Answers to questions on Birth

1.) What kinds of drugs/interventions are used during birth? How often?
Breathing Techniques, Positioning, Water (Hydrotherapy), Hot & Cold Packs, Massage, Sterile Water Injections (for back pain), 'Gas & Air',Stadol, Demerol, Nubain, Epidural, General Anesthesia. They are used quite frequently, sometimes without the consent of the mother.

2.) How often do mothers die of anesthesia related complications?
Drug induced labors greatly increase the risk of fatality in mothers. By taking labor inducing drugs such as pitocin, women increase their chance of having an Amniotic Fluid Embolism (AFE), which is the leading cause of maternal mortality in developed countries. It occurs when the amniotic fluid from the woman's uterus leaks into their circulatory system causing an arterial blockage that can, and often is, fatal.

3.) How are babies affected by the drugs?
Taking pain relief drugs during birth can supposedly prevent bonding between mother and child. Drugged babies are less likely to nurse after birth, which can affect the transfer of important bonding hormones between mother and child shortly after birth.

4.) How do drugs affect women of different ages?
The effects of birth and birth drugs in general worsen as women get older. Naturally, people are only young for so long, and the younger one is, the more likely it is that they will have an easy recovery from such an ordeal.

5.) How much are the pharmaceutical companies making off of anxious pregnant mothers?
Pharmaceuticals are a multi-billion dollar buisiness, a "vast marketing machine;"along side anti-depressants, disease remedies, and various other medical treatments, the pharmaceutical industry rakes in roughly $30.6 billion dollars (in 2001). I could easily rant and rave about how evil the pharmaceutical giants are, but that wouldn't answer this question. I rant soon enough.

6.) How much do drugs cost?

7.) How do the drugs impact the environment?