Julie wrote:
"So, while I agree that the routine administration of pitocin after birth is unnecessary, I was grateful for the methergin and pitocin, which, I believe, saved my uterus."

The problem, Julie, is that the very few mothers who might bleed are not a valid reason to treat all mothers as if they will. And even those who do are more likely to have done so b/c of the medicalized births that they have. If women routinely bled to death giving birth, we would not have survived as a species. (Just as it is absurd to assume treat all mothers as if they will not have enough milk, b/c a tiny number might not--it is all the same mindest.) Midwives also have information to help mothers prevent future bleeding. Women who stand to deliver the placenta clamp down more quickly. I am repeatedly shocked at the lack of education practitioners who call themselves midwives have. I think often, we as LC's get a false sense of security when our clients have midwifery-attended births. We shouldn't. So long as we continue to see the kind of brutal births we do (the birth that first started this thread was brutal!), we will never be out of work. And, IMO, it has gotten a whole lot worse in the past 15 years, b/c we have come to accept these interventions as normal. I think as LC's, we have an obligation to educate our clients about these issues, b/c it is the mother/infant dyad (and our culture as a whole) that is paying the price.
Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA