Dean Cameron — yeah, that Dean Cameron — is a funny guy, a skeptic, a TAM speaker, and, as it happens, a new dad.
When you take all that and put it together, what you get is a funny and personal story of irrationality when it comes to baby time. I laughed a lot when I read his post, but I also found myself nodding both sagely and in agreement. Dean is cool. Go see why. Oh– some NSFW words, but they’re written down, so your ears will survive.
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The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.
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 | Bad Astronomy was chosen as one of Time.com's Best Blogs of 2009. |
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September 18th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
When are you making more YouTube videos?
September 18th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
I thought Dean Cameron was the guy that played Superman in that awful TV show. As I write this I just remembered that is Dean Cain/Cane.
DOH!
September 18th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Dr Plait, did you crash him? I get:
Service Temporarily Unavailable
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
Too much of a good thing I suppose!
September 18th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
As my wife and I are expecting in April that was a great blog post. I have had at least 20 people ask me if we were going natural.
*I always answer the same way “Have you lost you damn mind”. I will always trust science over some woo peddler.
September 18th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
When my wife was in labor with our first, she was given pitocin to speed things along. She was also hooked up to a machine that measured her contractions. I noticed one coming on that registered 30. She was doubled over in pain.
Then her turn came for the epidural. (We were lucky, the poor woman before us in line for it had progressed too far.) I was ordered out of the room to prevent a daddy-to-be fainting incident. When I came back in, she was lying in bed looking very relaxed. I glanced at the monitor and mentioned that she was having a level 90 contraction. Her exact words: “I thought I felt a little pressure.” Epidurals are wondrous things!
And no, having her lower body numbed didn’t ruin the birthing experience for us or harm our baby at all. Just the opposite. If she hadn’t been given pitocin or the epidural, she would have likely not progressed and, since her water had already broken, would have likely wound up with an emergency C-Section.
I will attest to the fact that kids can make you act irrationally. After having seen both of my sons go through febrile seizures (two where they stopped breathing, one where we thought he was choking to death in front of us), anything even remotely close to a repeat of that causes my brain to shut down. This past weekend, I thought my youngest was choking (luckily, he wasn’t) and instead of looking in his throat and trying to dislodge it, I called frantically for my wife. My brain was too overloaded with panic to function properly. Not rational, I know, since a Panicking Dad is no help to anyone, but it happens regardless.
September 18th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Well, my SO’s experience with petocin was as expected — it made the delivery happen RIGHT NOW, so it was over. 2 to 10 cm in under 5 minutes. With, of course, significant labor pains.
But she hit the magic “1% complications” with the epidural. The “antiscience” here is that this 1% is NOT random, as it is characterized. Inserting an epidural is a very difficult process, done almost completely by touch. I did watch it. What happened was that the OB screwed up and punched an extra hole in the dura. The next day, my wife had a headache that far exceeded the labor pains. Even better, they sent her home with it because they only keep people for 48 hours PERIOD.
The real obnoxious part about all this is that the epidural was administered too late to have any effect. All analgesia came from the previous round of fentonol. Effective, but not complete.
I can’t in good conscience suggest getting these automatically. 1% is not rare. So, the risk analysis might make it sound worth it, but that’s far from obvious. There are other methods of pain control (e.g. fentonol) that aren’t nearly so difficult to administer. And not all labor pains are severe enough to need such a blunt instrument, though clearly some are.
It is ENTIRELY reasonable to question your OB’s advice. Accepting drugs out of hand is not quite but almost as bad as rejecting them out of hand. It requires actual thought.
In the case at hand, there were no hints of any complications, and the baby was born with an APGAR of 9 across the board. Though one can’t tell from a sample size of one, it sure makes it sound as if the interventions may not have been necessary.
September 18th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
We didn’t experience a lot of woo when preparing for my daughter’s birth last January (I think L.A. has Texas beat in this regard), but she came out with beautiful red hair. Now, everyone takes one look at this little angel and declares “she’s going to have quite the temper!” based on her hair color. HOW DARE people reinforce the idea that my little girl will be ill-tempered based on the color of her hair! You don’t know what her temperament will be, she’s not even eight months old yet!!!!!
Sorry about that, must be that recessive red-hair gene in my DNA.
September 18th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I think “going natural” is a pretty vague and ill-defined term. My wife had a “natural” childbirth, although all that really means in our case is she didn’t have an epidural (she did have some pain medication about half way through, as well as pitocin). Not because of an concerns or other nonsense, but because that’s how she wanted to have the experience (she’s tough like that). It turns out that it wasn’t nearly as bad as she thought it was going to be.
Hmm… but that’s tangential to where I wanted to go. I actually have a question someone might be able to answer. I saw a show on the Science Channel about the brain and sleep (at least it partially covered sleep disorders). Anyway, a person (neuroscientist?, can’t remember) from one segment of a show mentioned that they were starting to do studies to see if there was a correlation between having an epidural and day/night cycle problems in infants. Does anyone remember what that show was?
I’m not sure how an epidural would effect that, but I’m not in the medical field. I do know that sometimes you can have strange correlations in complex systems. Eh, they’ll figure it out eventually.
September 18th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
My wife gave birth to our first child with pitocin and an epidural, and the second completely ‘naturally’ (i.e., no drugs during labor or delivery).. Normally, the second child comes out faster and with less effort, so there’s no way to know why, but the second was a significantly better experience.. Specifically, she said it was much easier to push correctly with the second child, and she also remembered the whole thing. She didn’t remember the first one at all. The nursing staff was much nicer and flexible during the second delivery, which would also contribute to the different experiences.
Are there any medically inclined people here who can point to replicable or verifiable studies on the subject? Apparently, the plural of anecdote is not data, except for mine.
September 18th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
My wife had an epidural for our first son, but due to the quickness of her labor, she was forced to go natural with our second son. Having experienced both sides of this, I can honestly say that any woman who states that going natural is somehow better for the mother or the infant is an idiot. In this day and age, when we have the means to reduce terrible pain, to forgo medicine because of some unforeseen and false complication is lunacy. Any complication that may arise is almost always due to the act of inserting the needle and not the medication. Also, I would like to point out, the idea that getting an epidural somehow makes a woman less of a mother is ridiculous. I was never more amazed at my wife then when she delivered our two boys. Getting an epidural also does not reduce the joy of the moment but in fact heightens the experience because the mother is in less pain and is more aware of the things around her. For all future mothers, if anyone ever suggests to you that you should go natural, pull their bottom lip over their head and ask them if that hurts.
September 18th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
NSFW words build character.
September 18th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Another anecdote here….It was wonderful reading this article, just two weeks after giving birth to my perfect little son. I had both pitocin and an epidural with absolutely no problems! My husband and I knew of the potential risks and decided that they were outweighed by the benefits.
September 18th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
@Mike #6 –
Totally agree with you! While epidurals are the pain reliever of choice for most women in labor, there are legitimate risks and there are situations where they are not recommended. Always discuss alternatives with your OB and know the risks of any drugs you may take during labor, both for you and the baby.
In my case, I lost a full-term baby due to blood clots and am now on anticoagulants for the duration of my current pregnancy. The “plan” is to go off the anticoagulants and get labor induced at 38 weeks if no signs of imminent labor are apparent. If I happen to go into labor on my own before then, I will not have an option of an epidural because being on anticoagulants significantly increases the risk of epidural or spinal hematoma, which can result in permanent paralysis (reference http://www.lovenox.com).
That said, I would consider other options like IV pain relievers or tranquilizers. The baby we lost was born accidentally at home (and no, the home birth is not why he died – he died before labor even started), and I had a totally natural childbirth. It was torture. I would not ever tell a woman she should do it. If she wants to, fine. If you want drugs, fine. Just know your options, the risks and the potential benefits of any choices you make.
September 18th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
At the risk of simultaneous NSFW and bludgeoning, and not currently being in a position where it is of any practical significance to me, I’d like to mention Steven Moffat’s (Dr Who) “Coupling” episode on this subject. ‘Nuff said.
September 19th, 2009 at 12:41 am
A great post over at rational moms! I live in Oxfordshire, which happens to have an extremely high density of scientific research facilities. When I went to antenatal classes, most couples had at least on partner that worked in science. The teacher enthused about aromatherapy and the evils of drugs. None of us actually challenged the teacher, but there was much muttering and looking at watches…
September 19th, 2009 at 7:52 am
My 1st daughter was a breech-birth, but we knew about it in advance so the c-section was no under emergency conditions. There were some people of our acquaintance who wanted the birth to be “natural”. I said we should get Scotty to beam the kid outta there. My wife for some reason punched me. Childbirth makes some women irrational I guess.
P.S., years later, my daughter STILL can’t follow simple operating instructions.
September 19th, 2009 at 8:26 am
icewings27
You have my deepest sympathies, and best wishes for the current pregnancy. I have some idea of what you went through – our little boy is a surviving twin, as his brother was still born.
One of our boys was diagnosed with a serious heart condition (his heart only had two chambers), and he was going to need surgery as soon as he was born (as well as further surgery at two and five years). To that end, we had a caesarean birth planned, so the surgeons would be able to plan for their work. Then, about a week before the planned birth date, my wife felt a little funny, so we went to the hospital for a check-up. The staff could only find one heartbeat.
After some discussion, we decided to induce the birth, and early the following morning our two beautiful boys were born. Sadly, we had to relinquish one of them after a while. My wife had an epidural, and it was a wonderful relief for her; she was torn by the birth, even though both our boys were only about 2.5 kilograms each. I shudder to think what damage larger babies must do during their passage.
So unlike many couples who plan for a vaginal birth and end up with a caesarean, we went the other way.
September 19th, 2009 at 11:23 am
Less WOOOO, more POOOO. That is all. Oh.. come on, that’s SFW, surely.
I agree with ‘llewelly’ – NSFW builds charatcher… and your mouse clicking reaction times on the boss entering the room!