My sister and I were born outside the US while my parents were posted overseas; I in a small clinic in a quaint village founded in the 1500s, and my sister in a suburban hospital of a major city. In both locations, it was customary for new moms to breastfeed and for no one to circumcise. There was lots of help with breastfeeding, and my mom remembers getting over her American modesty as she learned to breastfeed with all the women from the neighborhood. She loved it.
Once we returned to the US, my brother was born in Pittsburgh. My mom remembers being a lot less comfortable, despite being in a "modern" hospital setting. Instead of close interactions with all the staff, she was treated as if on an assembly line; people were constantly coming and going and no nurse would tell her what was going on. While my dad was present for my birth and my sister's, he was kept firmly out of the birth room in PA.
Mom remembers waking up the second day after birth feeling disoriented and horrible. She finally snagged a nurse long enough to ask what on earth was going on. "Oh honey, them's just the drugs." Mom remembered being offered pills "for the pain", but this was different. "Oh yeah, we give 'em to all the gals. One was to dry up all your breast milk, of course -- since everyone today uses formula, ya know, the gals don't want all that swelling -- and the other was to knock you out cold so we have time to take the baby to get his tests done and get circumcised."
"But I don't want him circumcised! And I plan to breastfeed, like I did with my other two!" Mom said the nurse looked at her like she'd said she wanted to have lunch on the moon. "Sweetie, I don't know what farm you were living on before, but this is how we do things now. It's the modern age!" and she walked away shaking her head and saying, "Sheesh, some crazy people..."
Mom said that the next time she saw the doctor, she reached over from her bed and pulled his tie as hard as she could until his nose was touching hers. "How DARE you knock me out without my permission! How DARE you give me pills to dry up MY breastmilk! I ought to sue you personally! Where is my son?"
After he was able to stand up straight, the doctor coolly told her that the pills were standard protocol for all and required no consent from her -- as was the circumcision. Mom was furious, and wrecked.
But my dad came by later and told her that he'd dropped by while she was out cold, and when he learned where they'd taken my brother he stopped them just in time. The doctor had joked to him that it was just as well... the first two he'd done that day, the Gomco didn't go on that well and they'd come out clearly lopsided, and he overcompensated with the third one and took off probably too much skin, "but that happens all the time with these things".
Looking back, Mom says that my "primitive" birth was the best of the 3.