To the Editor:
Women’s healthcare is in crisis. To some degree, I’m sure this is happening everywhere, but it is extreme in Marion County.
I delivered a baby last January at Advent and was forced into an unnecessary C-section. I was injured by a student who preformed an epidural without my consent. After the traumatic experience, I started to research what could have been done differently, and it was sickening to learn all of the things that should have been done differently.
At the end of the day, I was cut open because the doctor wanted to go home and it was 9:30 at night. I’m pregnant now with my second child and would like a VBAC (vaginal delivery after cesarean), which ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) is in favor of due to it having less risks than a repeat C-section, and no doctor in this area will allow it.
I was robbed of a fair shot at a natural birth and now our medical community wants me to continue going through unnecessary surgery when there is so much evidence to prove a natural birth is safer for both mom and baby. We have to go all the way to Gainesville to meet doctors now. Women’s healthcare here is stuck in the Stone Age.
Maybe a discussion of this issue will help inspire our OB-GYNs to get with the times and start caring more about women’s healthcare than the business of birthing babies.
Alexandrea Turner
Belleview resident