ElementalMom

A coworker of mine, whose wife is pregnant with their first child, just sent me this:

This makes me unspeakably sad for so many reasons. Here’s my take on it:

• Labor begins when the baby starts releasing hormones into the mother’s system that say that the lungs are mature and ready to go. Anything that alters that balance impairs the baby’s ability to breathe well outside the womb
• Those hormones start a chain reaction that set up every other thing; contractions, dilation, the “fetal ejection reflex” (yes, there is such a thing), placental detachment and expulsion, and lactation. Anything that alters that impairs everything that comes after in the chain.
• A hugely pregnant, uncomfortable, tired woman, when given an out, will take it. It’s biological nature to move towards pleasure and away from pain. Offering this kind of thing is sort of like handing out formula samples at the hospital; the implication is that you will somehow need the out. It steals a woman’s triumph out from under her, without her ever really knowing or understanding what happened; there’s just this vague unease.
• It is recklessly ignoring true informed consent. The implications, both macro and micro, of a decision like that, are not addressed here, nor will they be in an office visit discussing elective cesarean and/or induction, because a physician who’s tired, overworked, and profit-motivated, will take the out when given it, and a nicely scheduled birth is so much easier for them than the rollercoaster that is natural birth.

Every time I think I’m imagining at least part of how bad things in the American Birth Climate can get, something like this pops up in my face like a horrorshow. Someone talk me down?

Tags: Cesarean, elective_cesarean, elective_induction, first_time_parents, informed_consent, labor, United_Healthcare