Delivering a Baby without Medication
by Kelley Granger, June 01, 2009
Of all the different childbirth methods that exist, there seems to be a common belief that threads them together: Women know how to give birth, and they can do it without medication and without fear. Still, research continues to confirm alarming trends involving medical interventions in the birthing process. The National Center for Health Statistics released a report in January revealing the birth trends for 2006, which found that 22.5 percent of births in this country used induction (medication to enhance labor)—double what it was in 1990—and a cesarean delivery rate that rose to an all-time high of 31.1 percent of all births. Once a woman has had a C-section, research indicates that her next birth will be done by caesarian 92 percent of the time, often without attempting normal delivery.
For Jennifer Houston, a certified nurse-midwife from Catskill, these interventions are all part of a modern misconception that birth is a medical event. “Doctors are practicing a medical model—they’re selling services,” she said. “They’re keeping an eye out for danger and they’re looking through a filter of pathology. Medicine makes birth pathology, and it’s not pathology. It becomes pathology when it’s not supported.” While hospitals and medication certainly have roles to play in risky pregnancies and abnormal labor and delivery scenarios, they are simply not necessary for the average, normal birth.
read more at :
http://www.hvhealthyliving.com/issue/2009/6/Healthy+Living+Feature/Trusting-the-Birthing-Body
