order to continuously assess fetal station and position and also enables the user to “recognize CPD early”. SECOND you just have to clip (or screw) “just a few position sensors” to the woman’s cervix to accurately and continuously measure cervical dilation. And THIRD you just have to screw “just a small little electrode” into the baby’s head.
Close up of a fetal scalp electrode, or FSE (notice the little corkscrew tip, that screws into the baby's scalp.)
According to Frost & Sullivan, the organization that awarded Trig Medical for the LaborPro technology writes, “The LaborPro is staff and mother-friendly and requires only basic training in ultrasound usage, obviating the need for an obstetric ultrasound expert,” adds Ms. Prabakar. “Moreover, the technology employs non-invasive, radiation-free pelvimetry as well as a single-step computerised digital examination. All labor progress tracking data including the fetal heart rate monitor are integrated in the LaborPro display and automatically recorded by the system, which helps reduce staff workload.”
Oh great! We only need “basic ultrasound skills” to work it! (*double eye rolling*) Here’s a novel idea! How about every hospital (including my own) in the United States that has a L&D floor actually provide labor support training to their nurses instead! That would go a lot farther for us than freaking ultrasound skills!!
(Just for the record, my hospital does NOT include labor support training as part of orientation and we are NOT alone. At my hospital, if you want to learn how to provide labor support you have to seek out other learning opportunites on your own, like I had to. But we do get extensive training on how to work and interpret the fetal monitor. Oh and about 1/3 of our three month orientation is dedicated to learning how to care for a patient who is being induced. In fact, I had to teach myself how to do intermittent auscultation and hence, I am one of the only nurses that I work with that isn’t “scared” of intermittent auscultation and will actually advocate for it!)
The most terrifying thing is that although at this time LaborPro is not available in the United States (Oh Hallelujah!!!) there is another company called Barnev based out of Andover, MA that has developed an almost identical product they call BirthTrack™ Continuous Labor Monitoring System which they describe as “a revolutionary continuous labor monitoring technology that provides obstetric caregivers invaluable, precise, objective, real-time information about the physical progress of labor. The BirthTrack System provides tools for a more informed decision making process through which hospitals can reduce the risks and costs of childbirth and assure the safety and comfort of mothers-to-be and their babies.” I remember hearing about this product a couple of years ago when it was still in “development.” Well guess what?! Development is over!! Marketing here we come!! (GAG me!)
So now there are at least TWO companies that are actively marketing this HORRIFIC, INHUMANE, and OUTRAGEOUS product. Just wait until LaborPro makes it to the United States (which according to their website they are actively persuing). Then they will probably start to compete with eachother! Now now only will labor & delivery wards around the country have to deal with Similac and Enfamil representatives competing for our money and attention in house (which already makes me sick to my stomach), but now I have to worry about this??!! THIS IS TERRIFYING!!!
I’m telling you right now, I will UP AND QUIT my job and never look back if either LaborPro or BirthTrack EVER appears in even just one, JUST ONE of my hospital’s labor rooms. QUIT ON THE SPOT! And I will make a Hollywood exit too! A HUGE scene!!! Hooting and hollering! You just wait!! LOL! As if our moms aren’t already strapped down enough with the often unnecessary and sometimes downright harmful technology we already have. This is just TOO MUCH TO BEAR!
I have taken care of MANY a laboring woman (often as a result of an induction, mind you) who are connected to:
(1) an IV line with IV fluids and Pitocin running through,
(2) an electronic fetal monitor to measure fetal heart rate,
(3) a tocodransducer to measure contraction pattern
(OR a fetal scalp electrode to measure fetal heart rate and an intrauterine pressure catheter to measure contraction frequency and strength),
4) an epidural catheter in the back giving a continuous flow of anethetic and narcotic medications into the spinal column,
(5) a foley catheter in the bladder since it is very rare that one can empty their bladder with an epidural,
(6) a pulse oximeter to continuously measure blood oxygen level (necessitated by the epidural),
(7) a blood pressure cuff to record one’s blood pressure every 15 minutes since an epidural can drop your blood pressure dangerously low, and finally
(8) if the baby has shown any signs of distress, an oxygen mask for your face!
Well I have a message for both Trig Medical and Barnev, LABORING WOMEN DO NOT NEED ANY MORE THINGS SHOVED UP THIER VAGINA!!!! And furthermore, CLIPING ANYTHING TO A WOMAN’S CERVIX OR SCREWING ANYTHING INTO A BABY’S HEAD DOES NOT COUNT AS “NON-INVASIVE”!!! LABORING WOMEN AND BABIES ARE NOT ROBOTS THAT DON’T FEEL ANY PAIN OR DISCOMFORT!!!! RESEARCH HAS SHOWN TIME AND TIME AGAIN THAT LESS IS MORE WHEN IT COMES TO LABOR FOR HEALTHY MOMS AND BABIES!!! CONTINUITY OF CARE IS MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE, LESS PAINFUL, LESS INVASIVE THAN ANY “COMPUTERIZED FINGER.”
Furthermore, LaborPro and BirthTrack are a slap in the face to every labor and delivery nurse that cares about giving appropriate, effective, competent, physiological, and compassionate care to childbearing families. Unfortunately I would bet my hard earned money that at least half of the doctors I currently work with would think that this is a good idea.
Okay, okay, now that I am all riled up again I have to go to work 😦 Please check out Rixa’s post over at Stand and Deliver about BirthTrack. It was written about a year ago and I stumbled upon it when I was searching for a picture of a fetal scalp electrode!!
Change has GOT to come! It’s GOT to! For the health and wellness of our mothers and babies!! Remember ladies, YOU actually have more power than ME and all the other L&D nurses out there!! That’s right! If you do not hire birth attendants that do not support evidenced based medicine and physiological birth and do not patronize hospitals that do not support a family-centered approach to maternity care then and only then will they start to listen. You know why? Because when the customers aren’t comin’, it hits them where it hurts… in their WALLET!!
Nursing Birth 
Wow. Is this a race to see who can invent new technology to allow everyone to be as detached as possible from a laboring woman? Maybe that’s what the award was for.
That machine made me want to barf. It sounds awful, like something straight out of a dysutopian novel.
Excuse me while I run around the room screaming hysterically and waving my arms in the air!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is horrible! Disgusting! I literally feel sick to my stomach, seriously!
I mean, why have ANYONE present in the room with laboring mom….let’s just build a robot that can catch the baby, cut the cord, and wheel it straight to the nursery! Who needs a midwife or even a nurse….this is a midwife on wheels! That comes with cute little special hooks to sink it into mom and never let go! YIPPEE!!!
Great, now you’ve got me all worked up too, and I was about to go to bed. Damn you! Ugh. I am right there with you in your outrage, and I think I would actually pay money to see a video of your Grand Exit. I would.
Jill, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! If I make such grand exit, I will be sure to post it on YouTube! LOL!
Wow. If that ever comes to our hospitals, I will doubly make sure that if I do have a third child I will not be doing it at a hospital. I’m making concessions as it is with what I want, when I’m in the hospital. I don’t want to have electrodes in the future screwed into me or my baby. That’s just so sad. 😦 And mothers would allow this as well, which makes me even sadder.
Allow, they’ll welcome with open arms, and even demand. Because technology must make it safer, right?
This is really upsetting. And the worst part is that women trust their doctors. And if the doctor says this is the best way to anticipate and avoid problems, women are not going to question that and do their research (especially not if they’re already in labor!).
I wish we didn’t have to second-guess our medical professionals and fight for the best care.
EG, I COMPLETELY AGREE!
Horrifying.
The ob/gyn residency closest to my house was doing internal fetal monitoring (without the fancy ultrasound attachment) on all of its moms….ALL of them. They got a new attending from another program who was appalled by the overuse of the technology, but it took two cases of herpetic encephalitis of the newborn to finally decide to stop doing it.
Surprise, early amniotomy and screwing something into the fetus’s scalp may carry risks. Who knew?
MomTFH, WOW I am not at all surprised at your story!!! Thank god they changed their ways! How barbaric!
All I could think of when I was reading this was–how many ways can you say INFECTION NIGHTMARE!!!
OMG, could someone actually listen to a sales rep for this without having a seizure????
Lonely Midwife, INFECTION NIGHTMARE for SURE!!!!!!!!! I can see the germs now!!
Germ Leader: “Hold up boys!! Looks like we have a escalator ride straight up her vagina right to the uterus!! AlleyOOP!!”
Germ Army: “HAAZAAAH!!”
Okay, I’m a dork, I can admit that!!
Crap, I didn’t even think about the early amniotomy and infection issue! Madder and madder!!!
HORRIFYING!!! The people who invented this are clearly part monster.
I would rather deliver my baby in the back of a filthy NYC cab with no available medical personnel then have this torture device used on both me and my unborn child.
A clip on my cervix and a SCREW IN MY INFANT’S HEAD??? Are they fliping crazy?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Jen, I second the NYC cab thing!! LMAO!
If you get a good traditional Indian immigrant cabbie, he may well know more about natural childbirth than your average OB.
How, by what stretch of money addled imagination can someone use the words non-invasive to describe a machine that screws into the cervix and baby!? Seriously are they completely daft? How much can a woman be messed with and still labor and birth a child? I wonder with the early amniotomy and infection risk and restriction of movement just how much further up the c-section rate will go with this nightmare in use.
OMG
I suppose (trying to be positive here??) that MAYBE there might be a good reason for this?
Wait…
Nope, can’t think of one.
Holy S**T…
I would have LEFT the hospital for a SECOND time if this had shown up in my labor room. There is NO WAY someone is drilling ANYTHING into ANY child of mine. I mean, with this device, I guess we don’t need any kind of medical professional (midwife, dr, nurse, women’s intuition) for births anymore…
Excuse me, I think I just threw up in my mouth.
I think I’ll just be staying home. I don’t want to fight away tubes and needles and beepers and paperwork….while meeting new people who want to feel my hooha….with my butt hanging out of a whispy little robe….and while trying to get through a contraction.
It’s just getting to be too much stress even thinking about it.
No offense. We need good people in the hospital helping mamas, but it just doesn’t seem like a very friendly environment for being in such a vulnerable state of mind and body yk?
It’s a horrible environment. I have been struggling to find a way to avoid it. It’s illegal in my state for midwives to oversee home birth. I live 45 minutes from the hospital and am just no comfortable as a VBAC with an unassisted home birth. This leaves me traveling over an hour to a VBAC friendly doctor in a hospital. I know there will be a fight just to avoid things not supported by evidence, that increase my stress and our risk. It’s an absurd trap fro a pregnant woman, and it’s been very difficult.
Leia, I hate that you are in the situation that you are in! And I hate even more that you are not alone, that many many MANY women around this country find their rights and choices taken from them regarding their bodies!!
FYI, despite legal status, there may be midwives who will attend a VBAC birth. I know that in my state, where only certain kids of midwives have legal status, there are still midwives who will do VBACs. Asking the right people may help you find a provider.
And it’s important to note that it’s never, ever illegal for YOU to have a VBAC: your provider is the one who would take on the risk.
I know VBAC complicates these decisions but it is great that you have a doctor willing to support your desires. That’s hard for women to find in my state!
As for the OP — WOW. I just… can’t IMAGINE… seeing that and then making the decision to birth in a hospital. It really makes me ill. I’m so glad I birth at home.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get much worse……and it does. When will enough be enough?
It makes me want to cry. How any woman can feel comfortable delivering in a hospital is beyond me. I respect that you work there to provide the best medical care you can, but this stuff makes me frightened for pregnant women everywhere. What other jobs can we program a machine to do? Pretty soon there will be machines that do the cesareans for the doctors. Non-invasive my ass!
How in the world have women had babies for thousands of years without this miraculous device!?!
Seriously, that is the most disturbing thing I’ve ever seen. I love the male voice describing the “non-invasive” technique as little dots are affixed to the inside of very private places and a small hole is tapped into the small skull of the very small baby skull. Who in the world comes up with stuff like this.
Glad to see you back from your busy summer—August is our busiest month too–the hospital keeps saying we’re “low in admissions” but I’m not sure they’re looking in the right place.
I saw this awhile ago, but have been hoping it will just go away. I would like to think that even this is going to far, but lately, I’m not so optimistic.
That is horrible… I have no words…
I’ve seen a similar product before, and you’re right–it is HORRIFYING that anyone would even CONCEIVE of creating a product such as this one!
And who in the HELL thought to describe it as “non-invasive”? Let me just clip something onto their cervix (or their penis, for that matter) and see how long it takes for them take back that adjective.
Makes me think of *Dead Ringers*. And not in a good way.
Could giving birth become any less natural? I mean, seriously – this is so impersonal and mechanic. I couldn’t think of a worse way I wanted to let my child enter the world. Boo!
And all I got from this article was a way to further skyrocket our already sky-high C-Section rate.
Makes me ill!
I was actually planning to do a post on BirthTrack, comparing some good and some not so good new labor technologies (like some iPhone apps), but I had never heard of LaborPro. I have a hard enough time believing that ONE such product exists and is taken even remotely seriously, let alone two!
Okay. So Labor Pro has not yet sunk its electrodes into America, right? And it is my impression that BirthTrack is not widely in use here yet, right? Do we need to start ridiculing this lunacy far and wide? Get more bloggers and then journalists covering it? Is it possible that we could generate enough bad press that no hospital could use either one and both companies will be bankrupted?
Or would this give them free press in the “all publicity is good publicity” sense?
*head——>desk*
Dou-la-la! I like the way you think!! Let’ spread the word about this HORRIFYING GARBAGE on every mamma/baby forum out there so women start to say “OH HELL NO!” instead of “Whatever you think doctor!” Women of the Earth, TAKE BACK YOUR BIRTH!!
http://dou-la-la.blogspot.com/2009/09/brave-new-birth.html
Done!
They want to screw something into a baby’s scalp?! Onto the cervix?!?!?!?! SERIOUSLY?! And call it “non-invasive”? My baby’s collarbone snapped during her delivery and that baby cried her heart out for a very long time because… it caused her PAIN. What a novel idea! That babies feel pain!!!
This is why women are starting to have Unattended Births. They don’t want to have anything to do with the medical community because they cannot trust doctors/midwives/nurses in the medical community.
Why do we confuse more technology with progress. Suddenly, no one remembers how to actually care for the laboring woman. We can watch every twitch and spasm (probably from pain) in her uterus but we can’t actually do anything to help her.
That doesn’t sound like a great medical discovery or progress or anything really award-worthy to me.
I just threw up in my mouth. How is this “non-invasive”. I just wanna scream at someone. This is why I will NEVER birth in a hospital again. The last job an OB had, besides catching, was vaginal examines. And, in some hospitals nurses do them. Now they never even have to go into a laboring woman’s room. What kind of care is that. Who goes to med school/nursing school and says, “I wanna job where I get paid to do nothing and care about no one”. This makes me so nervous. I feel so bad for moms to be who don’t know any better and find out the hard way.
That is all incredibly upsetting to read. I was telling my husband about it as I was reading and started to read aloud all the ‘non-invasive’ things that get hooked up. I didn’t even make it to the fetal electrode before he waved his hands and said “Enough, enough! I don’t want to hear anymore” because it so freaked him out.
I love my midwife and the hospital I deliver at. My midwife is only one of 3 in a practice with many OBs but everyone is so supportive of natural labor/delivery. I’m shooting for a hospital water birth in the next few weeks.
Danielle, good for you!! I hope you are getting PUMPED and EXCITED!!!!!
I know it’s unrelated to your post and I’m not sure you’ll see this but…I just had to come back and update that my water birth desire was a success! Birth story on my blog if you’re interested.
This “technology” is absolutely the limit. I don’t understand why companies and the medical community at large doesn’t understand that if they market people and personal services they will get all the money they can stand, AND still sleep at night knowing they have actually helped people, by utilizing other people who are skilled at helping. It is a sad day when we see machines delivering babies, at risk to them and their mothers, not to mention the complete lack of involvement or care by physicians or nurses. Because, like it or not, this is coming and they will be forced to use it or quit. I’d hate to see at those caring providers shoved out of their workplace due to a machine.
Why won’t marketers actually help these companies out and tell them the truth: yeah people want to feel safe, but birth is not a safe procedure, it’s full of risk and potential danger, just like anything, because it is life. But what these women and babies want and NEED the most is human interaction and minimal unnecessary intervention. THAT is the bottom line.
-Melissa
I am reminded of the scene in the Star Wars: Episode III where Padme is giving birth to the twins. Completely sterile environment, woman on her back, not even propped up, and robots taking care of everything. Not even an attempt at human contact through hand holding, just Obi-Wan standing by on the other side of the glass watching.
Having seen that, a machine like this is tame. It also shows how pervasive the attitude is that birth needs to be quantified, understood, and controlled. This machine screams fear of the unknown to me. “We have to know the dialation at EVERY SECOND, we have to know the station at EVERY SECOND, we have to know the EXACT parameters of EVERY CONTRACTION…” and so on.
Holy poop I was reminded of the same thing!! HA! Star Wars nerds, unite!
I hated the whole movie because of that scene. Well, and some other stuff, but that really blew it for me.
Great, something else to distract staff from the patient that it’s hooked up to. And to keep women tied down. How the hell are you not going to feel something clipped to your cervix?? And let me just screw something into their scalp and see if they consider it non-invasive. And with growing concern over possible long term effects of ultrasound, well, let’s just bombard the baby for hours during labor! Apparently it’s being thought more also that it is stressful for them, like labor isn’t stressful enough. Probably enough to make their little heart rates go crazy! But it’s ok, we’ve got this technology to let us know, we can just save them with a C-Section! *BARF!!*
AND>>(this will be going in my head all night now) pelvimetry? Obviously the woman will be laboring and pushing laying down, so how many people are going to have alarm bells going off for CPD? “WHOOP!WHOOP! We have a small vagina in room 102! C-Section STAT!”
I was just going to chime in and let you know about the BirthTrack when I saw you mentioned it in your post! Crazy stuff, eh?
After reading the article a few days ago that used eating in restaurants vs. cooking at home as a metaphor for hospital vs. home birth, my first thought upon reading this was “wow, so they can just stop in the room of the laboring woman about as often as a crappy server at a truck stop diner.” I suspect the client will have about the same chances of a wonderful, transformative experience and bacterial exposure. Maybe we should just let greasy spoon waitresses go straight into obstetrics now. Seem to expect about the same amount of time spent with clients anymore.
This is the most barbaric thing I’ve heard of. Let’s screw it into the inventor’s/doctor’s heads and see how they like it! They need to watch The Matrix.
I just have to laugh at how the marketing propaganda includes “comfort and peace of mind” ploys. For who???
I can’t figure out why commenters are so focused on the screwing into the babies head device when this is being done every day throughout the hospitals on many, many women and babies through an internal EFM probe screws . Many of these babies are having major infections and more. Have we forgot about those???
But now this machine goes one step further into another way to spread infections to both mom and baby.
Hooking machines in and disconnecting the human touch. We are lsing the way. And soon the only way to have a humanistic birth is to give birth at home again.
I predict many, many diasters to come from these type of machines. Machines make many errors.
Good point about that, though this would just make it the norm. We didn’t forget about them, that’s what makes it worse!
Amen and amen!
They aren’t mentioning it because most people aren’t aware of it. Even the ones who’ve had it done don’t actually get told what’s going on, because the majority would tell the dr. to f*** off. What usually happens is the dr says something about putting it on the babies scalp or something equally innocuous sounding that makes it seem like it’s just being stuck on, not screwed in. I didn’t realize what had happened to my oldest (no wonder the poor kid has anxiety disorder) until after the fact. Not that I was given any chance to say no.
I knew it was getting put into my daughter’s scalp, but not how it was getting skrewed in. but at that point it was that or c-section for “fetal distress”
I am aware of it, and I wouldn’t call that non-invasive, I think it’s coming up so much because they are calling this monster non-invasive, when it screws into the baby and the mom. That’s invasive.
Reminds me of that invention in, I think, Marsden Wagner’s “Born in the USA” where the baby is just whipped out through the birth canal via centrifugal (or is it centripedal? I always get those confused!) force. An actual invention to put g-forces on a laboring mom to move things along.
Hopefully this thing will be greeted with the same horror.
Ah yes, the “Blonsky” device. Somehow inspired by watching an elephant give birth. Though how his first thought was “Gosh, that would go so much more smoothly if she were strapped into a spinning contraption,” the world will never know.
And I *think* it’s centrifugal force. Like the Rotowhirl at the amusement park.
Whee.
That is mentioned at the beginning of “Pushed”. The elephant in a zoo was doing it because she wasn’t surrounded by a herd like she would have been in the wild. I think the couple that patented it were a doctor and nurse.
Disgusted, beyond disgusted!
And I thought the SIMone was bad… This just takes the cake.
Non-invasive?
Omg i just puked a bit in my mouth how painful for both mother and child and just SICK!!
Ok now that is just barbaric and sickening!!!! Pretty soon they’ll have a robot in there to ‘catch’ our babies.
[…] It didn’t really surprise me. Then Nursing Birth just posted about another option Labor Pro. So soon hospitals will have 2 machines to choose […]
I AM a Labor Pro! and I don’t “screw” anyone with anything!
Really, this is like a scene from Monty Python 30 years ago.
(laboring mother to dr) “Doctor what should I do?”
(dr to mother) “Nothing madam, you’re not qualified. Nurse hand me the machine that goes “ping'”!
Perhaps we should ask the inventors to ‘attach’ the screw-in electrodes to their own genitals while their co-inventors punch them in the belly every five minutes and take their blood pressure, temperature and answer a bunch of useless questions before trying this out on women in labor.
Sickening….. just sickening.
It’s up to women to reclaim birth.
Peace.
ah ah ah! that’s funny ~ good idea, though. but you’d have to formulate the inform consent… 😉
During my first birth I agreed to an internal scalp “clip”. Now, years later, I am incredibly pissed that I was lied to and my baby was abused in this manner. I would never have given consent for a corkscrew to be inserted into my child’s scalp, which is probably why I was told it was a clip. This new machine will certainly be sold to laboring mothers in the same way, including the lack of consent.
[…] Posted by manhattandoula on September 11, 2009 This post is from one of my favorite blogs, Stand and Deliver: reflections on pregnancy, birth, and mothering. Rixa links to her June ‘08 post on the BirthTracker, and also to Nursing Birth’s recent post on LaborPro. […]
They should just hook the woman up to this in a bubble, then they don’t need to listen to her at all or look at her, just trust the machine.
I had a water birth in my local hospital! THANK GOODNESS that thing wasn’t anywhere around! I had my birth, with not one thing attached to me, in a hospital may I mind you…. I know, odd, but true!
Amanda, I wish all mothers had access to the same type of hospital experience that you did!!
Next women will be attached to something like this through her entire pregnancy! After all, pregnancy is far too dangerous and should be monitored 24/7!
They are doing their best to keep women in bed and their mouths shut!
[…] this nurse’s post about the BirthTrack and LaborPro, a similiar product being […]
Maybe they’re ok with treating women inhumanely because they’re practicing with robots!
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2009/09/arizona_university_medical_stu.php
Interesting, but sorta creepy
As a nurse, would the following events apply for this thing?
Inexact placement of cervical screws=continuous false reading
Screws becoming dislodged=multiple insertions
Lacerations of baby, cervix during birth
Very very likely!
Of course it would cause all those things.
It;s a crazy world and what a barbaric world at that. In what other civilization do they purposely assualt a mother and baby during the birthing process and call it normal. That’s why they call an internal monitor a clip, becasue if they told the truth NO mother would consent to it. Most Labor and delivery nurse can tell you this has been happening for years. Machines like the one mentioned hopefully would go into the vault of quakery machines. Heaven help us if this ever became the norm. NO wonder ACOG is having a fit about Midwifery at home is on the rise, they are causing women to leave their care by the droves simply because of these types of stupid invasive procedures and using stupid machines. What are they trying to do – totally take the human factor out of birth?
I am one of those VBAC Midwives. Have be doing them since 1980. Literally hundreds of them. For the last 2 yrs I have been a traveling Midwife to help with momo’s wishing to avoid the hospital and those moms that are VBACs. This letter is in response to the last lady about VBAC’s.
Pregnant women need to educate themselves and look for homebirth or birth center options. Stay the heck out of traditional hospitals whenever possible.
great. thanks a lot. I just puked on my keyboard.
o my goodness ~ thank you for the heads-up… but if they are REALLY trying to save money, how about investing in midwifery services…? that will cut their spending!
agreed!!!
YES, because nothing says “You’re in a safe place to dilate and have your baby” like probes and wires attached and coming out from everywhere. What a freakshow!
I am also an L&D nurse who has had a homebirth and childbirth advocate and this seriously makes me want to cry! We have to stop this before it comes to the US
[…] labor and delivery floors are staffed with fewer nurses and more technology, women are increasingly not provided with continuous support in the standard hospital environment. […]
Absolutely disgusting! I’m a student midwife in Australia and from my perspective the more technology is employed in pregnancy and birth, the less skill obstetricians etc have. And if its using ultrasound technology, that can be pretty bad too – already there are theories about the damage that can be done to babies by ultrasound. Rely on technology, and kiss goodbye to good, old reliable nature as well as well-trained and intuitive maternity specialists.
[…] Birth – The WORST Idea Since Routine Continuous Fetal Monitoring For Low Risk Mothers: Melissa dishes on devices like LaborPro and BirthTrack: “…LaborPro and BirthTrack are […]
I truly hope that no woman whose baby’s life has been saved by fetal scalp electrodes ever stumbbles across this. There is always a good and a bad side to any and everything you use. If you were in labor and ur baby’s heart rate started to go down and the dr. needed to place a fetal scalp electrode to better determine the heart rate, rather than rush u to a c/s, I think ur little opinions would be a lot different. Or you were an obese mom and the external monitor could not pick up your baby’s heart rate. Think of all the people that internal monitors have helped over the years. Of course it won’t be good for everyone but think of the moms and baby’s that it could help, and stop thinking of ur own selfishness.
I have been a labor and delivery nurse for 5yrs in high risk ob and I don’t agree with you all. The one thing that I don’t like is electrode being clipped to the cervix. And very rarely is a mom hooked up to every single possible device, just not realistic, unless there’s a very sick (not a pregnancy related sickness) mom.
Feel free to reply to my post, I welcome all questions and criticisms!
I think you are confusing routine interventions with medically indicated interventions.
Our “little opinions”? Getting over our “own selfishness”, in re: the damage done to an infant?
Forgive me if I don’t take your claim to “welcome” questions and criticisms very seriously.
WOW!
I can guarantee that if the hospital my daughter was born at had one of those things I would have ended up with a c-section.
I had continuouse monitoring (it was supposed to just be the addmitting 45 minutes, but because I kept moving (I wanted to be UP) they kept loosing the heartbeat. an IV (which didn’t get put in until I was ready to start pushing because the nurse kept bursting my veins). fetal electrod once my water broke (still kept loosing the heartbeat. I didn’t want it, but was told electrod or c-section). and an oxygen mask (baby’s heartbeat kept going too low and there was meconium in the amniotic fluid).
all this lead to, an episiotomy for me (forced to push in the legs being held position). a misaligned pelvis from pusing while sitting on my sacrum, lots of swelling because I was pushing too hard (being threatened with c-section, then vaccuum extraction). a bump on my daughters head where the electrode was attached. and my baby that was “in distress” had apgars of 8 and 9 and was perfectly healthy.
and all this at a hospital that has a c-section rate of “only” 18 percent. next time I’m having the home birth I wanted and couldn’t afford (I also knew from the beggining I was going to be switching care providers at 37 weeks because I was moving, and didn’t have time to search out a good midwife).
The thought of using LaborPro on anyone makes me sick. I found a promotional video on YouTube for this…thing: http://youtu.be/1lFNVrr9cMQ. According to the website for the product, the problem is “Traditional vaginal examination remains the ‘gold standard’ for evaluating fetal head station and position, as well as cervical dilatation in labor. This, despite the fact that it has been demonstrated to be subjective and often inaccurate and may result in the mismanagement of non-progressive labor, unnecessary cesarean sections, or the improper use of vacuum and forceps – all of which carry the increased risk of maternal / fetal trauma”. My question would be “often inaccurate” according to who? How are mothers and babies not better off for having hands-on care instead of monitoring by a old machine?
“…cold machine”.