Childbirth - a wimmin's political issue of our times

When birth moved out of the home a few hundred years ago and into medical institutions, it became a political issue for women. I find it curious that a lot of people involved in women's rights and women's issues have not thought much about the rights of childbearing women or how they are treated once they step within the medical system to birth.

Birth has been normalised birth as a medical event, requiring medical assistance for ALL women and ALL babies. Not many find peace in the concept of childbirth as a normal biological body function of human females, that works just fine for the majority of women. We breathe, we eat, we shit, we fuck and we heal just fine most of the time without needing medical assistance. We drive cars - which is very risky, yet not one of us has an ambulance or medical officer following our car around as we drive.

I'm interested to hear your thoughts about childbirth and if you feel women are accorded the rights to make their own decisions and choices in birth today, and why you feel this is the case, and where your impressions are coming from.

 

i think fear of home birth and the much higher death rates that accompanied it in an era before advancements in medicine and medical knowledge had a great deal to do with removing child birth from the home. however, i don't understand why a perfectly healthy woman with a perfectly healthy fetus shouldn't be able to deliver in the comfort of her home. i was one of the women who would have died, though. i'm EXTREMELY grateful for the labor and delivery ward where i gave birth. it was very comfortable and my doctor was wonderful. i did have the advantage of knowing many of the nurses personally prior to my time there, so it was like having family and friends around all the time. i imagine that it was similar to the soothing comfort many women would feel delivering in the comfort of their own homes.

 

I feel my rights trampled on, in regards to this issue. As a woman, and more importantly, as a MOTHER, I deserve the right to decide where I should birth. Cats even have that option. Why not me?

Alas, it's not a political issue, so much as a greed-issue. The medical lobby is huge, so they can push legislation. It makes it look like a political issue, when in fact, it's the medical field deciding they don't want to give up any money they could be making. Birthing is a billion dollar industry. What would happen if women at large decided to birth at home?

 

Cant women still give birth in the home? When did it become illegal?

 

Wild Mountain Dave, it is not illegal for women to give birth in their homes. It is legal in all states, even if the AMA would like to make it outlawed. However, it is far from legal to have midwives attend that birth in several states. Midwives face criminal charges if they attend them in an outlawed state, and even though there is national accreditation and licenses for midwives (CPM), not all states recognize that. I could be legally licensed in Virginia as a CPM, but unable to attend a birth legally in neighboring NC.

 

oh, well ok. Just double checkin the rights thing. No biggie. Groove on then.

 

Yeah. So while I'm fine with people who choose to have an unassisted childbirth, I think it sucks when that choice is made FOR them because they can't find midwives in their area.

 

Healthy women should be able to give birth and get assistance for that birth wherever the hell they want. I find it ridiculous that midwives cant come to your home to deliver a baby in some parts of America, i never knew that!

 

HippyFreak, politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions and is related to social structures that involve power or authority. So yes, childbirth has become a political issue of our times, what with powerful and authoritian groups such as the medical industry, government health departments and whatnot, making rules about how women birth both in hospital and out of hospital.

Off the topic a bit, MamaKCita, I think you might have your statistics back to front. During the early 1800's, when doctors started attending births at home instead of midwives, the death rate started going up. Then as the male dominated medicine progressed, more women gave birth in hospital than at home. In this same era, childbed fever was at epidemic proportions and women and babies started dropping dead like flies. Doctors did not wash their hands or practice good hygenie. It It took the hospitals and their "educated" doctors until the late 1800's/early 1900's to click on to handwashing and hygenie and implement that in their care for birthing women before death rates started to drop.

It is interesting to note that the USA has high death rates for mothers and babies despite all their topnotch technology and hospitals. Other countries where more women homebirth, have much lower mortality rates for women and babies.

Back on the original question, I don't think that many women are accorded the rights to make their own decisions in birth today. That is not to say they don't have the right to do so, they do. However in reality, I don't believe or see that right being respected or accorded for many women.

If a woman finds an internal examination painful and tells her doctor it hurts and to stop, and the doctor doesn't stop that is an abuse of her rights. Another example is the woman who specifies she does not want her labour sped up artificially, yet on an internal examination before she realises and is given the opportunity to protest, her membranes are broken artificially. Yet another example is the woman who wants to have a homebirth with a midwife, but her state has made midwifery illegal.

I am seeing a huge gap between the lip service given to women about their right to informed choice and the actual reality that presents.

 

Yes, women should have a right to have their baby at home with a midwife. But thank God I was in the hospital when I had mine. Childbirth is different for everyone. It's not as easy as going to the bathroom, like the OP seems to think. Sometimes problems arise.

If the question is, should everyone have access to a well-trained and educated midwife if they want one- then I agree, though, YES.

 

You and me both. Thank goodness for modern medicine.

 

i had a hx birth and then a homebirth. i would go homebirth everytime. it is a very safe process and i had the assitance of a midwife, it's very empowering. i can't say enough about it.

when i lived in indiannapolis homebirths were not legal. i attended rallies and met with my state rep. i'm not sure of the status but now, but i knew of midwives who were in jail for assiting in homebirths.

until you've done it at home, you can't begin to understand how intrusive birthing in a hospital is to the entire experience.

here in CA, they push the epidural like crack on a street corner. they prefer to *go ahead* and schedule your induction so it doesn't interfere with their vacation schedule. heaven forbid if your labor is longer than 24 hours .... too scary, gotta give a c-section

 

SweetDeviant, that is sooo true. I think one thing that is overlooked or misunderstood in the birthing culture of the united states is how integral space is to birth. Humans ARE animals, you take a birthing animal out of it's space and labor will stall. Humans are the same.

The list of cascading interventions is very scary, and extremely concise once understood, they fit together perfectly.

Hospitals create many many complications by intervention. They create a need for being rescued, they create the need for heroes. Sometimes those heroes are needed, the vast majority of the time they are not.

" The first Intervention in birth that a healthy woman takes is when she walks out the front door of her home in labor, from that first intervention all others will follow."
-M. Rosenthal

 

I didn't say childbirth for every woman was as easy as going to the bathroom : ) Some people have bathroom trouble and require medical assistance, same as for childbirth. In that event, medical assistance and medical technology is available to us.

Those are the restrictions I am talking about, where women's right to make their own decisions about their care is overriden by hospital policies and the convenience of doctors.

 

yes, you're right. sadly, this is the norm now and not the exception. once they get that iv in your arm they own you and make your decisions for you. research the technology the hospitals use for childbirth and you might be horrified .. like how forceps came about. pitocen, the drug used for labor induction was originally developed and used to stop hemmorages after birth ... it can actually cause hemmorages when used incorrectly. that big belt they put around a woman to monitor contractions and the babies heartbeat, if you research it, you'll find they're not very accurate at all .. they couldn't get a good reading with my son so they opted to put a screw in his scalp to read his vitals ... (i was pissed). of course i was already iv'd and there was little i could do. they said if i didn't allow it they would have to start scrubbing for the c-section.

the doctors and hospitals in amercia bascially operate under the assumption of preventing lawsuits and they sell it to patients as *what's best for mom and baby*.

 

Though I agree that there is overemphasis on hospitalization and medication and that child bearing should be something done at home if possible . I don't think its a political issue and has nothing to do with women's rights.
In many Western countries you can have birth at home if you wish

 

When the AMA are releasing reports and suggestions that go against all other medical reasoning, goes against Informed Consent to the point of stating that in cases it is not in good interest to offer it (this is common knowledge, sometimes it's not in the best interest of the patient, but it's "informed consent" for that reason), and lobbies for laws to make their financial interests law, it IS a woman's rights issue.

Oh, it has so much to do with Women's Rights beyond this as well. It has to do with infant rights too, it is a human right.

It's about history too, the medical control that males had and how they took birth from the midwives. Where do the midwives fit in in this? The ones who are prosecuted, jailed? The fact that in many states women can not hire a midwife, legally, and have to go under the radar to find one. If they can at all. Their insurance very well may not pay for this birth, why is the birth that is best for the mother and best for the baby not covered? How much more is hospital birth? How much money is involved in birth. The trauma involved in many births in this country (United States). There is trauma even if it's not stated, there is trauma in needing a hero. My friend was tied down during her cesarean, which she did not want but was not listened to because she was a young unmarried woman. She has post traumatic stress from being tied down. It is birth, not cardiac surgery. A pivotal moment in her life, and she has trauma to remember. Women's Issue.

 

medicine and hospital profits took birth from midwives. midwives don't fit in anywhere. in fact, i had a legal homebirth in arizona, partially covered by my insurance, and i could NOT find a doctor who would act as a *back up* IN CASE there were complications. they all told me if i was using a midwife at home they would have NOTHING to do with me at all. almost as a bullying scare tactic.

my hospital birth cost $17,000 total and $2400 was my deductible.

my home birth cost $900 and $320 was my deductible.

 

Yes, this is a political issue! In many states it is becoming illegal to have babies at home, which is true where my baby was born illegally, in Quebec. We did it anyway, having our baby at the World Rainbow Gathering deep in the woods in a school bus, and I certainly would never want to do it any other way! Unfortunately we didn't really have a midwife, since midwives mostly exist in fear because they are illegal in so many places, though we had with us a sister that had given birth eight days earlier at the Gathering, as well as a sister who had given birth at the World Gathering in Brazil a few years earlier.

Our labor was about 46 hours, and I'm quite certain that if we had been in a hospital, we would have had no control and they would have done a COMPLETELY unnecessary c-section. Birth just happens, which this, the first birth I participated in, taught me. Women have been doing it for our forever, and it's not a sickness! The medicalization of our lives has to stop! I'm thankful to have caught my own daughter when she came out, and I'm thankful for the strong woman who birthed her and the strong sisters that stood by us for our "illegal" birth.

Love and Light,
Joshua

 

*illegal birth" .... what a strange combination of words.