The convergence of human and machine is right around the corner. Any day now cyborgs will move in next door. So why is it that the process of birth is still locked in the stone age? Why do birthing machines not exist? Machines which, by gentle and painless suction, could extract a baby from its mother? What possible good comes from labour for either mother or baby? A baby can survive from 5 months if delivered by caesarean. Abortions are suction processes. Why can’t births be?
I think you hit it in your question, G. Suction is used in abortions, because there’s no reason to be concerned with damage to the fetus. (IIRC, suction can only be used on 0-12 week fetuses.) Disregarding harm to the baby, suction would only provide 15 psi of pressure to aid in delivery. The uterine muscles provide much more pressure.
The mother’s cervix must be fully dialated (10 cm.) for the baby to move out. The same mechanism that dialates the cervix also contracts the uterus. So by the time the birth canal is wide enough, junior is on his way out.
Finally: when my wife gave birth, there were at least 20 people in the room with us. Discounting me and the doula we hired (and her apprentice), that’s 17 professionals that were helping us. You want to put them all out of work?
What’s the matter with just hooking up the Hoover ? - if you don’t have one, borrow it from the cyborgs next door.
Why not just eliminate the middleman? In the year 6565, you’ll pick your son, pick your daughter too, from the bottom of a long black tube. (Woah-oh-whoa).
Every bitrh is different by various degrees. Decisions have to be made on the spot to account for subtle variables in the delivery.
But the main reason is likely that no woman in her right mind would allow a machine to deliver her baby. One malfunction, or unprogrammed scenario, and it could be curtains for the newborn.
We have grown to depend on doctors for that “human” touch, and no machine can replace that.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! Why, why, why, why would you want to do this? I would say that delivering babies is precisely the last job we want to turn over to machines. Not only is is too complex and variable (remember that we humans are still WAY ahead of machines when it comes to complex and variable jobs like, say walking), but on an emotional level, who wants our young to be introduced to the world by a machine. Besides, whats the point, we’ve got plenty of humans around, and I haven’t heard too many obstetrician complaining that their job is too tiresome and repetitive.
Welcome to the Wonderful and Wacky World of G. Nome.
To agree and expand …
You don’t really “need” anybody present at most births, 'sides someone to catch the rugrat as it pops out. After all, mommies did it for millenia before the invention of doctors, nurses or hospitals. However, It’s a damn good idea to have a doctor present in the event of complications.
The same would apply if you invented a birthing machine. It could handle the catching, etc., but you still want a doctor present in case something goes wrong. Since you have the doctor there, he/she might as well handle the catching, and the machine becomes an unnecessary added cost.
Sua
P.S. I didn’t mention midwives, but not to discount them. I figgered if the OP is talking about machines, the midwife/natural birth philosophy isn’t all that relevant here.
Babies delivered by machines?
After watching the bedside manner of the doctor who delivered our first, I can say with confidence that some already are.
We can’t even trust machines to handle pregnant chads, and you want to trust them to handle pregnant women?
Whenever I read about the numbers of women who died in childbirth before last century I just can’t believe it. Giving birth can be quite dangerous with risks of strokes and brain haemorrhages and pain so bad it can completely destroy the affection a mother needs to feel for her baby. The answers here remind me of something feminists used to be fond of saying about men: If men had periods they would be considered a sacrament. And, I suppose, if men had babies, the application of science and technology to any problems they had would mean the process was just one big orgasm by now.
Well, you’re correct in that childbirth used to be a very risky proposition. The most common cause of death was a postpartum infection, also known as “childbed fever.” This became especially common when doctors started delivering babies, because they hadn’t yet discovered the existence of germs. Doctors would go from a sick patient (or the autopsy table) to a birthing mother without washing their hands. They had no idea they were causing those deaths.
These days, childbed fever is not nearly so common. And, when it does occur, we have antibiotics that can cure it. We can also stop hemorrhaging and deliver, by caesarean section, babies whose birth might, in times past, have killed both mother and child.
There is another point to ponder, though. While medical advances have made childbirth much safer, the medical model of childbirth-i.e. the mother as patient, needing to be delivered of her child-has caused problems in and of itself. The use of anesthesia, for instance, required that the insensible mother give birth lying on her back. In fact, she often could not, because she was unconscious, actually deliver her baby herself. Thus, forceps were invented. It was once common practice to shave the mother’s genitals and give her an enema, under the assumption that this would create a more sterile environment. It did not. What it did do was make the mother tense and uncomfortable and put her in a passive, helpless frame of mind which is never conducive to easy childbirth. The practice of hooking a mother up to an IV upon admission, “just in case,” tends to inhibit movement, which in turn tends to slow and lengthen labor. Confining the laboring mother to a hospital bed will do the same thing. Refusing to allow the laboring mother to eat or drink can cause dehydration, which can also slow or even stop a labor.
My point is that while modern medicine has brought us some wonderful and life-saving innovations there is often much to be said for letting nature take its course.
What’s with the ad hominem attacks? She asked a valid question.
I want to know where my cyborg arm is.
–Tim
Never mind Mr. Nome, Robin. He was conceived my a machine, delivered at five months of pregnancy by C-section and had hard childhood. He thinks that “the convergence of human and machine is right around the corner.” He lives in an eerie neighborhood, expecting the cyborgs to move in next door. He is sure that “the process of birth is still locked in the stone age”. He is very troubled because something happend to the invention of “birthing machines”; other machines, like fucking, eating, shitting ones, etc., were invented and exist.
Help is on the way, Mr. Nome!
Actually out of a 10 year project by mitsubishi they finally managed to make a human looking robot walk like one.
Though a better way to do it would be to have the woman stand up and use gravity to help? That was a stone age technique even recorded in the worlds largest and first poem.
Applying a vacuum cleaner to someone’s genitalia. Hmm… You’re male aren’t you?
-LabRat
You know, a lot of people believe that story about how the Japanese tried to surrender to America in World War 2 but their efforts to do so failed because the letter they sent the American president was misinterpreted. Like, they were supposed to have said, “We give up” but Americans thought they had said “Pearl Harbour, that was nothing.” Or something similar.
Well, I think I believe that too now.
Others have already made good points about why this sort of thing isn’t really a desirable or healthy option.
Quicker processes aren’t necessarily healthier processes. Getting liposuction is one way to quickly shed weight. Changing your eating habits is a less expedient but ultimately healthier way to lose weight. In the same way, while birth may seem like a needlessly long process, yanking the kid out with a vaccuum (by his head, mind you) isn’t necessarily in the best interest of either mother or child.
There is such a thing as a “vacuum extractor” meant to be used in lieu of forceps. However, this device has, in fact, been implicated in causing injuries to the babies (in fact, a few years ago one of the primetime news shows did a story about the serious injuries and deaths this device has caused). Check out
http://www.aafp.org/afp/20000915/1316.html
On another note: I have to wonder, Rdawg, what kind of response were you hoping to get with such inflammatory comments? Considering that the lives of even adult chickens are not held in high esteem or granted protection as the lives of adult humans are, I don’t think that the comparison between a fetal chick and a fetal human holds up. I hope you would agree that we should not legalize turning adult human beings into Soylent Green based on the indifference society at large shows towards turning adult chickens into McNuggets.
Babies delivered by machines? Hel-LO. That idea has already been tried before.
Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.
Well, I think I believe that too now.
That’s your whole problem. You belive tooo many things.