How Medical Intervention Can Sometimes Cause More Harm Than Good
When I had my second miscarriage at 8 weeks pregnant we had it confirmed by scan at an early pregnancy assessment unit. As I had been sent home the first time with no treatment, to have a natural miscarriage which took 2 weeks to complete, I thought the second time would be the same.
A rather ensthusiastic junior doctor came in and informed me he'd like to do a dilation and curettage to scrape out the contents of my womb. Not only that, he wanted to give me heparin, a blood thinner, and antibiotics. I just looked at him, open mouthed in shock. The thought hadn't even occured to me. I was grieving - all my hopes and dreams had been shattered yet again and even if the medical profession didn't think my 8 week old baby was a baby, I did. As far as I was concerned, my child had died, I wasn't passing 'products of conception'. I was so caught up in the grief of the situation, that I was ready to agree to anything this junior doctor said because logic at that point, didn't even come into it.
It was my husband who brought some sense into the equation by pertinantly asking
'She's still bleeding, isn't she?'
'Well, yes', admitted the doctor.
'So wouldn't this extra tissue come out on it's own?' he asked.
'It may do, but it might get infected.'
'Surely' challenged my husband, 'an operation is an invasive procedure and just doing the D+C might cause an infection?'
'That's why we give antibiotics' said the doctor, 'and heparin to stop blood clotting.'
I woke up out of my grief to experience a moment of clarity, and told him that any blood clots would likely come out on their own, just as they had done last time, and that I didn't particularly want to be pumped full of rat poison, particularly when I was bleeding and a blood thinner may cause heavier blood loss. The junior doctor relunctantly conceded on the understanding that I was to come into hospital the following week for a scan.
This scan revealed that all the tissue had gone, and my miscarriage was complete. I discovered since then that D+C's can weaken the cervix, affecting fertility and subsequent pregnancies and births, and that in about 1% of cases, can cause the womb to perforate (tear) which can be life-threatening. To say I was angry is an understatement.
I was also relieved that my husband had caused me to question the doctor and have faith in my own body to regulate itself. The vast majority of early miscarriages occur without any need for intervention and doctors, in my opinion, should know when to intervene and when to leave our cervixes alone. This was an opinion shared by both my GP and my health visitor, who suggested the junior doctor was eager to practise his new skills rather than allowing nature to take its course.
