"Paul Bearer" <replyonusenet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:8oj614lmbbs29qj7vt6t4s2ign5ukm7rqi@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Sat, 26 Apr 2008 00:19:02 -0400, "sharon" <nobody@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> wrote:
>>Hell, just last year, Abby sawed some chick's pelvis in half to do a
>>delivery and nobody batted an eye.
> Is there any circumstances in real life where they would actually do
> that?
>
>
Yep, but, here in the US, it has probably happened less than a half dozen
times in a decade. It's considered to be a last resort treatment for
shoulder dystocia (when the baby's shoulder gets stuck behind the mom's
pubic bone after the head has delivered. Huge emergency). There are
about
a dozen other things that would be tried first, any which of one is far
more
likely to work, most of which Abby didn't even try before pulling out a
knife and sawing through the pubis symphysis. I've certainly never seen a
symphysiotomy done ever and I've been practicing OB for 26 years, seems
extremely unlikely that Abby, who hasn't been an OB nurse in almost a
decade
would have ever seen the procedure, let alone known how to do it.
BTW, Abby did the whole thing using just a little local anesthesia,
probably
less than your dentist would use to fill a tooth. Yet, her patient
seemingly didn't feel a thing and, just minutes after delivery, was
sitting
up, holding her baby and cooing at it. In real life, the patient would be
in a significant amount of pain both during and afterwards and would more
or
less have a pelvic fracture which would be disabling for weeks if not
months. She'd need crutches and extensive therapy for recovery and runs
the
risk of chronic pain and pelvic instability; which is why most docs
wouldn't
even consider doing it unless every other possible option was exhausted.
Symphysiotomy to treat obstructed labor is done much more commonly in the
third world, where the facilities are not available for doing cesarians.
I
had a med school friend who did some volunteer work in Africa and he saw a
couple of them done for women who had been in labor for days and were at
risk of dying. The area where he was working didn't have OR's,
anesthesia,
IV's, antibiotics or blood transfusions available, so the risk of dying
from
a cesarian is very real. He said that most of the women were unable to
spend the weeks off their feet that a symphysiotomy requires and therefore
healed poorly and were left with an unstable pelvis that caused them to
wobble when they walked. He said that when they were travelling through
the
villages, they could pick out the women who'd had a past symphysiotomy by
their characteristic gait.
Sharon
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