Assignment #5: Write a feature story. I chose to write the following piece for Mothering Magazine based on my recent research and reading in my quest to become a doula. The statistics of the modern birthing scene are frightening and devastating and deserve to be uncovered. We'll see if I ever get the chutzpah to send this to the editor of Mothering Magazine!
Let’s just say that I’m an advocate of crisis management. If Chicken Little’s sky is truly going to cave in one day, then I’d like to read up on how to live successfully in a sky-less world. I rarely do or buy anything without researching the pros and cons, so with the thought of starting a family sometime in the next five years, it seemed only appropriate to read every book and magazine ever printed on the subject. The deeper I delved into my quest of understanding pregnancy and birth, the more aware I became of how scared I should be to have a baby.
My research produced astounding statistics that could turn many would-be mothers into birth control junkies. In a recent documentary, The Business of Being Born, former talk show host Rickie Lake fills the gaps between the miracle of life and the alarming statistics about our current maternity care system. Did you know that the United States has the second worst newborn death rate and the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world? What about the fact that doctors and insurance companies are teaming up to make sure that women can’t get coverage for home birth, even though it’s the cheaper option?
Most doctors admit to chemically advancing a woman’s birth process, speeding up her delivery so that he can make it home in time for dinner. That same statistic fits pretty snugly with the fact that the Cesarean Section rate has increased by 46% in the last decade, making one out of every three births a C-Section. This increase, as most doctors will divulge, is a defense mechanism against getting sued and losing their malpractice insurance. This trend has become so widely accepted that mothers are now voluntarily electing for designer births where they get a c-section and a tummy tuck right after the doc pulls the baby out. What these women don’t know, or are choosing to ignore, is that recovering from a c-section takes almost four times longer and carries far more risk to both the mother and the baby than a vaginal birth.
Book after magazine after website, my research has led me to believe that a lot of high-ups in the medical field don’t trust the natural process of women’s bodies. If they did, they wouldn’t spend so much time convincing women that they don’t know how to give birth. Fearful of everything that could go wrong, instead of trusting what could go right, women are more than obliging to accept the too common cocktail of unnecessary modern birthing practices and interventions. Given a little time and space, most of these women would be able to give birth without the thick layer of fear factor action that doctors seem so fond of.
Call me crazy, but I think I might go find Chicken Little to ask her if the sky has fallen in. I had no idea about the predicament of the modern birthing scene. I’ll be glad to admit that hospitals give me peace of mind in a crisis, but giving birth shouldn’t be an emergency. In certain instances, yes, birth is an emergency, but in most cases it’s about creating life and celebrating a new person.
For all the fear I found in my research, I also found hope. The kind of hope that comes from knowing your options and learning how to set boundaries with your doctors. Knowing what questions to ask and doing what’s best for your long-term physical health and mental happiness. There are groups out there like the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services that are advocating for a medical system that improves birth outcomes and substantially reduces costs to both hospitals and families. It’s comforting to know that the partnership between modern medical technology and big business is being challenged and that I, an individual capable of making decisions, can help shape my future birth by reading up and speaking out.
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