CDC and BoBB — What Do They Have In Common?
I haven’t had a good solid birth rant in a while. Sometimes, the Universe conspires to set me up for one, though.
Night before last, my fabulous pal Jessica invited me to a showing of The Business of Being Born, being hosted by UrbanCrunchyMama. I was really excited to be there, since other ICAN women had been seeing it, hosting screenings, and generally talking it over for a while, and I was looking forward to forming my own opinions.
More on those opinions in a bit.
We got back late, and while I was still reeling, the next day, working on this very blog post, the CDC released the preliminary statistics for cesareans in the US in 2006 (pdf).
Days like this, I wish alcohol was an option. Days like this, I wonder if the stress to the baby I’m gestating is worse than the impact of the glass of chardonnay I could hear calling to me.
31.1%, my friends. I can’t even type that without crying. 31.1% of babies in this country are ripped out of their mothers through an act of major abdominal surgery. More than one woman in three has this damned scar on her belly. And that’s an average. In some states (pdf) , it’s far higher. And you know what really sucks? Those numbers are still, even, low. In some states, cesareans for multiples (twins, triplets, etc.) are not included.
I am not even going to try to be balanced and rational about it at this point. If you want balanced and rational, stop reading.
Nothing has changed suddenly in the last 15 years about American womens’ pelvises. The only thing that has changed is malpractice insurance, and physician arrogance. Oh yeah, and women’s compliance. We just walk right in, when we find out we’re pregnant, we find an OB, and we let that person tell us what to do, because we have this blind, naive, stupid idea that they have our best interest in mind.
I just recently heard the story of a woman whose doctor told her that her baby was in distress, and not a few minutes later, overheard the nurses talking about how what was really happening was that the doctor had a new wife who demanded that he be home for dinner promptly at 6PM.
31.1 fucking percent. Women cut. Babies cut. Women and babies dying (pdf). Families disrupted. Biology disrupted. And oh, how the money rolls in to the pockets of the hospitals. I hope the shareholders are fucking happy, safely counting their earnings, drowning in blood and pain they never touch. How many Americans are enrolled in a 401(k) that includes shares in Kaiser or any of the other big “health” organizations? Go check your plan. Do it now.
So meanwhile, back to Business of Being Born…
I forget, sometimes, because I am so immersed in the politics of birth, how far I’ve come in the last five years. I was trying hard to keep my cynical mouth shut, with fairly limited success.
I found the portrayals of the births themselves to be fantastic. Women at home, moving, vocalizing, whining, complaining; doing all the things that real women really in labor do. The midwife had filmed her own birth, and she was the biggest whiner of the lot; a fact she admitted with no small degree of humor. I found myself indulging in some equally funny memories of my own homebirth, and chuckling.
It was really really nice to hear other people saying what we say in ICAN all the time, and get branded as being “bitter, hysterical, angry women” over; that American birth is dangerous, pathological, and all about the cash flow. That the lithotomy position is evil. That birth is a natural bodily function. That OBs are surgeons with no training in normal birth. That most medical professionals have never seen a normal birth. That when you start in with interventions, you are playing with mechanisms that are poorly understood, and that nothing good comes of it. A few times, I flat-out applauded.
I have to say though, that while the film is a great start, I am wildly disappointed by the end. And again, maybe that’s just because of where I am, and who I know, and how immersed I am in the whole birth thing. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, basically despite everything she’s seen in making the film, the director (Abby) opts for a classic American McPregnancy, early ultrasounds, OB care, the whole enchilada, and ends up with an emergency cesarean for a breech baby. Oh sure, there are some other complications, and I suspect that we’ll never know the whole story, nor should we necessarily have the right to. But what women are going to take away is that cesarean for breech is acceptable, and it isn’t.
Breech birth is a variation of normal. It has a few special techniques involved, that require some additional training to be able to manage correctly. But instead of simply acquiring that training, midwives who practice more in the medical model, and obstetricians, simply declare breech to be an automatic cesarean, and that’s that. I know a lot of very dedicated women (I’m talking about you, Christie!) who have dedicated themselves to fighting back the tide on this one, and Abby’s inclusion of this debacle in the film sets them all back, and hard.
One step forward, two steps back. Good news, a film about the insanity of American birth culture is getting attention. Bad news, it ends with an unnecessary cesarean. Good news, people are talking. Bad news, they’re talking about how great it is that Abby and her baby were saved. I could beat my head against the wall.
Abby was one of those 31.1 percent of women, cut in 2006. Face to the statistic. Just one out of so very many.
Awesome, awesome post!!!! So true … and you’re right the Chardoney might be less stressful for everyone involved sometimes.
Well, I still get the chair I think but I’m so with you on this. And as depressing as it can be, we just can’t stop, can we?
Angry, hysterical and bitter. I think there are some women I’m happy to share that label with, and who says its such a bad thing anyway? Like I’m supposed to get any change done at all while being happy, passive and brainless?
love ya babe!
hmm, as my 3.5 yr old breech babe laughs in the next room, I’m thinking that maybe I need to pass on this one. I will forever feel blessed that I was lucky enough that he came shooting out too fast for the doctors to cut me and forever be furious that my birth is even considered to be lucky. Women should not need to have 1 or 2 horrid birth experiences before they get the courage to just do it alone, when they might not even get another chance to have the birth they’ve dreamed of. They should not be forced to have to do it alone just to avoid those horrid birth experiences.
I would be giving you a standing ovation if the little (homebirthed) dude was not asleep and attached.
I was a breech baby, and my first was a horrible induction that only was allowed to be vaginal because I hit the magical ‘12 hour’ point at 2 am and without the obligatory needle o’ narc in my spine.
The insurance companies could, for once, help us in this. Especially since having good insurance is a much better predictor of the likelihood of having a section than almost anything else. From now on, every birth earns the same amount. If you are a doc and a hospital you get X, no matter what. Vaginal birth or section. Drugs or no drugs. And if you are a homebirth midwife you get what the doc gets, and the parents get what the hospital would have gotten. UC folks should get all of it.
So what do you think?
-A
Amy, I think that’s a great idea, but it’s only part of the solution. I commented to someone today:
Why is it, that the prospect of going into a germ-ridden, authoritarian place filled with people who care more about their personal wellbeing than yours, where you *know* they are going to try to physically attack you (episiotomy, uterine check, cesarean, unwanted pharmaceuticals) if you drop your guard and you’re going to have to spend your labor fighting with everything you’ve got in you and then once the baby’s out by whatever means you have zero
guarantees that they’ll be treated the way you want them treated….. is somehow more appealing than staying home, where you’re safe, and protected, and surrounded by your own stuff, your own germs, and your
own support network?
How, in just two generations, have medpros done such an excellent job of brainwashing, to make that seem like a good choice???
I for one refuse to give up. So very few people think that breech vaginal birth is a possibility that it’s not that much of a setback.
But Ryan and I are living proof that ICAN is changing lives for women and babies. Progress is slower than we want it to be, but it will change.
I believe that in my bones. My daughter will not have a cesarean simply because she is a woman. Not gonna happen on my watch. Take this for the promise that it is– I’m not giving up. I refuse. Thanks for reminding me!
Christie
I just discovered your blog today, through the LWOS site, and I’m so glad! Ack! Your posts, especially this one and the next one, voice my own frustrations so well. Of course I come off as a snob when I try to share my ‘alternative’ choices with others.
I wish I had found a support group before I let myself be convinced that a homebirth was unthinkable because I was 37. My insurance didn’t cover the birth center here, so hospital it was. I didn’t end up in surgery and my hospital birth was, relatively speaking, pretty close to my birthplan with the hospital staff very respectful of my wishes, and only suggesting medical interventions after trying my own. But I think the average woman simply (who doesn’t do any research and reads mainstream ‘how tos’) does what she is told, and if I had NOT written a birthplan, I feel that surgery would have been pushed as the only option to end 3 days of slow progress.
I also loved your Farmer’s Market post! My daughter is only 1 year, but I know we’re on the path to ‘unschooling’.
I’m off to read more!