If a baby is born but there's no obstetrician around to catch it, was the baby really born? Sure, it sounds funny to ask but modern obstetric practice would answer "no". Babies, they insist, must be born in hospitals and preferably by cesarean. In the last 30 years in the United States, cesarean rates have risen from 10.4% in 1975 to 31.1% in 2006. What these statistics don't tell us are the stories. The stories of the women who didn't truly need to have their babies cut out. Stories of women who were coerced and bullied into cesareans. Stories of women who are physically and psychologically damaged by cesareans, be they necessary or not. Mothers today are being lied to. They are being told that it doesn't matter how their babies are born, so long as they are healthy.
Consider the following:
Each morning, I drag my daughter out of bed (it helps if I have a bright flashlight in one hand and my other hand wrapped around her neck or the back of her head. (gets her right up). She's always late so I make her skip breakfast (we're on a time schedule, after all!). I roughly throw her clothes on and kick her out the door, only for her to be beaten up by the bully on the bus. Sure, it isn't the best start to her day but hey, as long as she gets to school on time, what's the harm right?
Obviously, I don't really do this. My daughter is only three years old and I would never dream of being so cruel! The above story does bare a striking resemblance to a little more than a third of the births in the Unites States though.Women today are caught in the headlights of a huge Mac truck with the words "Modern Birth" written on it. It's our job, those of us standing by watching it happen, to push these women out of the road and cut that Mac truck down to a Civic hybrid.
- Becky
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