Listmates,
        Some months ago, I posted to the list about my dissertation research
developing a questionnaire on nurses' labor support interventions.  Thank
you very much for the help you provided in getting labor and delivery nurses
to participate in the project.  Some of the results are quite interesting
and follow along with the current topic of how hospital birth practices have
a negative affect on childbirth.  I have been informed that if I post
results to the list, I may have difficulty getting this published (which is
my plan).  However, I want to share with you a small piece that follows very
closely with the topics being discussed.  The nurses' wrote that barriers to
their providing labor support were:
- MDs who were not current, too interventionistic, paternalistic, impatient,
etc
- Fellow nurses with outdated beliefs and practices
- Patients who were uniformed of risks and unrealistic in their expectations
(demanded epidurals, and elective inductions, expected pain-free labors)
- Unit/facility - no tub, no birthing balls, etc
- Inadequate staffing
- Too many interventions (inductions, AROMs, and epidurals)
(Not that they didn't provide supportive care, but these factors made it
much more difficult).  Obviously there was much more detail, but many of the
problems with hospital births that Kathy and Teresa identified were also
identified by the nurses who participated.
        Thanks very much to all of you for your help.  The overwhelming
response from this list and from the perinatal list has enabled me to
graduate with my PhD in nursing!
      Martha Sleutel, PhD, RN, CNS

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