When I switched into the Biopsychology of Birth class, I was resistant and uneasy talking about birth. I didn’t even know my own birth story and I never thought to ask until this class. I had always thought births were done the same; the woman goes to the hospital and after hours and hours and numerous pain medications later, she was smiling with her baby. Before this class, that’s all that mattered to me; the mother and baby are both healthy. What I didn’t realize was all the unnecessary procedures that women were having done to them.
As a part of this class, we were assigned a hospital in the area to interview and find out their birth statistics. I had never thought of questioning the procedures being done because hospitals are a place that sick individuals go to, get treated, and feel better by the time they leave. These interventions are done to save individuals lives and are for the most part necessary. As I began researching the hospital, I found myself asking “Why are pregnant women, who are not sick, being treated the same way as people who have illnesses?” Doctors do not need to “save” women from their births, they should instead be supporting women and letting nature run its course. This being said, I do understand that some women, and that percentage is a small one, need help in delivering a baby due to some complications. Many women however, have a body fit enough to deliver a healthy baby on their own and that right is being robbed away from them.
To further my research for this project, I decided to go on the hospital tour as a pregnant woman. One of the first questions I had for the guide, who was also a nurse, was their c-section rate. With this, two women on the tour stated that they already had their c-sections planned and were so happy because they knew the definite day and time they would have their baby. As I sat there stunned and feeling bad for these women, the rest of the group congratulated them and one woman was thinking of doing the same. At this point I decided to ask about natural births and the tour guide stated that she sees plenty of vaginal births. When I explained that I meant natural to be 100 percent intervention free, she looked at me like I was crazy. She said that when women first arrive they are hooked up to IV’s and fetal monitoring with an epidural not too far away. My face must have said it all because she said that I didn’t understand how painful it was going to be and that many women need some kind of assistance.
After my tour, I was very upset and amazed at how much these women and the tour guide didn’t know. And I do not think that the women are to blame. Doctors should be spending some time helping to educate about birth and all its wonders. Instead, they are ordering everything from fetal monitors and pitocin to epidurals and c-sections when all of these are usually unnecessary. As I said before, a hospital is a place for the sick to become healthy and not the healthy to be treated as if they are sick and need saving.
This hospital experience has opened my eyes and made me realize that these hospital ways need to change. The only way that can happen is if women come together and fight against these unnecessary procedures that are being done to them before a completely natural birth is only a thing of the past.
