There's lots of blogging buzz at the moment that "Pit to Distress" - that's PITOCIN, the common drug given to women who get induced or are told by the hospital their labor needs to speed up (Pitocin gets the uterus to contract faster), and the DISTRESS meaning doctors are giving orders for nurses to up the Pitocin on mothers until the mother/baby go into distress and then the mother can be told "We have a problem and we're going to need to do a C-section."
Is this criminal? Well, if it isn't it should be.
Do I wish I had never heard about this? Yes, but unfortunately this is not my first knowledge of "Pit to Distress" orders. When I wrote my play and was doing research 2 Labor and Delivery nurses told me about this practice. Neither would go on the record for me so I decided not to put it in the play.
Did I know it was more common practice than the two hospitals where these nurses worked? No. But you bet I suspected it's more widespread than 2 hospitals. That's why I quickly finished writing my play and tried to do my part to warn women that, I'm sorry, the hospital does not have your best interest at heart. I know people don't want to hear this - especially a pregnant woman - but it's the unfortunate truth. Sure there are better hospitals and some fabulous OBs and midwives. Some women do have wonderful birth experiences in hospitals. But the bottom line in hospitals is money. And c-sections are money and lower the risk of lawsuits. It's that heartless.
I noticed one blogger mentioned that Dr Marsden Wagner told women in his book "Born in the USA" that this term is being used. I've always been shocked that his book got so little press. We all embraced Jennifer Block's book "Pushed" - which is fabulous - but in turn we discarded one of the most right-on people writing about maternity care. Dr Wagner has seen maternity care first hand and is a physician who has not been afraid to blow the whistle. I encourage everyone to embrace his book. It's unfortunately the honest truth. Yes, a cold shower and not the literary prose of Jennifer Block's book, but it's the truth and everyone needs to hear it and rise up, be BOLD and stop these criminal practices in maternity care.
Here are some links of people weighing in on this:
http://www.unnecesarean.com/blog/2009/7/6/pit-to-distress-your-ticket-to-an-emergency-cesarean.html
http://phdoula.blogspot.com/2009/07/pit-to-distress-around-birth-blogs.html
And a passionate You Tube video by a mom on this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRpseY2aiwM
Sunday, July 12, 2009
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3 comments:
I have written about "Pit to distress" too...back in 2006, which ended up getting quoted on one of the recent round of blogs, so I did a rework of that post.
I have to say, I don't really think most OB's do it thinking they are going to cause a cesarean. I think they perhaps have convinced themselves that the Pit is just showing up a problem that would have shown up in a natural labor as well--and really, most of them don't really care if a baby is born via cesarean so long as it is healthy.
I read nurses talk about "titrating" the dose...and they talk in terms of titrating it up to a certain contraction pattern, but the reality that I've seen more of is titrating it up to a point where the baby is starting to show distress, then they back it off a bit. But often backing it off isn't enough--the baby got tipped over to where distress is inevitable--turning the pitocin down only slows down the time line. To us a metaphor, the baby can't "catch his breath" again so to speak--but is gasping, and the cesarean ticket has been punched.
I don't remember reading the term in Born in the USA. I'm going to go do some re-reading now. Thanks!
This practice is common in the L&D at our hospital; I get the results (freshly sectioned mothers) all the time. This is the first time I've seen a proper name. Appalling...
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