(no subject)

So, when you slovenly sleep until two in the afternoon, it's hard to get to sleep that night. Ha.

Was going to start working on the reading for long essay today, but sod that. Bedroom needs to be tidied. Black floaty girlie dress is going to be worn soon and I need to find it first. Must also wash uniforms and put them away until September.

Might take a walk out to Termonfeckin later, too. Been a while. Roads have a distinct lack of footpaths though, so safer to do it midweek and [early/mid]afternoon.

House is now significantly larger than it was a few weeks ago now that there's a door into the granny flat from the main house. Doors and stuff have been happening and this afternoon I slept through the old back door being removed and hammering and drilling and screwing happening no more than 6 feet from the end of my bed, with only plasterboard wall between me and that. I may have been sleepy. Place looks well though and it's nice to have another sitting room for Martha to entertain in and a guest bedroom. So hoorah for that.

Always late with the news

So, the Canadian Obs/Gynae society has started to think that, ya know, maybe breech babies don't have to all be planned c-sections. That maybe we could start building up skills of vaginal breech birth again. That the Term Breech Trial (that made me wince when I first read it last year) might not have been the most sound piece of research ever.

In the space of 18 years, section rates for breech babies has rocketed thanks in part to the TBT. Obstetricians have long lost the skills of vaginal breech birth, most are leaving their training never having seen one at all, same with midwives. I've never seen a breech birth that wasn't a section, have become far too used to hearing at report on postnatal "elective section for breech."

I've never been afraid of vaginal breech, but then I was one of those awkward ones, determined to cause as much hassle as possible by entering the world arse first. I've read enough descriptions of breech births (and know the mechanisms of labour enough) to know that it's gotta be dammed scary to see for the first time. But then, so was the first cephalic birth I saw!

Thinking is good, learning is good, not blindly accepting a single trial as gospel, now that's the sort of thinking we need to encourage. And this makes me very very happy indeed.