VBAC Bans in Michigan Hospitals

Women go to hospitals to give birth because they often feel that a hospital is best equipped to handle birth emergencies. Did you know that [michigan hospitals handle over 100,000 births a year but many smaller hospitals] don't actually have the ability to perform an emergency cesarean 24 hours a day/seven days a week? They also offer heart procedures/gastric bypass/other risky treatments, but if those patients need emergency surgery overnight no anesthesiologist may be available to handle the case. Don't you think that birthing women and other health consumers in our area have a right to know this?"
From 50 Ways to Protest a VBAC Denialby Barbara Stratton
© 2006 Midwifery Today, Inc


Many of these hospitals do not allow Vaginal Birth After Cesarean or VBAC or have de facto VBAC bans.When we started calling them to ask why, many of them responded they do not have a 24hr anethesiologist on staff or one that is dedicated to the OB floor. Many of the OB's go back to their offices when a mother is laboring. For this reason they cannot have an OR ready for a women who is having a VBAC who might have a slightly elevated risk of complication.

What we want to know is, if the risk of uterine rupture is only marginally lower for a low-risk labor and delivery, should these hospitals be delivering babies at all, if they say they cannot safely support VBACs?

The point being, if they think it is perfectly safe for a woman to give birth in their hospital, then it is just as safe for a woman to give birth vaginally after a cesarean in their hospital.

There is a VBAC ban in Metro Health right here in Grand Rapids, luckily women have other options a short distance away but there are many areas in Michigan that are VBAC deserts. Areas where a woman would have to travel 2 hrs or more to have a VBAC because of bans in hospitals like mentioned above. Would you want to travel two hours in laor to deliver your baby. Do you think this would be a SAFE option?

How many women made the choice to have another cesarean because they felt they had no other safe option?

This segment of an article published on ICAN's website states:

The growing trend among hospitals of mandating that pregnant women with prior uterine surgery must undergo cesarean sections in subsequent pregnancies is the latest in a series of maternity care practices that stand in direct violation of a wide body of law protecting the rights of patients, including pregnant and birthing women, to refuse treatment. The doctrine of informed consent/refusal is upheld by common law; case law; Constitutional law (the right to privacy and self determination protected by the 1st and 14th amendments); federal law (The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act and The Patient Self-Determination Act); international tort law (which US courts sometimes cite); state law; state mandated medical ethics; and the ethical guidelines of the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). The doctrine of informed consent/refusal upheld by these laws provides all patients, pregnant or not, with certain fundamental rights:



• The right to exercise self-determination and autonomy in making all medical decisions, including the decision to refuse treatment.



• The right to bodily integrity; any form of non-consensual touching or treatment that occurs in a medical setting constitutes battery.



• The right to be provided with the necessary information on which to base medical decisions, including a diagnosis; recommended treatments and alternatives; the risks, benefits, discomforts, and potential disabilities of proposed medical treatments; realistic expectation of outcomes; the right to a second opinion, and any financial or research interests a physician may have in proposing certain treatments.



• The right to be informed of any potentially life threatening consequences of a proposed treatment, even if the likelihood of experiencing such an outcome is rare.



• The right to make medical decisions free from coercion or undue influence from physicians.

• The right to have informed medical decisions witnessed, signed and documented by the attending physician and another adult.



• The right to revoke consent to treatment at any time, either verbally or in writing.

( to read the full article click here )

co·erce (k-ûrs) KEY

TRANSITIVE VERB:
co·erced, co·erc·ing, co·erc·es
To force to act or think in a certain way by use of pressure, threats, or intimidation; compel.
To dominate, restrain, or control forcibly: coerced the strikers into compliance. See Synonyms at force.
To bring about by force or threat: efforts to coerce agreement

If a hospital is restraining a womans safe options to give birth vaginally, could that not be considered coercion? There have been doctors who have obtained court orders to order a woman to have major abdominal surgery. What happened to "first do no harm?" The possible harm of a cesarean section is far greater then a vaginal delivery after cesarean.

Part of our mission as ICAN of Grand Rapids is to encourage our community to stand up to these bans, and create a safer, more mother-friendly childbirth environment.