Health
Women giving birth on their backs or squatting – Which is Better?
Squatting can enlarge the pelvic diameter by at least 2.5cm (1in), while working with gravity makes it far easier to give birth.So why do so many women today give birth on their backs?
Credit: Getty images
For thousands of years, across the world, women tended to give birth in an upright position – whether kneeling as per Cleopatra, using birthing stools and chairs, or squatting.
In fact, squatting can enlarge the pelvic diameter by at least 2.5cm (1in), while working with gravity makes it far easier to give birth.So why do so many women today give birth on their backs?”
There is a generalised ignorance amongst professions and pregnant women about the physiology of birth,” says Janet Balaskas, founder of the Active Birth Centre in the UK, and author of a number of books detailing how mothers can take control of their birth experience.
In 1982, Balaskas published an “active birth manifesto” that became the central tenet of her organisation.
“Throughout the world, and for thousands of years, women have spontaneously laboured and given birth in some form of upright or crouching positions,” the manifesto reads. “Whatever the race or culture… the same upright positions predominate.”
Most women in post-industrial countries are confined to hospital in recumbent positions, Balaskas says. “This practice is illogical, making birth needlessly complicated and expensive, turning a natural process into a medical event and the labouring woman into a passive patient,” she argues.
“No other species adopts such a disadvantageous position at such a crucial time.”
Other experts agree.
In fact, giving birth lying down is a “relatively modern phenomenon”, Hannah Dahlen, professor of midwifery at Australia’s Western Sydney University, wrote in a 2013 op-ed for The Conversation.
Pregnancy as ‘illness
‘It’s only in the past 300 to 400 years that women have been largely giving birth on their backs. They can thank a French man named François Mauriceau.
He claimed that the reclining position would be both more comfortable for the pregnant woman and more convenient for the male physician attending to her (there was already a movement emerging to dispense of midwives and instead have male surgeons present at births).
Mauriceau viewed pregnancy as an illness.
In his 1668 book The diseases of women with child and in child-bed, Mauriceau advised: “The best and surest is to be delivered in their bed, to shun the inconvenience and trouble of being carried thither afterwards.”
However, some scholars argue that the change in birthing position may actually be due to another Frenchman who lived the same time as Mauriceau – King Louis XIV.
” Since Louis XIV reportedly enjoyed watching women giving birth, he became frustrated by the obscured view of birth when it occurred on a birthing stool, and promoted the new reclining position,” wrote Lauren Dundes, a professor of sociology at McDaniel College in Maryland, US, in her 1987 paper on the evolution of birthing positions.
The influence of the king’s policy is unknown, although the behaviour of royalty must have affected the populace to some degree,” she added. “Louis XIV’s purported demand for change did coincide with the changing of the position and may well have been a contributing influence.”
Regardless of how giving women birth on their backs came about, the trend stuck, much to the detriment of their birthing experience.
“Birth has become institutionalised with options such as home birth – which is more conducive for many women wanting a physiological or ‘natural’ birth – declining,” says Balaskas.
Proven by science
The main reason women have given birth in upright positions for so many thousands of years is simple: gravity. A baby has to travel downwards through the birthing canal, and gravity is beneficial to the process.
It has been shown that left to their own devices, women will instinctively lean forward during labour – not backwards – adopting positions such as squatting, leaning forward on their hands and knees, or leaning against a low piece of furniture.
Credit: BBC
Health
Gov Mbah Invest in world-class Enugu International Hospital
The hospital, equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment and advanced digital and electronic systems, is expected to attract top medical professionals from Nigeria and around the world.
Enugu State Governor, Peter Mbah, says the Enugu International Hospital is designed to provide world-class healthcare services to people across all socioeconomic classes.
The Enugu International Hospital is located at Rangers Avenue, Independence Layout, Enugu.
Mbah stated this during a pre-launch tour of the facility ahead of its official commissioning.
The hospital, equipped with state-of-the-art medical equipment and advanced digital and electronic systems, is expected to attract top medical professionals from Nigeria and around the world.
The governor expressed satisfaction with the quality of the equipment installed at the facility, saying the investment would help position Enugu as a medical tourism hub in Nigeria.
He said the hospital would also help reduce the number of Nigerians travelling abroad for specialist medical treatment while creating an environment that would encourage Enugu-trained medical professionals to return home.
According to Mbah, several Enugu-qualified medical practitioners based abroad have already reached out to express interest in working at the international hospital and contributing to the development of the state’s health sector.
The governor further said the facility would create job opportunities for medical graduates, healthcare professionals and other workers, with the potential to boost economic activity in the state.
During the tour, Mbah inspected several specialist units, including the Precision Oncology and Nuclear Medicine Unit, specialised surgery theatres, intensive care units, advanced diagnostics and imaging, and renal care and dialysis facilities.
He also toured the cancer, heart and vascular, nuclear medicine and molecular imaging, neuroscience, and renal centres.
Accompanied by the Director of the facility, Professor Sam Agwu, and other specialists, the governor received briefings on the various services and specialist care the hospital is expected to provide.
The Enugu International Hospital operates as a comprehensive quaternary care facility with more than 300 beds and was established to provide world-class specialist healthcare.
The facility is expected to strengthen access to advanced medical care, support medical professionals, create employment and contribute to Enugu State’s emergence as a destination for medical tourism.
Health
Bayer to establish reproductive health commodities plant in Nigeria
The plant is expected to manufacture family planning commodities locally, reducing Nigeria’s dependence on imported products, creating jobs and contributing to economic growth.
•The Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Pate
Global pharmaceutical company, Bayer, is to establish a reproductive health commodities manufacturing plant in Nigeria, with the facility currently under construction in Anambra State.
The plant is expected to manufacture family planning commodities locally, reducing Nigeria’s dependence on imported products, creating jobs and contributing to economic growth.
The Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Pate, disclosed this in Abuja at the inauguration of the High-Level Inter-Ministerial Platform (IMP) on Family Planning, Health, Human Capital and Sustainable National Development.
Pate described the investment as evidence that President Bola Tinubu’s Executive Order on the pharmaceutical sector was beginning to attract significant investments in local pharmaceutical manufacturing, diagnostics and health technology.
Also speaking, the Managing Director of FP2030 West and Central Africa Office, Dr Alain Damiba, described the initiative as a major step towards strengthening cross-sector collaboration to improve health outcomes and accelerate Nigeria’s socio-economic development.
Damiba commended the Federal Government for adopting a whole-of-government approach, noting that the new platform demonstrated that health and family planning were national development priorities and not issues that should be left to the health sector alone.
“Health, including family planning, is a smart investment in human capital and Nigeria’s future,” Damiba said.
Source: The Guardian Nigeria
Health
Medical Oxygen Killing More Than 600,000 Nigerians Annually
The project started its first phase by carrying out intervention work in three industrial areas of the state: quarry industrial site in Onueke, rice mill in Abakaliki, and timber market
•Professor Jesse Uneke
The Vice Chancellor of David Umahi Federal University of Health Sciences (DUFUS), Ebonyi State, Professor Jesse Uneke, has estimated that more than 600,000 Nigerians died yearly due to issues relating to the administration of medical oxygen.
Uneke, who is the Nigerian and State Lead/Principal Investigator for the EQUI-RESP Africa Research Project, disclosed this in Abakaliki, during the First Stakeholders’ Engagement Event/Co-Creation Workshop on Medical Oxygen Economy organised by the university in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh, UK, supported by the National Institute for Health and Research (NIHR), UK.
He explained that the administration of medical oxygen issues was happening because there was no platform where stakeholders in the medical oxygen space could come together to discuss the research-policy interface and see how to contextualise some of the strategies against the problems for the country.
“That is why, in this phase of this project, we have decided to start with this kind of stakeholders’ engagement. I am excited that we have every key stakeholder in the medical oxygen space represented here,” Uneke said.
He opined that the project started its first phase by carrying out intervention work in three industrial areas of the state: quarry industrial site in Onueke, rice mill in Abakaliki, and timber market.
This project has to do with respiratory health, and the idea is to come up with strategies that will lead to interventions that will improve health outcomes as far as respiratory health is concerned.
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