As promised, the unassisted home birth of Felix Alexander. Very graphic so be warned. Enjoy.
One of the reasons I posted this is to get across the kind of birth experianced I am NOT advocating. There are several things in this video that I think are more than a little bit dangerous to both the mother and the child. However there are so many things that I think are beautiful. I think she really takes charge of her birth experiance and takes her cues from her body. When she is hungry she eats, when she wants to scream she screams. The idea of putting birth back into the hands of women and out the hands of doctors is what I would like to do. There are many questions circulating around this topic and the idea of whether or not it is safe for women. The reasearch shows that in MOST cases it is safe and beneficial to have a "normal" birth. By normal I mean that there are no routine and consistent medical interventions. I think there is a strong feminist component to this topic and there is most likely to be a ton of research through that lense. There is also bound to be a lot of controversy over the differences in cost between the kind of birthing experiance available to women and the kind of birth experiance I advocate through my research. The medical community does not want to be shut out of the birth experiance and as part of the medical community I agree that there is a place for medical professionals in all kinds of ways and levels in the birth experiance.
What kind of thoughts do you guys have about the way women should be giving birth? Is it something worthy of medical interventions or is it something human beings can do without interventions?
Happy Monday!
This blog post--your writing--is a clear, concise, and articulate masterpiece that synthesizes everything you said to us and shared with us in class. Holy moly. This is a golden nugget if I've ever saw one. Frame this. Hang it on your wall, preferably where you can see it every single day. This is your beacon, Ali, as you move forward with your research. This is your proposal.
ReplyDeleteAnd, to respond to the questions you pose at the end, I believe that thinking in binaries is reductive and leads to insanity. Instead, I prefer the continuum or to follow F. Scott Fitzgerald's words of wisdom: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see things as hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise."
So, instead of thinking in an either/or way, try thinking in this way instead, "What has it been like for women to give birth naturally?"
(I think you run into a lot less trouble with "natural" than with "normal.")
Think about your research NOT as proving that one way is better or safer than the other. Think of it instead as a scholarly record and examination of the lived experiences of women who have decided to take the birth experience back into their own hands.
Just like your writing teachers have always said, showing, not telling, is the most powerful way to present research. Maybe you will interview and re-tell women's stories of their natural birthing experiences; study their stories and try to identify themes; use those themes to make a "case" for why women should consider natural birth. Use the words of the women you spoke to as a demonstration of your thesis (using data).
Thank you Dr. Cook! You are always so encouraging, I really feel like I am getting a handle on this!
DeleteGood question, and great post!
ReplyDeleteI haven't done any research on childbirth, so I may be attacking this problem from an uninformed perspective. That being said, we (humans) have been around for a very long time (200,000 years give or take). Women have given birth without medical intervention for thousands of generations, so why can't they do the same thing now? The organic machinery hasn't changed much. Thus, I see no need for medical intervention if mothers are healthy and choose alternative birthing methods.
Here's a confound that challenges my crack-pot argument: perhaps the modern woman is exposed to certain teratogens that our ancestors were not (ex. pollution) which might make it more hazardous to give a natural birth now.
My theory could be wrong altogether and maybe infant mortality rates were much higher 'back then,' and it is because of modern medicine that so many more babies live. Still, human and chimp infant mortality rate comparisons during natural birth may prove useful for your study.
(OMG! I JUST WATCHED THE VIDEO! I skipped it at first because I was afraid of seeing some graphic stuff. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I watched a C-Section video a long time ago, by accident, and I almost passed out! I'm still recovering.)
Anyway, one more point. There is this thing, perhaps you know of it, called Kangaroo Care? There are many findings that support its greatness! For folks who do it, their babies enter a much deeper sleep and tend to cry less when upset. I wonder what impact hospital birthing practices have on the developmental processes of attachment.
Keep it Real
-t
Travis, good points, thank you! Also as far as I am aware most hospitals support kangaroo care because it has such awesome health benefits and I am very impressed that you had heard of it!
DeleteAnd one more thing. I had one of my fav songs in my head while I was thinking about your post.
ReplyDeleteHere's a line from it:
Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right back...
(Nirvana, Heart-Shaped Box)
As a man, it's difficult for me to know what to say on a subject that is so distinctly female. However, since I hope to someday marry and father children, I do feel that it is something that I should be educated on. The incidents you shared in class where doctors have (ignorantly?) taken charge of a delivery as though it is some abnormal event that needs to be remedied were very unsettling for me. In light of that, it would definitely be great if your project included some aspect of the need to educate the population on the different philosophies of birth/delivery and what options are available.
ReplyDeleteAwesome choice of topic! :)
I love your enthusiasm on this topic as a man! Thank you for the helpful input!
DeleteSo obviously Ali you already know where I stand on this topic, but I felt the need to comment anyways. I think that Dr. Cook is right that your post is pretty much your proposal. We treat birth as if it is a disease process rather than a natural physiologic process that like Travis said has been occurring for hundreds of thousands of years. I personally think that medical interventions are overused and there is a time and a place where they are appropriate and necessary (but that's not in every single birth, every single day). Regardless of what has been done in the past I think your project focuses on changing practices of the future and like your title says bringing birth back to basics. We talked so much in Professor Ross's class last semester about how a nurse should really provide one-to-one care to a woman in labor. But nowadays with such a high epidural rate, I wonder how much that really happens? I've seen in some instances the nurse going in toward the end of the process and shortly after that calling the doctor in. I personally was a part of one natural delivery in which I stayed by the woman's side for several hours without leaving the room before she gave birth. It was an awesome experience and she was able to really take charge of her birth. I think that birth with low risk women should only have one intervention- a caring presence/support of the nurse. I think you're definitely on the right track and this is going to make an awesome project.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Katie!
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