I simply don't understand the whole thing about a desire to avoid modern medical technology. I mean I can understand wanting a less impersonal environment (though from my perspective I was happy to know we were already in a hospital if anything went wrong, and our daughter needed some attention after was was born), but I don't understand the negative stigma of taking advantage of medical facilities and pain management.

Because sometimes it makes things, in some ways, worse.

An epidural manages the pain, but it can lead to slowed or stopped contractions. Then the pitocin is administered but it can lead to incredibly hard contractions.

Some people feel strongly that a cascade of medical interventions can lead to an emergency c-section anyway after 16 hours of hard labor. My one cousin wound up having hers before the next epidural could kick in. They shot her full of morphine once the cord was cut and she doesn't much remember her unanesthetized abdominal surgery, but it was no picnic.

Now, we have a living cousin and a living cousin's child. It was indeed a positive outcome. Nobody failed.

But when it came time for my sister to have her baby she opted to labor at home for longer than many people might have (and I won't say how long in this context lest I be accused of shaming or bragging or whatever) because she didn't want those interventions. She was four minutes from the hospital and in close contact with her doctor and did it safely -- but if she'd been in a hospital she would not have been allowed to labor that long.

After laboring her ungodly amount of hours, she went to the hospita. She went from 3cm to fully dilated in four hours. She delivered my niece in three pushes. Apparently, my sister's uterus, when allowed to do what it was going to do opted for a long labor and a short delivery.

Now before anyone tut-tuts about risky it wasn't. Long early labors aren't unusual or dangerous. Its just that most people would rather not have them. My sister rather would.

I always figure, if mother and child survive and the kid lives through adolescence without any major physical or psychological scars, it's a resounding success. But I don't have kids, won't be having any ... and I get nervous around little ones ... so what do I know?

We just had an unplanned fire drill.

It was nice to be outside, because it's gorgeous here today, but 8 flights of stairs was probably about 7 too many for me today.

Also, ow.

I love showering with peppermint soap in the summer!

And now I am going to mop the kitchen floor and dust and sweep. But I couldn't stand my hair being so lank and gross one more second.

but I don't understand the negative stigma of taking advantage of medical facilities and pain management.

What I have heard from a friend who gave birth at home after being with her sister giving birth in a hospital, is that she felt like her sister wasn't taking advantge of the various interventions, but rather that they were done to her, and my friend wanted to avoid that.

felt like her sister wasn't taking advantge of the various interventions, but rather that they were done to her

And that, I think, was what the author of this particular article was trying, and not being very successful at, to get across: that how a child is born - the labor and delivery part - should be primarily in the hands of the woman who is doing the birthing and not the doctors, midwives, nurses, etc. I was lucky - I had a fantastic doctor. I had pretty good nursing care until the shift change and then I got MAGNIFICENT nursing care. I didn't feel as though anything was done to me but rather for me. Not all women feel like that and don't have that experience and that's horrible, IMO. The fact that woman's doctor broke her water without telling her what he was doing after being asked several times is inexcusable and I'd love a shot at his nuts with a crochet hook.

What I have heard from a friend who gave birth at home after being with her sister giving birth in a hospital, is that she felt like her sister wasn't taking advantge of the various interventions, but rather that they were done to her, and my friend wanted to avoid that.

But that's a matter of electing to use a hospital or not, which is fine. But there seems to be an idea that somehow using drugs is a failure of will or something (my wife had some of these feelings since she did have an epidural), and that I don't understand. It's available, millions of birthing mothers have used them, why feel bad about it?

It's available, millions of birthing mothers have used them, why feel bad about it?

That, I think, is the cultural issue -- there is a lot of energy in our culture around feeling bad about whatever choice you make as a mother, from conception to college graduation.

What I have heard from a friend who gave birth at home after being with her sister giving birth in a hospital, is that she felt like her sister wasn't taking advantge of the various interventions, but rather that they were done to her, and my friend wanted to avoid that.

This is a pretty common experience. I did have an induction and walking epidural, and still had a pretty good birth experience, but I had a lot of things in my favor, like family who'd worked OB-GYN and an extensive reading habit that included most of my mother's medical texts, so I went into it over-informed. The c-section rate in the US is twice the upper percentage of the WHO recommended rate, and there's a lot of anger and push back about that. While it sometimes takes extreme forms and I roll my eyes, it's not happening just because the dirty hippies think modern medicine is crock.

There are those same sorts of feelings over practically any pain-relieving drug. "Strong" people are supposed to be able to "tough it out." There are also some things specific to birth, with the history of how medicine during birth has been presented and promoted, but I don't think I know enough about that to really sum it up too well.