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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]"Heplock" is an outdated term medical professionals still use. I've been a nurse for 20 years and haven't put heparin in a peripheral IV for 17 of those 20 years.

I imagine the reason for putting an IV in upon admission does make it easier because if the delivery isn't progressing as it should, the IV is one less step to worry about. Just because you normally have 'good veins' doesn't mean you will during a difficult labor. [b]The body can clamp down, veins collapse [/b]and perhaps there isn't a person who can put an IV in very well.

If it was me, I'd want the iv in as an insurance policy. One less thing to worry about because in an emergency, you'll need that IV and not having it in means there's a delay in intervention. That delay could be 15 minutes. Precious precious time. [/quote]

Honest question -- did you work L&D?  If so, how often did you see such a situation?  And I mean, a situation where there were absolutely no other indications that there were any problems, where the mother was 100% unmedicated, where everything was progressing completely normally, and then within a matter of minutes, the mother was in such a state that her veins were collapsed and unable to be accessed?  Yes, I understand there are emergency situations - especially when risk factors are already present - but in all my years attending homebirths, we have never, not once, encountered this specific situation.  There are always some indications which then call for IV access -- so we always have IV access before it becomes an emergency.  Even in the absolute worst hemorrhage I've ever seen, there was time to start an IV because we were paying attention and caught the warning signs just as it started.

Regardless, women should and do have the right to take any risk they want to with their own body.  As long as her baby is still inside, she holds that power.  No protocol should trump what she wants, period.  This includes women who want elective c/s - yes, it is riskier for both her own and her baby's body (and of course any future babies she carries) yet still, if she can afford it, it is her right.  We should not be scaring women into submission.

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