I only came in here to say that Arab doctors were washing their hands long before we were. So did the ancient Greeks, but that was all banned in Europe.
I recall some quote from about 1700 where the city planner says something like “the Romans were obsessive about drains and sewers in their cities and camps because they thought poor drainage caused disease; fortunately we know better.”
The whole doctors-washing-hands thing was apparently a class issue. The doctors resented being told they should wash up, because that implied they were dirty, and as upper class gentlement they thought they were being equated with common ditch-diggers withmudy hands.
(Anecdote - I was on a vacation in Egypt and Jordan, and even with the 30-plus temperatures every day, and the locals dressed in layers of robes or western long pants and full shirts - nobody at all smelled. One of the tenets of Islam is to wash before each prayer. As a guide explained - that’s a bit much, but most Moslems did try to wash 2 or 3 times a day… OTOH, by the time I got back to the hotel after a day dripping with sweat, I’m sure I reeked to them. Yes, the Arabs are very clean.)
Yet obstetricians still have some of the ugliest malpractice insurance rates, talk about no good deed goes unpunished :D.
Most childbirth occurs without incident. The doctor or the midwife simply makes it to the end of the delivery table and catches the baby.
But when something goes wrong, it goes HORRIBLY wrong, and incredibly fast, too. The uterus has a supercharged blood supply during pregnancy, and once the baby and placenta are delivered, the inside of the uterus is like a huge, open wound. Until it clamps down and clots begin to form, there will be blood. Without the clamping and clotting, there will be a LOT of blood, and mom can quickly bleed out.
Reminds me of that poem:
"There once was a girl
Who had a curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very very good.
And when she was bad,
She was horrid."
~VOW
Ah, but I didn’t have a cite (besides I heard it in something that James Burke did). This is much better.
And I’m wondering exactly how well Dr. Odent observed those unobserved women. Because if I had needed to go be alone to give birth and a doctor asked me how it went, I’d say fine even if I was still bleeding heavily weeks later, even if labor took three days, even if the baby was a little sluggish, etc.
My cousin attempted a home birth, with midwife, and birthing pool, all OK’ed as she was low risk.
I’m not sure on details (don’t really want to ask, y’know?), but I do know she probably would have died if the hospital hadn’t been as close, or if someone had been a bit slower deciding to call an ambulance; she lost a terrifying amount of blood and would up in hospital for a week or so as it was. Just an anecdote- it’s fairly safe if you have good fallbacks available.
Incidently, regarding animals ‘falling back’ from the group to give birth- I’m sorry, but that’s rubbish; most social animals (including wild horse species) will do their very best to stick to the group, for the simple reason that predators tend to follow herds seeking out sick or young animals. Elephants especially have been recorded as forming a complete protective ring around females giving birth. Chimpanzees and gorillas both generally stay with their troupe.
Animals which are more solitary in general will find somewhere to hide, but it makes no sense for normally social creatures to leave the safety of the group at such a vulnerable time, and they will not do so if at all possible. The exceptions to this are mainly predators, or other species where there is a real chance of the other members of the group attacking or eating the babies.
I had 7 children and had 5 of them with out assistance, as a matter of fact i had 2 that I had to push the nurse and my husband away because the doctor told the nurse not to let me deliver without him. She was trying to push the baby back! Others’ I had in the labor room, because they didn’t believe me, and one getting off the elevator. I had almost no labor pains to speak of, I did work hard during my pregnacies, I helped remodel houses etc., and the 6th one I left the house at 9:30 and delivered at 10 minuets to 10. I had her one day, left the hospital the next, and went to the one house and did the finishing of the wood work. The nurses couldn’t believe any one could deliver with out pain. The old lady that we bought the house from used to tell me I was going to have a terrible time,because i was doing such hard work,then after the delivery of my child when she heard of how fast i delivered she said"From now on when I hear a woman is pregnant I am going to tell her to work her fool head off"!