Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Sep
16
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“Pitocin Is The Exact Same Thing Your Body Produces.”
“Pitocin is the exact same thing your body produces.” – Certified Nurse Midwife to expectant parents when talking about their desire to not have a managed third stage.
There are 36 comments to this post.
“Which is why drug companies give it away for free! They could never bear to charge people for something their bodies make just fine on their own. And I hope you don’t notice that when you said you didn’t want a managed third stage, I started talking about which drugs I plan to use by poo-poohing it. The fact is, I didn’t address your concern at all, but I would rather snowball you with medical trivia you can’t dispute right now in this office.”
Best response to this? “If it’s the exact same thing my body produces, then I don’t want you adding any of it to my working-just-fine body. So let’s go back to the part where I said I DID NOT WANT a managed third stage of labor.”
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If that’s true, why does it increase the risk of uterine rupture even in women who have no uterine scar?
If that’s true, why does it increase the risk of fetal distress?
If that’s true, why not just let me breastfeed my baby immediately and let the stuff my body produces take care of it?
Medical professionals lying about pitocin is one of my pet peeves, it’s so frustrating!
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Really? Then why would I need it?
Reality check: Oxytocin is what my body produces. Pitocin is what the drug company produces. One is a natural hormone, the other is a synthetic chemical filled hormone.
Just as an aside, the nurse and OB with my first birth kept referring to Pitocin as Oxytocin, and it bugged the crap out of me.
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Jade Reply:
September 16th, 2011 at 10:05 pm (Quote)
To be fair, “Oxytocin” is what is printed on the drip bag. “Pitocin and syntocinon are brand names for the drug oxytocin”
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Knitted in the Womb Reply:
September 19th, 2011 at 8:30 am (Quote)
To be fair…chemically speaking “Pitocin” and “Oxytocin” are the exact same thing.
The problem comes in that putting Pit in the IV does not stimulate the body to produce endorphins like happens when the body sends the message to produce oxytocin.
And perhaps more significantly, the problem comes in when care providers dose the Pit at a level that the package insert clearly says is 3 times as high (or even more) than what the body would produce on its own. Its like the difference between me gripping my arm with my own hand, vs. me gripping my arm with a large woodworker’s clamp. I really can’t hurt myself by gripping my arm myself, but I could probably crush a bone with the woodworker’s clamp (if someone else were applying it without heed to my expressions of pain).
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Heather had this to say,
Sep 16, 2011 @ 7:16 pm (Quote)
Yeah they’re exactly the same. Except for the fact synthetic hormones can devastate the body. I remember being told I was going to get pitocin for 3rd stage and I disagreed with the OB about using it. I never remember getting it added to the IV. Maybe she forgot because I was also questioning her desire to suture my 1st degree internal tear…
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cottonlily had this to say,
Sep 16, 2011 @ 7:35 pm (Quote)
Just because it has the same name as the natural hormone does NOT make it exactly the same thing!!! The simple fact that it’s not natural makes it not the same. I don’t even think it’s fair the synthetic drug can be called the same thing; it’s even printed (along with the brand name of course) as oxytocin on the drip bag….very misleading indeed.
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Rebecca Reply:
September 17th, 2011 at 6:17 am (Quote)
Besides the point of whether or not its the same thing as my body produces is the quantity being produced vs the quantity being produced plus the amount being injected.
By your argument I should start injecting myself with insulin every day
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Robyn Reply:
September 17th, 2011 at 8:48 am (Quote)
Not to mention that natural oxytocin is produced in the brain and spreads to the bloodstream. Synthetic oxytocin is injected directly into the bloodstream and never enters the brain because of the blood brain barrier. That time spent in the brain triggers *other* hormones to be produced that help us deal with labor. You don’t get the benefit of those helpful hormones when on synthic oxytocin.
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cottonlily Reply:
September 18th, 2011 at 7:02 am (Quote)
Rebecca, it was never my argument that they are the same; in fact, I stated the exact opposite. They are not the same because one is synthetic and I think it’s unfair they even share the same name. Did you mean to reply to the original comment instead?
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Well, to be fair, pitocin and oxytocin are in fact the same thing. They are chemically indistinguishable.
However:
1) Pitocin injected into the bloodstream cannot cross the barrier into the brain. Oxytocin produced in the brain produces a whole cascade of hormonal effects that the same chemical injected into an arm vein can’t.
2) Oxytocin is not produced in the body in extremely high dosages for the purpose of making labor unnaturally hard. (This is what creates the risk in pitocin inductions to post-caesarean mothers – the high doses and the resulting stronger, longer, and more frequent contractions put more stress on the scar.)
This is one of these statements that’s factually true in a narrow sense but utterly misses the point. The two are chemically indistinguishable in a test tube – but the human body isn’t a test tube, and they are in no way identical in effect when you consider *how* the substance is used and how it behaves *in practice* in the body.
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Aron Reply:
September 17th, 2011 at 6:54 am (Quote)
Thank you, Jaed! I was trying to figure out how to word such a response and you stated it eloquently. It’s not the molecular shape of the drug that is at issue, it’s the pathologic effect of having unnaturally massive quantities dumped into a person’s circulation, often unnecessarily.
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I thought pitocin was basically bonine based oxytocin? That’s what I was told. That’s why it produces such larger contractions, it’s for a larger mammal. I could be completely wrong about this though.
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Lisa Reply:
September 17th, 2011 at 10:16 am (Quote)
That was supposed to be bovine.
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Katie R Reply:
September 17th, 2011 at 8:05 pm (Quote)
The sources vary, but most of it is from a large mammal, much larger than *this* mammal. Horses and pigs seem to donate the most…
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Katie R Reply:
September 17th, 2011 at 8:12 pm (Quote)
to be fair, I can’t find the original packet insert for pitocin where the drug manufacturers say it comes from pigs and horses… but this “Pitocin is a nonapeptide found in pituitary extracts from mammals.” came from http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/drugInfo.cfm?id=4975#nlm34090-1
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So first, what jaed said. They actually are the exact same thing chemically, but the way pitocin tends to be used can be problematic.
*Can* be. Isn’t necessarily always. I pushed for two hours unproductively before my CNM augmented me with pitocin. I was very resistant–I’d heard the horror stories–but at that point I was starting to fear that we were going down the road to a much more major intervention if I couldn’t push out my baby soon. And my CNM promised she would use the pit with a light touch, and she was true to her word. My contractions strengthened but were never unbearable, and I pushed out my 9 lb 9 oz posterior baby.
(FWIW I had tried pushing in different positions–on hands-and-knees and everything. I wasn’t just on my back for two hours.)
In the end pitocin may have saved me from a c-section. Though I didn’t want it at all at the time I trusted my CNM to do the best thing because I knew she shared my values for my birth. I think this is the key thing.
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Brige had this to say,
Sep 17, 2011 @ 5:52 pm (Quote)
This is mine (can’t pink from my phone) she was on bored with our birth plan, until it came to a managed third stage, she said this and I just sat there dumb founded and replied (after a lengthy pause was trying not to laugh) “no it’s not” either way I don’t want it prophalactically, she was like “what about cytotec” I was like “he’ll no”… Needless to say, she didn’t deliver us, but we ended up not having a managed third stage no need, although that midwife rammed her hand up my vag without any warning or consent (after ds head was out) (my husbands response later..: “dude you got fisted my the midwife” but yes no managed third stage… Were preggo again and planning a peaceful homebirth in April (depending on how this pregnancy progresses of course)
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Cattaca had this to say,
Sep 19, 2011 @ 6:54 pm (Quote)
Pitocin stopped my post partum hemorrhage after a completely by the book all natural first and second stage labor. Tried nipple stimulation but my uterus had called it quits. If I didn’t see them hang the bag I would never have known. They must have used the appropriate dose.
Oh and when I was at ten cm with a lip the OB came in and was pushing pitocin to make the contractions stronger and I was having none of that. The pain of labor was already more than I could handle. Besides I’d been progressing just fine. About a half hour on hands and knees took care of it.
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Well way to be misinformed!! next please!!
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