Forgive me if someone else has already asked this...why did Luka have to wait until after the baby died before he induced labor? Okay, Gloria didn't want a c-section, but the baby has to come out somehow, whether she wants it or not, so why not induce while the baby was still alive? Or would the labor process have killed him anyway?

-- Jennifer M. (jenbird@earthlink.net), May 24, 2000

Answers

Maybe he was punishing her by making her give birth to a dead baby. Sure didn't look like she got an epidural did it. You're probably right though, the labor process probably would have killed him anyway...

-- Linda (l.brown@mindspring.com), May 24, 2000.

I think they said the placenta was detaching from the uterus, cutting off the baby's blood supply. That probably means he couldn't have survived a regular delivery.

Plus, did he induce her, or did she just go into labor on her own (I don't remember if they specifically said one way or the other)?

-- Beth (bsmith@internet-95.com), May 24, 2000.

Linda, if a baby dies in utero, the mother has to give birth to this child just like Gloria did. This has nothing to do with punishment, it is just what needs to be done in that case. Giving birth without an epidural is not a punishment either, it is a woman's choice. I don't think anybody tried to punish Gloria here. They just did what had to be done.

-- Manon (brault@saglac.qc.ca), May 24, 2000.

The reason that Luka needed to deliver the baby early in the 1st place was due to an abruption of the placenta, which is the placenta prematurely detatching from the uterine wall, depriving the baby of oxygen. The baby would never have survived the trauma of a normal labor with his oxygen supply so compromised. He was waiting until the last minute, hoping to deliver the baby via c-section. The baby would have been induced with pitocin, as is usually the case with babies discovered to be dead in utero. I just wonder if Gloria realized that she would have to go through labor, whether the baby was alive or dead. She just seemed so ignorant and seemed to think that the baby would magically disappear if it was dead. What a waste. This was just a heartbreaking episode. Lately, the ER has been a particularly deadly place for babies and I am getting a little edgy when I see a baby or a pregnant woman (other than Carol or Tess and Kate, even then I thought Kate was a gonner in Great Expectations) come into the ER.

-- Rachel (rachelrr@ivillage.com), May 25, 2000.

She would have had to consent to an induction as well - she might not have agreed if she thought there was a chance she would give birth to a live baby. Also - there was no reason to induce at that point - the contractions of the uterus would have caused further abruption of the placenta. But once the baby was dead, it needed to be delivered b/c there would be an infection risk (though she might have been able to wait and go into labor on her own in the next few days - but she didn't want to be pregnant at all, so I'm certain she wouldn't want to wait around with a dead baby.)

-- Chava (ChavaW68@aol.com), May 25, 2000.

Re: Rachel's comment that the ER is a deadly place for babies. This is one of my pet peaves about the show. Hardly anyone on the show gives birth without complications. I know it is for dramatic effect, but it reenforces in women's minds that normal labor is a highly dangerous, medicalized event, fraught with complications (and needs to be accomplished with an epidural!).

This is also the one area of the show where they haven't been terribly medically accurate. In LLL - the woman wouldn't have been bopping around, feeling fine one minute and seizing in the parking lot the next. Once Doug delivered a baby of a gestational diabetic mom and the baby immediately was blue and not breathing - babies of moms with GD are usually born fine and then *might* develop hypoglycemia within the next few *hours*, especially if they haven't been nursed or fed formula. Sorry - this is my one problem with a show that I otherwise love.

-- Chava (ChavaW68@aol.com), May 25, 2000.

I think the reason we see so many difficult deliveries on this show is because this IS the ER. Any normal births would be happening upstairs in Labor and Delivery.

-- amanda (amanda.rehm@home.com), May 25, 2000.

If it makes anyone feel any better about pregnant women in the er, they recently had the episode on TNT where they had to deliver I think eight or nine babies. I don't remember them losing any babies although there was a mom with cancer who seemed to have some trouble, but the baby came out okay. Maybe there's safety in numbers! However, it would be boring not to have emergencies on the show. But maybe they should try to have more with good outcomes.

-- Claudia (claudia1624@yahoo.com), May 25, 2000.

Related to (somewhat) the observation that babies don't fare well in the ER, I noticed that both times (I saw) that a rapist and his victim were both brought into the ER, the rapist lived and the victim died.

-- Felicity (felicity08@juno.com), May 25, 2000.

Usually when a woman is experiencing an abruption, she is ALREADY having contractions--usually very frequent, very painful contractions that make her abdomen feel very rigid to the practitioner. As I said on another discussion forum, Gloria looked TOO good--pt's are often doubled over in fetal position, pale, diaphoretic (sweating) or mottled looking as the abruption progresses. In labor and delivery, this is considered a medical emergency and the c/s takes place as soon as an OR team can be assembled--in a large hospital, the baby will probably be out in under 15 minutes. The fact that for most practitioners a pregnant woman represents TWO patients and in a case such as this, they are only being given permission to treat one, the emotions and thought processes displayed by Luka, Cleo, and the nurses are VERY real. I have seen more than one doctor in real life, bully, threaten, etc. patients in similar positions. You can like or not, but that's the way it is in the real world folks. The law doesn't really help either, because the law seems to totally sway according to the wishes and intent of the mother. If Gloria had truly been stabbed in the abdomen and she WANTED that baby and it didn't survive, the perpetrator would probably be charged with murder--but do you think Gloria will be? I think not.

-- Christine (cmniekamp@aol.com), May 27, 2000.