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Paul Nelson reportingA report from the March of Dimes and the Centers for Disease Control says premature births of single babies are on the rise, and C-sections account for almost all of them. Some researchers say convenience for the mother may be a factor as to why. Are mothers asking to give birth too early?
At the end of a typical pregnancy, many women seem to feel one particular thing: Get this baby out of me!
One woman I spoke with says she remembers when her first pregnancy was ending. She said, "It was probably a week or two before I was due that I really started really feeling super pregnant, and I was uncomfortable more than I was not uncomfortable."
This woman's also a labor and delivery nurse who doesn't want to give her name out of fear she'd get in trouble. She says she sees a lot of women who are sick and tired of the back aches, body aches, pelvis pain, sleep issues, continence problems and any other things that happen during pregnancy.
She said, "They'll come in and they just want to be done, and they'll make up excuses why they need to come in. [They'll say] ‘I'm contracting,' and they're really not."
She says there are cases where doctors give in to patients who complain about their pain, and they'll schedule an induction before a pregnancy is full-term. She says she's seen some doctors plan induction for a medical reason, like hypertension, even though there were so signs of it the next day.
She said, "They'll say, we got a bad blood pressure in the office, so we're just going to get the baby out before it gets worse."
But some doctors say symptoms of problems, like hypertension, sometimes don't stick around.
Board Certified OB/GYN Dr. Max Steele said, "We've taken their blood pressure two or three times and it's up, up, up. I'll send them over the next morning to be started, and the nurse will call and say, ‘Well, her blood pressure's pretty good.' I'll say, ‘It was abnormal yesterday.'"
Steele says if it's close enough to a mother's due date, the doctor may decide to continue with the induction. If a mother has high blood pressure several weeks before the due date, the doctor may decide to keep the mother for observation, but not delivery. He says his hospital won't allow a mother to get an elective induction until one week before she's due.
"The biggest worry is respiratory distress syndrome and the immaturity of the baby's lungs. That's where they're in the ICU with a respirator and the whole thing," Steele said.
Steele says some of the more minor symptoms of inducing or performing a C-section too early include jaundice and hypothermia.
E-mail: pnelson@ksl.com
