As opposed to the woman who may be in excruciating pain or unconscious? Nah, fuck her.
If I were ever to give birth again, I’d hire a doula. And I’d have a backup doula. And I’d have one of my girlfriends with a few kids on call to backup the backup. I would not depend on my husband to advocate for me - he was tired and scared and just out of his element.
Does the woman’s life ever get to have more value than a baby who has no tangible value to society yet? What if she already has four young kids that need her? What if her husband is dead and the kids would be orphans? Is there any situation in which she can avoid having a sub-human value, other than by not having kids?
Here’s one of them, but I’m not linking to pretty much every thread you’ve ever posted. In just searching under your username and the word choice or choose it brought up some pretty interesting stuff. This is the stuff I left out last time:
I get it, you feel very strongly about the home birthing process being too dangerous to be considered, but according to pretty much every thread you’ve ever posted in (that wasn’t just pot shots at people anyway) you believe that people should be able to say, do, and buy pretty much whatever they like because you believe that individual knows what is best for themselves. You even admitted in the last thread where you discussed this issue that you had done no research and this is just your gut instinct telling you home births are too dangerous. I’m not even saying you’re wrong about that, just that I was surprised that someone who is so focused on choice being so important and very adamant about the rights of individuals is reacting in such a way to the personal choices of others. If you feel like choice is important but in situations like this the welfare of the people involved is more important just say that instead of demanding to be proven a hypocrite and hurling around insults towards people you don’t know and will never meet.
Did they ever say why your baby had to go to an observation nursery? 30 years ago they discovered a heart irregularity with our first, right at the end, and did a forceps delivery in the OR, which I got to watch through the window. Even then, after a quick check of her health, she was given to my wife and I got to go in and hold her.
She did eventually go to the nursery, because we were both exhausted. But we controlled pretty much everything - except for the final emergency.
BTW, looking at how the doctor reacted and the tension in the delivery room, the forceps delivery was not done to run up the bill.
The reason given was: “Because that’s our policy.”
I know this bothers you, but the standards of care are vastly different regionally. My local hospital is amazingly good, more in line with what you describe (my six-month old was just born there–and even then, she was immediately taken to the nursery for observation and incubation, and the only way one of us got to stay with her was because I went with her instead of my wife.
The next major hospital in the next big town is closer to **WhyNot’s **description, according to my cousin-in-law and a co-worker who just gave birth there in the last year–Ob/Gyns who insisted on pitocin after 6-8 hours of labor, heavy and coercive pushing of epidurals and induction, baby slept in a nursery unless you specifically requested otherwise (and a limited number of sleep-in private rooms for that).
Accepted practice encompasses both paradigms, currently.
I’d think the story of the Nigerian woman in WhyNot’s post is one good example.
Not evil, but invasive surgery, and if made necessary by fucking with the natural birth process, not cool.
Yup. We are in the process of learning our hospitals procedures for our upcoming first child. The only time the baby is removed to the nursery is after a C-Section. After a vaginal birth the baby doesn’t leave the room unless there’s a problem (needs to go to NICU or whatever) or unless the mother (or father) asks.
They also don’t push epidurals (and in fact were very pro-natural - citing the increased need for other interventions after epidural use). They do push pitocin after delivery, apparently, and will use it in certain careful-enumerated cases (extended labor in particular). They are actively working on bringing c-section rates down, as they are slightly above the national average (they claim primarily due to being a regional high-risk pregnancy center).
All of this information is very available ahead of time. Now, obviously, in a more rural community without great options I can see how it could be different.
Yeah, well, here in “I need to schedule my baby between client meetings” land, it’s pretty much assumed.
Everyone’s birth is different. There are risks and benefits to every method. No case is definitive, unique, or cause for undue analysis in either direction.
Also, I have repeatedly and clearly stated that home birth isn’t for everyone. If I need to draw pictures or use kindergarten language, I will, but on this board, I didn’t think it was necessary. This isn’t directed at you, just at people who are doing the skim-and-knee-jerk routine.
Dio, are you not pro-choice? Doesn’t pro-choice mean that the woman, or more precisely the woman’s preferences, are always more important than the baby, until a delivery is completed?
Not to speak for Dio, but no, not in general. Once a woman has made it clear that she wants to deliver a baby (and, for some people, once the fetus is viable), its interests are equivalent to the mother’s. If the mom wants to attempt to have her baby in some incredibly risky manner (I am not saying home birth meets this criteria) it is morally suspect.
Well, I would say that the DOCTOR should consider the mother’s survival to be more important, if it came down to one or the other. But yeah, I would say most mothers are pretty invested in both her and the child coming through it OK.
Here in South Carolina, which I believe is similar to other states which allow this, you can get certified as a direct entry midwife by passing an extensive exam and apprenticing to another midwife. You can’t give as many medications and such as CNMs. During your apprenticeship you must assist at a certain number of births, catch a certain number of babies on your own, etc. before you can be certified as a midwife in your own right. What I’d really like to do is start a birthing center - the only one around is super-Christian and I think there’s room for another. I’d have to have a CNM on staff, however, by state law (but not present in the building for births necessarily, and of course direct entry midwives can do home births on their own).
I’m about to start an Intro to Midwifery course by distance ed to see if it’s really for me or not. I don’t want to go for the CNM degree because I’d essentially have to learn a whole career’s worth of stuff I don’t agree with in terms of cascading interventions, etc in an obstetrics ward.
Agreed. And I think that if it came down to it most doctors would make the decision to save the mother.
Anyways, a digression from the much more notable fact that I find myself in agreement (largely) with Rand Rover… :eek:
Maybe everybody needs to take a deep, cleansing breath, ala Lamaze.
Everyone’s circumstances are different, everyone’s level of risk acceptance is different, everyone’s access to appropriate medical care is different, and everyone’s options, whether financial, philosophical, religious or otherwise, are different. It is a fool’s game to pronounce, with no real authority or definitive data, other people’s choices in this matter. No matter how strenuously you argue, it is merely your opinion. There’s NO RIGHT ANSWER, outside of high risk pregnancies, advice from your doctor, etc., which should be heeded, of course. Blanket condemnation of home birth is just as wrong as anti-medical-establishment superstition. What matters is very careful research and consideration, and even then, shit happens. Proper preparation and care are key, and relying completely on any one source of information isn’t a strategy for success, necessarily.
I don’t see how it makes sense to take the mother’s “want[ing] to deliver a baby” as some kind of authorization to take coercive or violent action upon her, against her own express subsequent wishes.
The logic of pro-choice that I understand is that the mother’s interests absolutely override the baby’s, up until the very moment that the baby actually becomes a physically independent being. Anything short of this effectively dehumanizes the woman and allows for all kinds of abuses.
For the love of OG I’m not a Scientologist. If you want to call me anything call me a Neo-Pagan-Humanist…
Jeez people.
I should say “the woman’s preferences,” not “the mother’s interests” there. Of course a woman may choose to risk or sacrifice some aspect of her own well-being for an expected benefit to a baby. Choose.