Birth in the Media

Let us bring them into harsh rooms with bright lights. Let us make them lie on their backs on hard narrow beds. Let us tether them to machines so they cannot move. Let us make them stay silent and make no noise with their pains. Let us expose their most private parts and threaten them with cold steel. Let us make them push their babies upwards, against the pull of the earth…In these conditions, labour swiftly becomes unbearable and pain relief becomes a woman’s only hope…This is not the natural cry of a woman in labour brining a child to birth., although if you have only ever witnessed childbirth in a medicalized setting you might be forgiven for thinking so. This is the screaming plea of a tethered animal in pain.

I cannot count the number of times I've asked a patient if she took childbirth classes only to have her respond "No, but I watched a Baby Story every day!" and have actually had a couple inform me "That's not the way they did it on A Baby Story".