LOL. I think I would’ve laughed in his face and asked if I was on tv or something. Out of the 1 in 20,000 women that get it (according to Wikipedia)50% die in the first hour (serious if you happen to be in that statistic, yes), but one of the pre-reqs to getting it is ruptured membranes!

The way to get this condition is ruptured uterus. Which is caused by drug augmentation drugs, not pushing. If it was caused by pushing, then we wouldn’t be here, seeing as how all the women who gave birth before docs came on the scene pushed their babies into the hands of *gasp* whoever was there, and not a surgically trained automaton. ~shiver~

I would have fallen for this during my hospital birth, too. Most people who read the regular “what to expect when you’re expecting” won’t ever come across this information. If you only read one book, read Marsden Wagner’s “Creating Your Birth Plan”. FYI: Amniotic fluid embolism (AFE) is a rare and incompletely understood obstetric emergency in which amniotic fluid, fetal cells, hair, or other debris enters the mother’s blood stream via the placental bed of the uterus and triggers an allergic reaction. This reaction then results in heart and lung collapse and hemorrhage. On the list of causes of maternal mortality, it is fifth.
Thank you, Wikipedia!

I know a woman who died of this. She had polyhydramniosis and her doctor ruptured her membranes. Within an hour she was dead. The baby survived.

(Hint: controlled rupture of the membranes for poly. Pinprick. Mom on hands and knees so there’s no gush of fluid. Doctor should have known this if I could read up on it on the internet, no?)

Wow, I just am amazed how OBs continue to use fear to motivate moms to allow the OB to do whatever it is they want to.

Here is a mental picture: the baby, fluid, etc are all sealed in a big bag. You can push as hard as you like and if the membranes are intact, there is no-where for the fluid to go. How, in any way, can it suddenly go squirting somewhere dangerous? Anyway, when you have a contraction, the bit of membrane under the greatest stress is the bit in the cervix, so that is where the rupture is most likely to occur. It is incredible that the doctor has such an inaccurate knowledge of anatomy and physiology, and even more so that they would use such crude means to scare women into accepting their care.
Have they heard the phrase ‘evidence based practice’?

Look on the net for MIDIRS (www.midirs.org). It is a midwifery research digest that collates research from around the world and publishes it, online and in a quarterly journal. It costs about £70 a year, which is about $100. It is searchable, and you can order articles as hard copies. Also check out the ‘informed choice’ leaflets, which are produced by midwives for mothers so that they can make a truly informed decision about their care. There is a professional one for midwives too. In the UK evidence based care is central to our model of woman centred care. It is also beaten into medical students from an early part of their training. I know that our system is imperfect in so many ways, but I think we give women a good deal. They may lose out in terms of staffing and resource provision, but our whole service starts from a basis of evidence based care.
MIDIRS is excellent though- all women should access it.