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| Mothers to be: should you have
an episiotomy? |
05/06/2005
Recent research by scientists at the Center for Women’s Health
Research in the University of North Carolina have called into question
a few assumptions over the benefits of the oft-practiced episiotomy.
By the title “Reviewing the Effects of Episiotomy,” the
study discusses how for decades episiotomy, a cut to enlarge the vaginal
opening, was routinely done at the time of vaginal birth.
Some of the reasons in favor of the episiotomy have included preventing
a larger tear, protecting local muscles from greater damage, preventing
later incontinence, decreasing pressure on the infants head, and hastening
birth.
According to the study, though evidence exists that episiotomy can
cause rather than prevent complications, its use remains very common,
affecting the birth experience of more than 40% of new mothers last
year in the United States.
The research project concluded that evidence does not support maternal
benefits traditionally ascribed to routine episiotomy. In fact, outcomes
with episiotomy can be considered worse since some proportion of women
who would have had lesser injury instead had a surgical incision.
This conclusion coincide with the position of most nurse-midwives
who deem episiotomies unnecessary interventions.
As seen in the article “Episiotomy Update” by Sally Squires,
the study is also in sink with that of researchers at Johns Hopkins
University, in Baltimore, who found that though women who had episiotomies
suffered fewer minor injuries, they were four times more likely to
suffer severe tearing than women who did not undergo the procedure.
Another study, done at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New
York, found that, because of increased stress on nearby tissues, women
who delivered with their legs elevated in stirrups were more likely
to suffer severe injuries if they also had episiotomies.
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