For those of you planning to give birth sometime in the future, you may want to rethink what to expect when you're expecting. Although it may come as a surprise, the United States is actually one of the lowest ranking industrialized nations for safe childbirth.
Here's the scenario at your average American hospital. You go into labor. The doctor suggests Pitocin, a drug that acts like the hormone oxytocin to bring on contractions. Once you take Pitocin, the contractions come on quickly and more painfully and your brain actually stops producing its own oxytocin. You need an epidural to stop the pain. The epidural slows down the labor and actually goes into your child's bloodstream.
At his point, your chances of a normal vaginal delivery are greatly reduced. But that's probably to your doctors advantage since most OBs are more comfortable with a surgical delivery anyway.
So you get a c-section. It's not only more dangerous for you and your baby, but it also will almost guarantee that you will heal more slowly after labor and be the beginning of other health issues down the line.
Monetarily, if you don't have insurance you are paying about $15,000 more than you were before. Even with insurance coverage, you're not saving yourself any money; the birth will most likely still cost more in out of pocket expenses.
When all is said and done it would have been more responsible of you to consider other options like natural labor induction. At St John Acupuncture you may be spending $90 on labor induction, but you're saving you and your baby in multiple ways.
Check out this recent article from Time Magazine to see what I mean.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2007754,00.html
