Pat young wrote:
< . . . .In the late 1960's/early 1970's I was a proud member of the
board of our
local CEA group. We accomplished so much with classes for parents.
Fathers got to go into delievery rooms, hospitals became more family
centered, birth became a very empowering time for women. We actively
coordinated with the local LLL groups.. . . . . . . >
<In the 30 years since I have seen steady and subtle changes in
childbirth classes and hospital deliveries. Changes for the worse.
Birth is no longer a highlight of a woman's life, an empowering
experience, it is "how to know exactly at what time I can get my
epidural, have my pit and get this over with". . . . . . .>
< I am so sad that ICEA, one of the original pioneers in this area, is
now an "institution",
bound by greed and complacency. That ICEA has lost its vigor and become
part of the system. That ICEA can be bought. Thirty years ago nothing
would have deterred us from our mission.>
I, too, was active with our local CEA, affiliated with ICEA, in the late
'60's, early 70's, and I remember it exactly as you described it Pat. We
were considered countercultural rebels by much of the obstetrical
establishment.
It seemed to me the death knell of our local organization when hospitals
decided "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." They caught on that they
could profit and manipulate the "party line" by offering their own
classes entirely within the boundaries of their institutions.
I never dreamed that ICEA itself would ever become a party to this kind
of teaching. I bet dear Doris Haire must be turning over in her grave
now. I wonder what she would say if she were writing about "The Cultural
Warping of Childbirth" today.
Just as an aside, and an example of our present epidural craving culture,
I recently saw a mother of a 3 month old. She had previously nursed 3
other children without difficulty. The particular breastfeeding
discomfort she is experiencing now may be of multiple origins, one of
them, ductal candidiasis, so I am not indicting her epidural as a reason
for her problems.
But I literally gasped in amazement at her birth story. The nurse had
turned up the sound on this mother's monitor so she could hear the baby's
heartbeat. She had an epidural, and had recently received "a pretty
strong dose" when she buzzed the nurse that "she had lost the heartbeat."
The nurse came in, joined the mother in looking at the monitor, and while
she was trying to adjust the mother's position to try to change the
situation, it came to everyone's attention that the baby was lying
silently in the bed, facedown between the mother's legs.
The mother, totally numb from the epidural, never felt the baby, during,
or following the birth!. Neither the mother nor anyone else had any real
clue as to when or how the baby had been born, or how long he had been
lying there when the mother rang the buzzer.
And the mother seemed to tell this story as if it were evidence of how
good that extra strong dose of epidural medication had been!
Much of our current childbearing population (including several of my own
children and their spouses) has been thoroughly "snowed" by the
profit-making propaganda of "painless childbirth", sad examples of
"learned helplessness" where labor and birth are concerned.
And sadly, they will pass this down to their children as "the real way"
to bear babies. Many don't even bother taking classes, since they know
epidurals will be available. Worse yet, as a consequence, many who bypass
classes get virtually no prenatal teaching about breastfeeding.
K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC
Dayton, Ohio USA
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