I'm sure you don't mean it this way, but you've no idea how shocked I am 
by this comment.

Let's not through the baby out with the bathwater.  Modern medicine has 
saved the lives of many a mother, and their baby.  My own great 
grandmother died after childbirth of a complication that would have been 
treated simply and quickly today by a course of anti-biotics.  I 
probably would have died of the same complication without said 
anti-biotics.  And my epidural saved me from unendurable agony that was 
ripping my mind apart.

Pain relief is needed when it is needed - there is no one size fits all 
solution to the problems and challenges of life. Caeserians save lives 
that would have been lost without them. 

Billions of women have had wonderful uninterrupted births through the 
millennia.  Millions have died in agony and their babies have died with 
them.  Childbirth is fraught with danger for some, and medical 
intervention is required for them.  As human beings, we have evolved our 
intellects and brains faster than our bodies have caught up 
biologically.  We're barely into an age when enough calories for life 
has given rudimentary health for some, never mind all! 

Over medicalised hospital care as a result of insurance policy driven 
medical protocols is a terrible thing, and needs completely broken down 
and made over.

But to suggest that hospitals and the need for considered medical care 
to support any individual mother or baby, is a 'lack' on the part of the 
mother, is to continue to remove power from women in making their own 
informed choices.  It is to continue to lay blame at the door of the 
mother for her shortcomings.  Not every woman can birth safely without 
medical help, and to suggest otherwise is just as one-sided as stating 
that every woman needs such intervention.

As I said, I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, I understand your 
feelings and your own personal  history.  All am asking for is a little 
respect for others in their feelings, personal history and informed 
choices on their birthing status.  :-)

My sharpness is not directed at you Angela :-), but I've heard the 
"Luckily I've got a high pain threshold" comment combined with the 
"hospital is for weak people" comments a little too often recently... 
imposed intervention is a terrible thing.  But it is possible to both 
need it, and choose it.

Morgan Gallagher


Angela Alfe wrote:
>  Hospitals are for people who cannot do for themselves.
>
>   

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