"The Mother Lode of Pain" (article)

[fek&fuzz]

"Some women insist on a drug-free childbirth - even though it might be agonizing - while others opt for a numbing epidural. Is this all part of the simmering debate between natural and modern medicine, or are some women embracing labor pain for a more heroic cause?" (Header from the article)

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/mag..._lode_of_pain/

[sapphire_chan]

Huh. I notice they don't share what else De Lee was up to. Now there's a man where I'd kick his descendents if there was even a 0.00000001% chance that he'd feel it somehow.

[fek&fuzz]

What else was he up to?

I'm just going to use choloform, I think.

[guestmama9924]

"It's an interesting secular variation on a religious narrative where unbearable pain suddenly transmutes to boundless joy - just as it is believed that the brutal crucifixion of Christ led to the opening of heaven's gates, or, for that matter, just as men blowing themselves to bits with suicide bombs think they will immediately appear in a paradise of virgins.."

: :
So giving birth to a baby gently with no meds is like blowig up ones self in a crowded area? WTF??


Coming from a MALE PED, I was not suprised at all that he had to throw his own wife's experience into the mix to justify her choices.

He does ask in his article "Why, even now, are people so unwilling to let go of pain?"

The bigger question is "WHY do doctors have the obsessive need to control it for us?"


The BOSTON GLOBE invites Chat Tuesday at noon with Dr. Darshak Sanghavi
The author of this week's cover story will discuss why some pregnant women still choose drug-free deliveries.
I hope that CALM , well spoken advocates that can correct his dizzying array of misinformation will join him.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by KeysMama

He does ask in his article "Why, even now, are people so unwilling to let go of pain?"

I haven't read the link yet, but this just FRIES me. I hate anesthetic. I have fillings done without freezing, because I hate being numb so much. I've had three unwanted c-sections, and the last two were both with a spinal. Most of the emotional repercussions have been because of the surgery, but the pre-op fear was about equally split between being cut open and being numbed (not to mention the idea of a needle being put in my spine). I can't stand losing touch with the sensations in my body. I don't really care if they're unpleasant (such as dental drilling) - it's so much scarier for me not to feel what's happening to my own body.

Why, even now, are doctors unwilling to let us decide for ourselves what's worse for us? Why, even now, are they unwilling to believe that we know what's best for ourselves??

[Storm Bride]

This whole article also overlooks something very fundamental about pain. It has a purpose - not just childbirth pain, but all pain. It's trying to tell us something. When I laboured with ds1, I had terrible back pain. I didn't know what it meant (in retrospect, I think it was from him pressing against my spine while turning breech)...but my body took it as a very clear signal to keep moving. I really believe that labour pain is an aid to labouring. How can I possibly follow my body's cues, if those cues are buried under an epidural...even a "walking epidural"?

[guestmama9924]

His whole article is obviously a manifestation of his own delusions about the safety of medicine and the medical model.

He states doulas are "lay labor attendants" which is misleading (a birth attendant is like a doctor or midwife)

He states breastfeeding and the labor process are not impacted by epidurals.

Ok there is a whole BOOK based on the opposite of that , but ok, he doesn't do research, he relied on ancedotes from ANESTHESIOLOGISTS.

He states that resistance to the medical model is questionable. To who? To him? Who cares what he thinks. Grow a vagina and I might care ...

He states that no meds in epidurals affect the infant at all.

He states that childbirth groups like Lamaze set women up for failure.

No, I would say that physicians and the medical model set women up for failure by discouraging critical thinking and self-care from DAY 1.

[sapphire_chan]

Originally Posted by fek&fuzz

What else was he up to?

He's the guy who did the work that lead to routine episiotomies. "The American Way of Birth" tells all about him.

[LoveChild421]

Like prolonged fasting, enduring labor without anesthesia attracts notice. It casts the mother as a struggling heroine who - by sheer mental force - gracefully keeps her body under control. "Natural childbirth purists," author Margaret Talbot wrote in the New York Times after having children with and without anesthesia, "see labor as a kind of performance for which a woman can and should rehearse, and in which she can comport herself more or less admirably. [They] regard labor as an extreme sport."

In this setting, the pain of unmedicated labor offers up a formidable, if artificial, trial that precedes entry into a highly selective sorority. It creates drama. It captures attention.

Yet pain in the end is an utterly primitive thing, a vestige of insect and reptilian brains. It evolved primarily as a way to change behavior without need for thought - to force one's hand to pull away from fire or tend urgently to an injured limb. Thinking beings, in some sense, have evolved beyond pain. (Some pain reflexes continue even in brain-dead individuals.) If anything, reliance on pain to create meaning during childbirth indicates a constricted imagination. Surely there must be more innovative challenges than voluntarily refusing effective, safe, and available pain relief during labor. As the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology states, "There is no other circumstance where it is considered acceptable for a person to experience untreated severe pain, amenable to safe intervention, while under a physician's care."

Which is why choosing to feel pain during childbirth strikes me as odd. Eliminating pain won't create a sudden existential crisis among mothers, because parenting is too rich an experience. And after all, being born is ultimately the least distinguishing feature of being human; everyone's done it and, moreover, no one remembers it.

Such a strange take on the matter- like "what is wrong with all these crazy hippy women wanting to be martyrs and get attention." I don't see what's so "odd" about wanting to do something my body is perfectly capable of doing without being numb.

[LoveChild421]

Originally Posted by sapphire_chan

He's the guy who did the work that lead to routine episiotomies. "The American Way of Birth" tells all about him.

oh well of course he can't grasp the concept that our bodies are capable of giving birth without him or his anesthesia.

[lolar2]

I liked the part about the itching side effect being "mild." Obviously that guy has never had poison ivy! When I switched from labor pain to all-over epidural itching, I did not consider that an improvement. Sure, not everyone gets that side effect, but they told me it wasn't unusual either.

[Ruthla]

Originally Posted by KeysMama

The author of this week's cover story will discuss why some pregnant women still choose drug-free deliveries.

Um, how about "Why some pregnant women choose to use numbing drugs during the normal process of labor, and risk severe side effects for themselves and their babies, when there is no medical benefit in doing so?"

The risks of pain relief during labor include DEATH!!! Remember that poor woman who died when the epidural meds were accidentally given through an IV in her arm?

[Arwyn]

Just.... just....

[Arwyn]

What's fascinating is that now, although we have had the power to banish labor pain for more than a century, not all women can bring themselves to do so.

I love the language choice there... We're incapable of using anesthesia, poor us. There's something wrong with our psyches that prevents us from being able to "bring" ourselves to its obvious use...

[Arwyn]

Today we heatedly debate the right thing to do - embrace a natural, authentic approach or tap the miracles of science.

Because of course science supports the use of epidurals. Which are, you must remember, a miracle.

[Arwyn]

...a growing number of women who have no medical need for a caesarean are opting for the surgery, in some cases because they simply want to dictate when and how the baby arrives - news that was met with fear that vaginal births might fall out of favor.

Not with worry over all the babies (and mothers!) damaged by cesarean birth and all the attendant risks - just that "our" method of childbirth "might fall out of favor", like all we crazy anti-cesarean nuts really care about is being popular.

[Arwyn]

Oh! And the very next sentence implies that breastfeeding promoters aren't in favor of a free market! (Ok, so I happen to be a socialist and think unrestrained capitalism is right up there with fascism and communism as practiced by the old USSR and China in terms of humanitarian failures, but geez, can we say "false dichotomy"?)

[guestmama9924]

"Chat Tuesday at noon with Dr. Darshak Sanghavi
The author of this week's cover story will discuss why some pregnant women still choose drug-free deliveries.

but isn't everyone just DYING to know how a male pediatrician knows so much about the wonders of our vaginas???

[guestmama9924]

Originally Posted by Arwyn

Not with worry over all the babies damaged by cesarean birth and all the attendant risks - just that "our" method of childbirth "might fall out of favor", like all we crazy anti-cesarean nuts really care about is being popular.

Oh yeah... Like a natural-birth version of a dance off. The "labor-off" ...I would totally do it to Salt and Peppa's "push it good" and kick most mama's butts on the dance floor yo.

[Arwyn]

In the first half of the 20th century, feminists saw childbirth as a battleground for human rights and advocated powerfully for better access to anesthesia and technologically advanced medical care, according to research from University of Florida-based historian and anesthesiologist Donald Caton. Within a few decades, infant and maternal deaths plummeted by 99 percent.

YES! I knew it! DING DING DING!!!! We have achieved deliberate confusion of correlation and causation! Give the writer a prize!