The Glade 4.0

There's currently a woman in the Crunchy group on facebook (A friend added me and I stayed out of curiosity) who has "sudden and severe" pre-ecclampsia with a bp that went from normal to 180/110 over night.
She is 37 weeks and really wants her home birth, so she is listening to several other women who are giving her home remedies and encouraging her to call a mid-wife and they are seriously telling her not to listen to the doctors.
This is mind boggling, really.
I'm with FarSky and Midge in that some things you need to watch what you eat and not pop a pill for everything, but situations like this are life and death...I know several women (yes, several) who have lost babies and almost themselves to "sudden and severe pre-E"
Why would you not take medical care in this situation?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

I think it's a mix of both. Being a fan of personal responsibility, I think it's primarily the fact that people don't want to acknowledge their problems, and would prefer a quick fix to a proper fix.

That said, I think TV targeted advertisements from drug companies do a lot to reinforce and play off of that mindset, promising simple solutions through medicine, that then cause those people to go to a doctor for that specific treatment.

And I think most doctors are more likely to just give in than to fight it.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

And since you posted while I was submitting, LK, you really don't give much information. You say they're telling her not to listen to the doctors, but what did the doctors recommend?

Other than birth or abortion, there really isn't a lot you can *do* for pre-eclampsia. There are some new and very experimental immunotherapies, but not a lot past that.

So what medical care do you think is indicated that this mother is avoiding?

The main problem in either pre-eclampsia or eclampsia is hypertension. There are lots of excellent natural and natural derived methods for this. Being as stress is a huge factor in hypertension, it might be quite wise to avoid what might be a stressful doctors office visit, and to try to lower the blood pressure through rest and a low stress environment.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Idiocy? Stubbornness? Ignorance? All of the above? <- That's my answer.

Sorry, to clarify, the doctors are telling her to come back in to the hospital and be induced immediately (which, as I've been told is the one and only cure for pre-e)
She wants to wait, try home remedies to lower her blood pressure, and try to have labor occur naturally within the next couple of weeks so she can give birth at home.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

I don't know. I can see both sides of this one, personally.

And I'm usually quite skeptical of the current trend to push for induction of labor, there are quite a few side effects that can result from that as well.

That said, with very few details about the actual case, it's hard to tell one way or another.

I certainly wouldn't file it away immediately in the "idiocy, stubbornness and ignorance" category.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

See, giving birth (or, really, any serious health issue) is a "no, screw your tofu, go-directly-to-hospital-do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200" thing to me.


Edit: not directed at you, NephyrS. You ninja'd in prior to my reply to LK.

Hah.

And birth is actually one of those areas where I'd say there's lots of evidence pointing to the fact that hospital births and the subsequent environment and norms are really not the best.

But then, I'm an "oh, 6 inch gash with the bone showing... I think I've got some suture somewhere around here. Bit down on this piece of leather for me really quick" type of person.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I can see your point Neph, but I know way too many women who should have taken the FarSky route straight to the hospital. I have not heard one single story of a woman who had pre-e, did some home remedies, waited a couple weeks, and her and baby were fine. I have, however, heard first-hand accounts from several women who had sudden onset of pre-e and lost their babies before they were able to be induced or had an emergency c-section.
I guess it's a matter of perspective?

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

I agree with the above wholeheartedly. Also I blame those miracle pills you see on TV *statements not evaluated by the FDA* about losing 80lbs in 12 days (results not typical, average user gained 13 lbs during 12 day trial) simply by taking Esanitoria which is made from wheat germ and other natural ingredients!

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According to this article in the Lancet, in the mothers studied in late-stage pre-eclampsia, there was a 31% chance of a poor outcome with induced labor, vs a 44% chance with bed-rest and expectant mother monitoring.

I'd say within error margins, that really makes which risk you want to take a personal choice.

Most doctors will probably recommend the induced labor for a number of reasons, among them the increased chance of lawsuit if they don't. That doesn't always make it the best choice.

It's also worth noting that out of the 750-odd cases in that paper, not a single case of full-blown eclampsia or death of either the mother or the child were recorded.

I'll pull up the full article later and see exactly how they're defining ill-effects, short of eclampsia or death.

Ok, so I read through the full article. Adverse effects are severe hypertension, primarily. No other major severe outcomes. So there's a reduction in the chance of a severe hypertensive crisis, but not a huge one.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

As a student at a university where most students start out pre-med, the main complaint I hear from professors is that medical schools, at least ours, have a nasty habit of churning out doctors that treat instruments like some magical device that tells them what to do. Rather than knowing how to treat an illness, they just take a mechanical approach based on what their charts say.

No, no, no. I understand everyone's desire to save the innocent baby who hasn't done anything stupid, but forcibly saving the progeny of willfully ignorant people only exacerbates the problem. Now, the tofu-chomping retard gets to raise a tofu-chomping baby into the next generation of tofu-chomping retards. I don't want to go through this **** all over again when I'm in my fifties. Nip it in the bud, now. Allow nature to take its course.

Not all ideas are good ones. Some combinations don't work. Some devices just fail. Human biology is no different.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I like where this is going !

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Holy shitsnacks!

Hey now!! What's wrong with Birkenstocks?? They happen to be my footwear of choice!

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

omg Jazz is a Crunchy lesbian!!!!

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

No, Jazz was an Autobot.

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Holy shitsnacks!

No, Jas just likes comfy footwear!!

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

I wish you guys could read this group...it's hilarious. This woman posted 3 or 4 hours ago about a red lump with a rash with a black spot in the middle on her husband. It sounded exactly like the staph infection my son had once, but a dozen ladies told her it's definitely a spider bite and she needed to find some plantain leaves...she's been out in her backyard for an hour or two looking for leaves with a flashlight and keeps posting asking questions about what they look like and where to find them.
I'm dyin' over here, lol.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

You keep picking kinda bad examples to illustrate your point. Staph can present with black spots, as can most rashes, but it's really not characteristic of the bacteria from my understanding.

That does sound like the classic presentation of a spider bite, and poultices made of plantain leaves are a pretty widely used folk-remedy.

Of course, they need to be dried, so imagining her rooting around in her back yard is really funny, but...

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Herbal treatments have been around for thousands of years. Aspirin was derived from willow bark, which has been used for centuries. Personally I'm using a black cohosh supplement for my hot flashes and night sweats. Aloe vera is great for burns and sunburn, oatmeal baths are good for itching due to poison oak/ivy...the list goes on and on. I don't think people should stop seeing medical doctors for serious treatments, however for every day common ailments, home remedies that have been used for thousands of years can and do work, and can save a few dollars. Myself, I'd rather eat raw garlic cloves than take another big pharma pill that costs me $20, if the garlic can do the same thing as the big pharma pill without the side effects!

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"Said I never had much use for one, never said I didn't know how to use one!"~ Matthew Quigley

"nothing like a little meow in bed at night" ~ Bruskey

"I gotta float my stick same as you" Hondo Lane

"Fill your hand you son of a *****!"

The same folk remedies used for thousands of years where our life expectancy was 30 years, then 40? Or the same folk remedies sold by snake oil salesmen that led to the Pure Food and Drug Act? Or the same folk remedies that prevented my mother's blood pressure medication from working because you can slap any claim without any clinical trials on a bottle so long as you add the caveat "results not evaluated by the FDA"?

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omg you guys are Crunchy too. Crap.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth