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From: sed408@ihlpg.UUCP (s. dugan)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: Sibling presence at childbirth
Message-ID: <1101@ihlpg.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Aug-85 14:44:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlpg.1101
Posted: Mon Aug 19 14:44:44 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 20:58:31 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 51

> > When my husband and I took childbirth classes before our
> > son was born we were told that in the event of a "C Section"
> > it was possible for the husband to remain with the wife
> > as long as she didn't have a general anesthetic.
> 
> > I looked at my husband and said "Why would anyone want
> > to stay concious for major surgery?"
> > My second question was "Why would a husband want to watch
> > his wife have major surgery?"
> 
> I'll answer your first question: "Why? Because it's safer." Under
> general anesthesia you will be the closest you will ever be to dead,
> short of the real thing. (This is a layperson's way of putting it, but
> talk to an anesthesiologist or post to net.med.) Furthermore,
> complications can arise after general anesthesia that won't arise under
> local. (Again, talk to an anesthesiologist or post to net.med.) I had
> abdominal surgery performed under a local anesthetic. No pain, and
> (thankfully) no complications. After discussing the various options for
> anesthesia available to me before the operation with my
> anesthesiologist, I do not believe I would ever *elect* general
> anesthesia over local (of course, in some situations the patient has no
> choice.) I was told that in my case, the potential complications from
> undergoing general anesthesia were greater than the potential
> complications from the operation itself.

There's another reason which concerns the child.  Some kinds of local
anesthesia (I had an "endural block" (I think)) do not affect the baby whereas
general anesthesia does.  It's much better for your child this way.  

As to the second question, it's not so much that your husband does/doesn't
want to see you have major surgery, It's that he may want to see his child
right away and (depending on the hospital) hold him/her much sooner than would
be possible otherwise.  

When I had my daughter through a planned (not emergency) C Section, my labor
couch was by my side narrating what was happening, my mother was in the
observation deck watching her first grandchild come into the world, and I got
to hear my child's first cries.  Next to "natural" childbirth, it was the best
possible way.  I also got to nurse her within an hour of the time she was born
which I don't think would have been possible otherwise.  It sure was worth it
to me!
-- 
Sarah E. Dugan
"Easy Does It, But *DO* It"

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