I Don't Not Trust Doctors...

...it's just the obstetricians that I am a bit leery of.

Last week we started a childbirth class given by another doula in our doula's group (our doula happens to be a loooong time family friend of Harmony's family and the owner of that group). Our homework assignment for yesterday was to find someone in our grandparents' generation and ask her for any birth memories or stories. From what we heard from class members, many grandmothers apparently shared many negatives memories from their births. Not coincidentally, many of those women were of the era when twilight sleep was "the cool thing to do" in labor and delivery.

As the title says, it's not that I am distrustful of all doctors. I'm not even distrustful of all obstetricians. There is a time and place for their role, and may they be blessed in times when they are absolutely necessary. But you know, women have been giving birth for a long time without OBs.

I think comparing OBs and other flavors of doctor is in order. Consider: the "field" of human childbirth is almost as old Adam and Eve themselves. Other specialized fields of medicine like cardiology, oncology, and neurosurgery have only been made possible through modern technology. Before the modern era, no one ever did brain surgery with folk medicine. No shaman ever did surgery to remove nasopharyngeal tumors. Before the modern era (whenever that began, anyways), no doctors ever said anything like "well, judging by your test results, your H2 receptors are malfunctioning and causing malabsorption of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors this and that and btw your deoxyribonucleic acid is all whack and that's why your kids are ugly. ttyl kthxbye." But before OBs, women still had babies.

Much of my distrust comes from the fact that obstetricians have been wrong many times in the past, where if they had simply stepped back, things would have progressed just fine. Twilight sleep, knock-em-out-drag-em-out childbirths, the thought that formula is healthier than breast milk - those are a few examples. They have said "well, these are the best ways, and better than your body can do." Well, no, in fact, we find that they are not. They have been quite wrong in the past; what's to say that they are right to have cesarean rates of 39.6% (Piedmont Hospital, Atlanta, July 2006 - June 2007)!

(the hospital we chose had a rate of 22.8% - the lowest among Atlanta area hospitals, and not coincidentally, the one most friendly towards natural methods and the one recommended to us by our doula)

So I guess my problem is interference where interference is not necessary (and by not necessary, I mean "really" not necessary, whatever you take that to mean). Judging by various videos I have watched and the ramblings of at least one expert doula, I personally do not believe that the number of cesarean births need to be as high as 40% in some cases.* But I'm not the expert by any measure. Don't trust a thing I say unless you yourself know it to be true. Do your own research, find what you want for yourself, and trust in God and your own body, unless you are an untrustworthy person.

* - Insert "they are really really necessary sometimes and you are not wrong to elect for one if that's what you want" disclaimer here.