oxytocin

Do Cesarean Births Increase the Risk of Uterine Rupture?

Published on
2157 views

The uterus has incredible elasticity: It has the ability to grow from the size of a fist to, well, the size of a baby. In recent years, there have been numerous debates over whether women who have had previous c-sections can or should deliver vaginally with subsequent pregnancies.  The primary risk associated with a VBAC, or vaginal birth after cesarean, is uterine rupture. Though rare, at  2 per 10,000 deliveries, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, issued practice guidelines requiring both the obstetrician and anesthesiologist be ‘immediately available’ during the entire delivery. This effectively eliminated the possibility of VBACs in US hospitals. As a result, VBACs have declined significantly since 1999 and the number of c-sections has increased to nearly 38% in some states.

In the UK, while the c-section rate is much lower, hovering around 23%, the question of VBACs still remain: Does the cesarean birth increase the risk for uterine rupture, and if so how much?

In March, 2012, the UK Obstetric Surveillance System (UKOSS) published a study that found 87% of women with uterine ruptures previously had cesarean deliveries. The risk of uterine rupture increased for those who had VBACS, as opposed to c-sections, (from .3 to 2.1 per 1,000 incidences). Women with two or more cesarean deliveries increased their chances of uterine rupture further, as did a shorter interval between c-sections (within 12 -24 months), labor induction using prostaglandin and/or the use of oxytocin during labor.

Though the scientists recognize that there may be some inaccuracies with the data (for example, they relied on data provided by participating hospitals, and therefore may have omitted some data), the information can still help expecting mothers start a dialogue with their doctors to prepare for future deliveries.

Related posts:

reframing maternal healthReframing Maternal Health: How Do We Know What We Think We Know? birth control, blood clots and female athletesBlood Clots, Birth Control and Female Athletes: Are We Missing Important Risk Factors? childbirth in america - deliveryChildbirth in America

You might be interested in

childbirth in america - delivery

Childbirth in America

I recently gave birth to a beautiful baby boy on February 14, 2020. He is my second child, but this

Oxytocin Impacts Our Response to Advertisements

Published on
1998 views

In a previous blog, I spoke about oxytocin and how it’s commonly referred to as loving or bonding hormone. Oxytocin also seems to be responsible for trust and empathy between human beings (as well as in other animals). That begs the question; can oxytocin persuade our decisions?

Most likely. In a recent study published at PLoS One by Lin et al, researchers discovered that oxytocin effects men’s choice in donating after viewing public service announcements (PSAs). Oxytocin increased the likelihood of donating to a PSA by 12% and increased donation amount by 56%.

Testing Method

Forty healthy males were infused intranasally with 40 IU of oxytocin or saline, then placed into separate cubbies to watch PSAs to reduce smoking, drinking, speeding and global warming. After, males were asked questions regarding the PSA in order to earn cash, $5 per correct answer for the chance to win up to $100. Obviously, the cash prize was an incentive to participate in the study.

After they earned their money, male participants were shown PSAs of well-known charities and were given the opportunity to donate their newly received earnings.

Results

The group given saline donated to 21% of the PSAs, compared to the group given oxytocin that donated to 33% of them. On average, the oxytocin group donated 56% more than the saline group. Male participants who received oxytocin were not affected by PSAs in the same manner. Instead, participants were only affected by PSAs that personally resonated with them.

Similar effects likely would be seen in women as well. These effects would very depending upon the stage of the menstrual cycle, which was one of the reasons why women were not used in the study. Since women release more oxytocin than men in response to a stimulus, it is possible that women would have a more intense empathetic response to the PSAs.

Implications

Be aware of your oxytocin levels when watching PSAs and commercial advertisements! Just kidding, well kind of. Being aware of how our bodies innately respond to the world around us allows us to make conscious decisions. Knowing that there are strategies to advertising which provokes emotions that make us want to buy a product could be useful while watching commercial-interrupted TV.

From making sure we are donating our money to the best causes to making sure we are picking the right partner (because if not oxytocin can bond you to a jerk), indeed, hormones do matter!

 

Related posts:

No related posts.

You might be interested in

The Rise in Pitocin Induced Childbirth

Published on
3271 views

Labor is an exceptional, natural occurrence that a women’s body is perfectly designed for. And so is her brain. All day, every day the brain and body communicate with each other through hormones, pregnant or not. When pregnant, there is one hormone that talks a lot louder than the others called oxytocin. Oxytocin is typically referred to as the bonding, trusting or loving hormone. It’s synthesized in the brain and creates the life-long bond between mom and baby. Outside of pregnancy, it helps create bonds between lovers and helps us trust and connect with others in general. Simply put, it is THE LOVE HORMONE.

Oxytocin and Labor

A combination of complex mechanisms occurs prior to labor, which science isn’t close to completely understanding. But it is very clear a women’s body somehow knows exactly what to do on its own.  It’s all about the timing. Together, a woman’s brain, body, and unborn baby decide when the time is right, and then bursts of oxytocin are released from mom’s brain. The oxytocin travels down to the uterus and induces contractions. Over time, baby can slide through the vaginal canal and into the world. When this special timing is disrupted, either artificially or by medical emergency, that’s when problems arise.

Pitocin and Induction

Pitocin, an artificial oxytocin, is a drug used to induce labor. In fact, it is used in over 50% of deliveries in the U.S. In some cases, it is used due to significant risks such as placental abruption, gestational hypertension, preeclampsia, eclampsia or chorioamnionitis. However, too frequently, a woman is pressured to induce her labor for reasons that are not health-related. A recent study found that for many inductions, physicians are medically unjustified in giving women oxytocin to induce their labors.

Inducing a woman’s labor that has not naturally began is not a matter that should be taken lightly. It is a medical intervention that poses a risk to women and their babies. When induced, a woman is given ptiocin, at a time when her body is not ready to deliver. Pitocin increases her chances of having excessive and painful contractions. The painful contractions may necessitate an epidural because her cervix doesn’t open properly. This can lead to a cesarean. Sometimes the mom and/or baby react harshly react to pitocin. The side effects for pitocin include: irregular fetal heartbeat, excessive contractions and postpartum hemorrhaging. These too can lead to a cesarean. One study found that induction of labor is associated with an increased risk of a cesarean section and hospitals with higher induction rates also have higher cesarean section rates. Another study shows that labor induction may increase chances of cesarean section by twofold.

The Brain to Body Connection

Rushing a woman’s labor along may not be the best option for her body either. A common scenario includes a woman first going into early labor at home. Once admitted to the hospital, her labor ceases. Why? Her instinctual brain is simply trying to process whether it is safe to give birth in this new environment or should she run for hills to save her newborn. In time, a woman’s brain can determine that it’s safe to have the baby and her labor will continue. But, hospital care givers may not be so patient. Instead, they hurry the process along with pitocin. In the end, mom and baby suffer.

Pitocin and the FDA

Like many medications given to pregnant women, appropriate studies have not been conducted to determine the proper dosing, safety or even efficacy. Among many criteria, different stages of labor must be tested and women with different pregnancy and health histories must be taken into consideration. This has not been done. In fact, oxytocin (pitocin) currently holds a black box warning from the FDA:

…not indicated for elective labor induction since inadequate data to evaluate benefit vs risk; elective induction defined as labor initiation without medical indications

This means that physicians are currently using women and their unborn babies as clinical study participants without their consent. Worse yet, most are not collecting any data to evaluate the safety or efficacy of this drug.

In a Nut Shell

Many women are given pitocin are unaware that they have the option to wait for their bodies to take their natural courses. Labor is a delicate process that consists of a balance between a woman’s hormone levels and her babies’. This process takes time. Unfortunately, once admitted to the hospital, too often women are not given this time and the intelligence of our bodies is dismissed.

Learn about labor and delivery. Once informed, you decide.

Hormones MatterTM Medical Disclaimer: All material on this web site is provided for your information only and may not be construed as, nor should it be a substitute for, professional medical advice. To read more about our health policy see Terms of Use.

Related posts:

childbirth in america - deliveryChildbirth in America infant leukemiaInfant Leukemia Induced by Maternal Exposures

You might be interested in

Oxytocin and Cuddling Feed Your Relationship

Published on
2696 views

 

Oxytocin Junkies Haiku
Cuddling and snuggling
essential part of our diets
often neglected.
by Zen Clouseau

My husband and I conduct a daily morning ritual. We cuddle. It is quite simply the underpinning of our lovely relationship. Yup, you heard me right. Cuddling is the secret sauce to getting on well (and occasionally leads to getting it on well, as well). We even set our alarm 15 minutes early to allow time for this ritual. And on the rare mornings we miss a cuddling session, something seems off the rest of the day for both of us.

I’m not sure how or why, but we’ve jokingly come to refer to this time we carve out for each other as the “four stations of the cross” (there are four cuddling positions in our sequence).  Perhaps part of it is that cuddling gets to the sacred ground that is intimacy.  In addition to feeling sooo good–having all this skin on skin and stroking and holding and scratching each other’s backs– cuddling feeds and sustains our relationship somehow.  Mary Oliver puts words to this simple practice in her poem Wild Geese “You do not have to walk on your knees. For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

As is true of so much we experience, there is a hormonal explanation for why cuddling works. It has to do with an all-powerful hormone oxytocin. It is not only released in response to intimacy and labor, women also have oxytocin to thank for promoting mother-child bonding and let-down when it’s feeding time. In addition, oxytocin:

  • Increases sexual receptivity and counteracts impotence.
  • Creates feelings of calmness.
  • Bonding – establishes a sense of connection.
  • Reduces stress.
  • Increases immunity to repair, heal, and restore faster.
  • Faster wound healing.
  • Lowers blood pressure.
  • Protects against heart disease.
  • Reduces cravings and addictions.
  • Eases depression.

Now there is an additional and surprising benefit.

Last week the Journal of Neuroscience published scientific evidence of what my husband and I have discovered experientially. Contrary to their hypothesis, neuroscientists at the University of Bonn in Germany found that men in monogamous relationships who when administered synthetic oxytocin put a little extra space between themselves and an attractive woman they’d just met. More predictably, single heterosexual men, when administered the oxytocin substitute, put themselves 6-1/2” closer to an attractive woman than those men in monogamous relationships.

Scientists have long believed that boosting oxytocin in the human brain promotes indiscriminate trusting, friendly behavior. Based on the new findings, researchers speculate that oxytocin has a more discriminating role in human interaction. Paul Zak, founding director of Claremont Graduate University’s Center for Neuroeconomics Studies, said the new findings even provide us some evidence that “our brains evolved to form long-term romantic relationships.”

I’m not the least bit surprised researchers have found scientific evidence that oxytocin has more subtle effects than previously thought, and is a key ingredient to a stable relationship. After all, if you and your partner are leaving the house every morning chock full of the stuff, what reason would you have to stray from that relationship!?

Putting this all in context, after being bombarded with news stories about infidelity in public life, and plenty of evidence during the recent political season that humans (especially men) are devolving, both men and women have something to be optimistic about when it comes to monogamous relationships.  It merely requires setting your alarm clock 15 minutes earlier. Cuddling is something that feels good and has multiple health and relationship benefits too. So go ahead. Try it and do let us know how it works out for you and your relationship.

Source: “Oxytocin Modulates Social Distance between Males and Females“
Dirk Scheele1,*, Nadine Striepens1,*, Onur Güntürkün2, Sandra Deutschländer1, Wolfgang Maier1,4, Keith M. Kendrick3,†, and René Hurlemann1,†

Journal of Neuroscience, November 2012

Related posts:

women in clinical trialsWomen in Clinical Trials

You might be interested in

Fear of Childbirth Prolongs Labor

Published on
3209 views

When I was little, I would constantly ask my mom about childbirth: Is it really as painful as they make it seem on TV? My mom confirmed that it was the most painful thing she ever experienced. Of course, she said, I’d do it all over again because my babies are so special. My eyes were wide in disbelief – I don’t think my siblings and I were ever that special.

The idea of giving birth to a child has always been incredibly scary to me, and now, with more knowledge on the subject, the idea is scarier still. Just thinking about contractions, tearing, and a head coming out of my vagina is enough to make me pass out.

Unfortunately for me, researchers recently found that such fears only draw out the labor process.

Fear of Childbirth Only Prolongs Childbirth

Norwegian researchers published a study in BJOG, An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, that found women with a fear of childbirth spend an hour and 32 minutes longer in labor than women without fears of childbirth.

Even after researchers adjusted for other factors that could contribute to the duration of labor, such as having given birth before and instrumental vaginal delivery, women who feared childbirth were still in labor 47 minutes longer than those with no fear.

In addition, labor-fearing patients tended to be more likely to deliver by instrumental vaginal delivery or emergency cesarean delivery than women who were more comfortable with labor.

Stress Hormone May Prolong Labor

Researchers from Akershus University Hospital, The Health Services Research Center, and the University of Oslo, Norway are not exactly sure why women who fear childbirth get to experience the joys of labor for a longer period of time, but some point to stress hormones.

Samantha Salvesen Adams, co-author of the research, shared two theories:

“First, stressed women have higher stress hormones during pregnancy, and high stress hormones may weaken the power of the uterus to contract. And second, we think that women who fear childbirth may communicate in different ways with health care professionals during pregnancy,” which could impede proper assistance for a shorter labor.

Oxytocin and Catecholamines

The hormone oxytocin is released in large amounts during labor, causing the uterus to contract regularly, which is why the name was derived from the Greek word for “quick birth.” Oxytocin has also been shown to increase trust and reduce fear, a happy result for fearful mothers-to-be.

The secretion of oxytocin, however, is repressed by catecholamines, or the fight-or-flight hormones, epinephrine and norepinephrine. Catecholamine levels can rise when a woman feels frightened, and labor can be suppressed.

This is fine at the beginning of the delivery – no need to start contractions too early, catecholamines are even important for the fetal-ejection reflex; but these adrenal-gland hormones can make for a long labor if they continue to inhibit oxytocin from kicking in.

How to Handle the Fear of Childbirth

Studies seem to indicate that fear begets fear, so it seems the best way to handle any anxiety is by coming to the delivery room with as little fear as possible, and that takes preparation.

If I was expecting a baby, I would take advantage of the following methods to reduce anxiety, fear, and excessive amounts of catecholamines:

Massage
Finally, an excuse to get a really good massage. Massages can help keep your head clear and your anxieties at bay. Of course, if you didn’t get your fill of massages prior to delivery, the Traditional Chinese Medicine University claims that massage during labor can significantly shorten the labor process.

If all else fails, massaging the nipples can increase oxytocin production and induce labor. You should consult your doctor prior to using these massage techniques.

Prenatal Yoga
Om.ygod. Prenatal yoga helps to reduce the stress and anxiety that can make delivery last longer than necessary. By focusing on breathing techniques, stretching, strengthening, and mental concentration, you are preparing yourself for labor.

Some studies even suggest that prenatal yoga shortens the overall time of labor, particularly the first stage of labor.

Meditation
I’m not thinking about the pain. I’m not thinking about the pain. I’m not thinking about the pain. With enough practice, you’ll learn to control these thoughts. Like prenatal yoga, meditation focuses on breathing and mental exercises, which minimize the adrenaline and cortisol levels that trigger stress.

In fact, one study found that women who practiced meditation during pregnancy reported a decline in stress and anxiety.

Communication
As Samantha Salvesen Adams stated, fear may prolong labor because of poor communication between doctor and patient. In order to mitigate delayed treatment and assistance, start building a relationship with your doctor by communicating any fears or anxieties you have prior to delivery.

Open communication can give your doctor an idea of how you may handle delivery, and the doctor may, in turn, give you advice to prepare for the upcoming delivery. Communicating early on will also allow you to feel more comfortable discussing fears and pain when you’re in the delivery room.

What Worked for You?

I’ve already made it clear that I have not been in labor, but I would be interested to learn what techniques worked to reduce your fear of childbirth.

Related posts:

childbirth in america - deliveryChildbirth in America reframing maternal healthReframing Maternal Health: How Do We Know What We Think We Know?

You might be interested in

Possible Relief for Postmenopausal Vaginal Atrophy

Published on
2084 views

In Elena Perez’s article on MRIs conducted while women masturbate, she explained that the peptide hormone that increases pain thresholds and suppresses fear, oxytocin, is released in women during sex and orgasms.

A small study using topical oxytocin gel on women suffering from postmenopausal vaginal atrophy (symptoms of vaginal atrophy include vaginal dryness, pain, itching, discomfort and bleeding during intercourse) had remarkably positive results. Larger studies are in progress to establish the possibility of using oxytocin as a clinical treatment for vaginal atrophy.

For more information on this study, click here.

For Elena’s article on mapping out the female orgasm, click here.

Related posts:

sexual painWhy Does It Hurt When I Have Sex? An Overview of Possibilities physical therapy for female sexual pain 1Physical Therapy for Female Sexual Pain

You might be interested in