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From: betsy@dartvax.UUCP (Betsy Hanes Perry)
Newsgroups: net.med,net.women
Subject: Re: Birth Techniques (and their misconceptions)
Message-ID: <3342@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 12-Jul-85 16:51:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.3342
Posted: Fri Jul 12 16:51:02 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Jul-85 21:00:58 EDT
References: <1784@aecom.UUCP> <11462@brl-tgr.ARPA>
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Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 33

> > 3. All women should be hooked up to IV feeding during labor.
> > 	The argument for this is that if a complication occurs during
> > delivery (i.e. shock), putting an IV in then would be more difficult. It is
> > routine in many hospitals. Others (more reasonably) only do it for women
> > at high risk.
> > 
> 
> don't know about pregnancy, but it's standard procedure for surgery
> procedures at most hospitals around here.    The amount of liquid
> infused via a KVO drip is less than a millimeter per minute. The liquid
> infused is mostly water with enough stuff in it to make it similar to
> blood (if you infused straight water, you'd cause cellular rupture).
> However the amount of time saved if you need to administer drugs or if
> the mother starts to exhibit shock problems can be enourmous.
> 
> 
> -Ron Natalie, EMT-A, Intraveous Therapist.

Yes, but delivery is different from surgery in that it is not
unreasonable for the patient to expect to be mobile.  (Uh, Doc,
mind if I walk around the room while you do that appendectomy?)
An IV line drastically restricts a woman's freedom to sit, squat,
pace, or do whatever comes naturally.  I suspect that's why the
originally-cited article suggested that IV lines should not be mandatory
in all cases.  In a high-risk pregnancy, obviously, the rules are different;
I think the major complaint about modern obstetrics is that some OBs
behave as if all pregnancies were high-risk by definition.
-- 
Elizabeth Hanes Perry                        
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