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Let's put one issue to rest. Women do take risks when they get pregnant.
1 & 2. In 1975, two of my best friends nearly died in childbirth. One went to a high-priced ob-gyn clinic, the other to an old-fashioned country GP. Both were healthy young women in their mid-20s. Both had good pre-natal care. Both were allowed to go two weeks past their due-date despite elevated blood pressure, severe swelling, etc. One went into labor on the Friday before Labor Day, when all the doctors in her clinic were out of town. By the time one was finally called on Monday afternoon, the mother was exhausted from unproductive labor. They finally xrayed her and determined she would never have been able to deliver vaginally. Emergency caesarean that almost killed her. She had her second child 14 months later, and was told not to have any more, or at least wait a while until her badly battered body healed. After having a third very difficult pregnancy and a third caesarean only 15 months later, she begged her husband to consent to a tubal ligation. The doctor told him another pregnancy would kill her. He reluctantly signed the release papers.
The other friend delivered a week later, induced labor. No one expected her to deliver so quickly after being so late; she tore horribly, including internally, but no one discovered the full extent of the damage until she had her second child two years later. This one came early and she hemorrhaged badly. Two surgeries failed to repair the damage; she had a complete hysterectomy at 27.
3. 1978. A friend's daughter, married to an abusive husband (which we found out later, much later), already had three children. After the difficult birth of her fourth, she wanted no more, and her doctor had told her that in her late 30s, she was taking unnecessary risks if she did. But hubby talked her into just one more -- and it proved to be twins. At six months, she suffered a series of minor strokes, the last of which occured in the grocery store. She fell and struck her head on the floor. Seven weeks in the hospital later, she delivered the twins -- caesarean -- and had her tubes tied.
4. 1980. My sister-in-law, who had had one miscarriage two years earlier, thought she had the flu just before Christmas. She had no indications she was pregnant, but unbeknownst to anyone else, she had been taking fertility drugs. Do not ask me why she was on drugs to stimulate ovulation when her previous miscarriage was evidence that she did ovulate. i don't pretend to understand, nor do I understand why this was done when there was extensive family history of fraternal twins on her mother's side. At any rate, two weeks before Christmas she was paralyzed with cramps and I finally convinced her to get to the doctor, that this wasn't the flu. From the doctor's office she was rushed to the hospital, given massive transfusions, and operated on that night for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. the internal bleeding was so extensive that had she waited even another hour, she would probably have bled to death. Subsequent surgery to repair scar tissue on her remaining ovary and fallopian tube was unsuccessful; unable to become pregnant again, she and her husband eventually adopted.
5. 1983. My dentist was pregnant with her first child. Ecstatic, she was doing everything right, following all the instructions, etc. Two weeks before her due date, she noticed that the baby had stopped moving. Sonogram revealed the baby had died, cause unknown. Decision was made to induce labor and deliver normally. Something went wrong and she pinched a nerve in her pelvis or spine or something, leaving her paralyzed from the hips down. The stillborn baby was delivered; I don't know if it had the cord around its neck or what. The mother was paralyzed for almost six months; she eventually had two other children with no complications.
6. 1999 A friend's sister, pregnant at age 29 for the second time, showed no signs of health problems until the sixth month. Though overweight, she had easily delivered her first child 20 months earlier. Now she began having heart palpitations and other problems. She was eventually hospitalized for six weeks and delivered five weeks premature. In the middle of labor, she suffered cardiac arrest. Resuscitated, she delivered a daughter, but was a virtual invalid for nearly four months afterward.
6. 2001. My sister, after undergoing various fertility treatments, was pregnant for the first time at 38. She and her husband attended all the birthing classes and were looking forward to a normal delivery. At seven months she experienced a rise in blood pressure and was urged -- because of excessive weight gain -- to walk several miles a day. She didn't, and whether or not that had anything to do with the baby not "turning" i have no idea. At any rate, she was faced with a breech birth or caesarean. They opted, reluctantly, for the caesarean, not expecting her to go into labor beforehand. She did, however, necessitating an emergency caesarian.
No, there are no risks to pregnancy.
When I was pregnant with my two, I worked almost up until the moment they were born, and I was back to a pretty normal routine within hours. people thought I was crazy. But the truth is that we have a society that's neither peasant in the field who drops the kid and goes back to picking grain five minutes later, nor delicate lady in bed with servants to wait on her hand and foot during a three month confinement. The risks are still there, greater for some of us than others, but still there.
Women die from abortions, they die from miscarriages, they die in childbirth. It's not unheard of. Rare, yes, but not unheard of.
I think all we were asking in the original thread was some recognition of the risks women take -- not that we should be treated like porcelain flowers -- and the responsibilities. For some women pregnancy is a breeze; for others it is anything but. Recognition of those differences and respect and sympathy for those who aren't as lucky as the others is, IMHO, not out of order.
But then, I'm the militant feminist. :-)
Tansy Gold
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