Sue Ann Kendall brought this up most delicately. Thanks, Sue Ann. One of
our biggest problems, I think, is the conflicts we have with the hospital
staffs over the issue of pain. As medical professionals, most feel
(whether they acknowledge it or not) that one of their biggest
obligations is to minimize patient pain. (And their patients have also
come to have the same view, ie that they "deserve" minimization of pain
when they labor to deliver.) Unfortunately, in obstetrics there
are two patients. Minimizing 1 patient's pain may put the 2nd patient at
medical risk. I feel that this problem has been dodged or buried for many
years, and with disasterous effects which are only beginning to be
studied now, with final results many years in the future. Our generation(s)
are being experimented on in so many ways, and I have great fears for the
future. Our struggles now with sleepy babies and breast refusal are small
potatoes in the long run..... Judy K. in Israel, in Cassandra's robes.....