We got
\nused to Romania being included in EU classifications compiled according to all
\nsorts of negative records. A recent Eurostat statistics has revealed that since
\nlate 2019, Romania has hit yet another dismal record: at the level of the EU,
\nour country is second only to Cyprus in terms of reported births by caesarian
\nsection. 60% of the children who are born in Romania are being born by caesarian section. We recall that during Ceausescu’s regime, the percentage of births by caesarian section was insignificant, yet the percentage began to increase gradually after
\n1990s. The big private clinics encourage the procedure, since it is expensive
\nand brings in a lot of money to the medical establishment. Also, births by
\ncaesarian section are extensively performed in state-run hospitals. Do mothers
\nrun away from natural birth, demanding that they give birth by caesarian section, or is the procedure medically imposed? <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Qualified midwife Irina
\nMateescu attempts an answer to this question:<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I do not think they avoid giving birth naturally, I
\nthink they run away from today’s image of natural birth, which is slightly
\ntraumatic. There are all sorts of stories, speaking about accelerating the
\nlabor pains, of women who had a fallout with the medical staff or who are being
\naddressed in a rude manner by part of the medical staff, the birth-giving pose is atypical,
\nit is antigravitational, what with the fact that it is so difficult to give
\nbirth in that pose. In quite a few hospitals, the general anesthesia is not
\navailable, it is not administered free of charge, and then, perhaps, women find
\na reason for themselves to avoid being treated disrespectfully, to run away
\nfrom pain, to escape the lack of empathy. In our country, there is a phony
\nmedical reason, to a great extent, for which we have so high a percentage of
\ncaesarian births, which has nothing to do with women’s demand of that. Let me stress that
\nonce again, there is a tremendous percentage of caesarian births imposed by the
\nphysician, and nor asked for by women. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Obstetrician
\nBrandusa Mitroi also emphasized the mother’s fear of the unknown as well as her
\nage:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For their most part, the reasons are predominantly medical, since women
\ntend to give birth later in life, and with that, all sorts of complications
\noccur, among which gestational diabetes or high blood pressure. Also, there are
\ncases when complications occur during the labor pains. At this point, we need
\nto act under emergency conditions. Reasons of a maternal nature pertain to her
\nchoice, which stem from the fear of the unknown, and, oftentimes, from the lack
\nof information. As for the medical reasons
\nthey could stem from malpractice, which has been growing, and yet, what
\nwe need to pay heed to is the fact that, for the medical doctor, opting for a caesarian surgical operation is not the easiest procedure, since the medical community
\nunanimously has admitted to a higher rate of complications in this case. <\/p>\n
There
<\/p>\n Irina Mateescu:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n The role midwives have to play remains crucial, while
<\/p>\n In
<\/p>\n Brandusa Mitroi:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n How can we change that? Bearing in mind that birth is part of life. In
<\/p>\n Irina Mateescu:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n As a solution, from my point of view, we need to separate ourselves from
<\/p>\n There
<\/p>\n Irina Mateescu:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n When midwives become active
(Translation by Eugen Nasta)<\/p>\n
Whys and wherefores of childbirth in today’s Romania<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":143136,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42997],"tags":[43819,43820,43750,39273],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-143632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-today","tag-caesarian-section","tag-childbirth","tag-newborn","tag-protocol"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwere times when midwives used to play a key role in the process of giving
\nbirth, but things are not the same these days, at least with us. Midwifery
\nfaculties have been dismantled, and midwives have been in short supply ever
\nsince. Unfortunately, Romania does not use its midwives to the best of their
\nabilities, although they are in short supply in medical institutions. Who
\nstands to lose because of that ? <\/span><\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nthe prevention and the monitoring we can have at national level regarding
\nmidwives can give a boost to some of the healthcare indicators, at once
\nbringing other such indicators to a low level of risk, but there’s not enough
\nof us to that end either. All told, there is less than 1,000 of us who practice
\ntheir profession and who are members of the Order of Trained Nurses and
\nMidwives, while the rest of us, needed to complete the required number of
\n12,000 midwives, still needs to do their training. If faculties do not open
\nonce again, practically, this lever is denied altogether. At the moment,
\nmidwives play a very small part in the whole prenatal process because we are
\nnot wanted, we are not active according to our skills, they dismantled the
\nfaculties (as we speak, training as a midwife is almost impossible, if you want
\nto set about going to the university you have nowhere to go to any more,
\nbecause, of the nine university centers, barely one has remained operational),
\nwe’re speaking about a market, which at the moment is oversupplied by
\nphysicians specializing as obstetricians, neonatologists who grabbed this
\nfield, that of midwives, for themselves, for which they are not trained at all.
\n85% of the pregnancies could be attended to by midwives. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nRomania, giving birth by caesarian section has been gaining ground to such an extent
\nthat a handful of people are doomed to failure in their bid to change this
\nmentality. We tend to forget that birth is part of life, we forgot that nature
\nsupports us, it is not our enemy. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nmost of the cases, nature does not fail, enabling each and every woman to give
\nbirth to that one child she can safely bring to this world. How can we improve
\nthat? Attending prenatal courses, demanding, if possible, the presence of the
\nfather for the birth process, or the epidural analgesia. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nthe Order of Trained Nurses, so that our profession can be properly represented
\namong the medical staff on call. The fact that there is someone who assists us
\nwhile we’re giving birth, that is a typically Romanian abnormality, as for the
\nwomen, they gave loads of credit to the physician regarding emotional security.
\nA physician who is exhausted after his on-call shift or who has recently
\ndescended from a birthday party, they are in no way efficient as they intend to
\nassist you while you’re giving birth. The most efficient one is the one who is
\non call, the one who is sufficiently rested, the one who is available. And at
\nthis point, there is a recommendation to operate according to a set of
\nprotocols. There are guides that must be turned into protocols and practices
\nbased on evidence in every hospital, meaning that specialist care for the
\nwell-being of the mother and child needs to be based on uniformity, it must be
\nstandardized, so that it can be implemented all over the country. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nis one more problem, a major one, in maternities all over Romania, that of
\nseparating the infant from the mother immediately after she or he were born. For
\nthe newborn, such a treatment is brutal, and for the mother, emotionally
\ndevastating. When will a solution to that problem be found, from a midwife’s
\npoint of view? <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nand when the number of pregnancies we can supervise is growing, when we’re
\nallowed to support women during labor and childbirth, when we can take care of
\nthe mother and child together, afterwards, without separating newborns from
\ntheir mothers. Healthy mothers and newborns are allowed to be together, they
\nare quickly discharged from hospital, and then are monitored while at home. As
\nfor the midwives, they have no problem doing that. The thing is for us to be
\nallowed to work in our country as well. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"