The exam was done in order to see why labor stalls and why women require c-sections. Of course, we already know that supine labor (pushing a baby out against gravity, on your back with your pelvis up) can stall labor. I would venture a scientific guess that it stalls 55% more often if you're crammed into an MRI machine - even an custom birth scanner.
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| Source: Daily Mail |
I'm thinking it won't reveal very much on why labor stalls, if I'm right in my assumption that labor stalls for positional (anti-gravity laboring) and hormonal (stress hormones inhibiting oxytocin, the labor hormone) reasons, as well as poor clinical decision-making like forcing labor (or non-labor) by induction and augmentation. I'd also think the mechanism of labor, the descent, is probably different when you're laboring in the more upright positions humans have naturally tended to labor in over the millenia. Laying flat on your back with no regard for spinal alignment or pelvis positioning or the weight of gravity does not strike me as an accurate way to do an imaging study of birth.
- The Daily Mail Online: Doctors produce first-ever MRI scan of baby at the moment of birth
- Medgadget: MRI Used to Visualize Live Birth
- The Unnecesarean: Woman Gives Birth in an MRI Machine
Is it possible she was on her side? I don't know how the open MRI machines work but in my total lack of knowledge, I imagine the MRI being taken from above, which means to get this profile she might have been on her side? (I'm a fan of side pushing...I've seen it work very well. And in a hospital context it's a way to get women off their backs without too much resistance from the provider...)
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that in a typical MRI (laying supine), you can get obtain multiple other views - side, frontal, and top or bottom views. Jill @ Unnecesarean linked some of those views - http://jezebel.com/5709555/bonus-stills-of-the-mri-live-birth
ReplyDeleteHow to stall birth = put laboring woman in MRI machine.
ReplyDeletenot to mention how much radiations she's subjected to by doing this.. I don't know that this was necessarily a good thing...
ReplyDelete@ Brokensoul1982. MRI's don't use radiation.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's true they don't use radiation like x-rays and CT scans. However, the idea of having all the hydrogen atoms in my body aligned up-and-down with the MRI machine's tube is a little weird! :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, I swear the MRI machine at work gives me a monster headache, and I don't even go into the scanning room, just the control room. It's probably all in my head.
We occasionally use standing MRIs for distal limb imaging in horses. The images are inferior to those produced by recumbent MRI, but just a thought.
ReplyDeleteOutrider
The thing is - an MRI is EXTREMELY loud. What does the poor baby go through at the point of birth in an environment like this, not to mention what *mom* must endure, sound wise.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately they're doing the very thing that CAUSES labors to stall and women to undergo cesareans - intervention. :sigh:
Will they ever get it?!?!
is it just me or does this MRI pic look a little bit like this one???:
ReplyDeletehttp://iphonewallpapers.ilovefree.org/wallpaper/Homer-Simpson-Brain/