HW 38- Insights from pregnancy and birth book part 1

So far, the book titled Born In The USA by Marsden Wagner, the author has structured the book so that information about the roles of obstericians is revealed first, followed by the pros and cons of dealing with birth in the way that these doctors are trained to handle it. The main question that the book is trying to answer is made clear on the cover of the book, "How a broken maternity system must be fixed to put women and children first." In otherwords, this book is observing the flaws in the current system of dealing with pregnancy and birth as well as the dominant social practices, (that are not as normal as I would have thought) and looking at possible improvements to the system. I expect that many of the other books are dealing with a similar topic and question, but from what I have read of one of the other books, Born In The USA does not use as many real-life experiences (so far) and has stuck strictly to the facts and analysis, aside from the very beginning of the book and a couple other situations.

In my opinion, the major insight of (about) the first 100 pages of the book has been that although the practice of obstericians is extremely important, they should not be the ones to handle "normal" childbirth; in otherwords a birth where medical treatment is not necessary to save either the mother or the child. Quotes such as, "Many surgeons believe a surgical cut to be better than a natural tear, although scientific data has proven otherwise," (Wagner, 56) are scattered throughout the first 100 pages, and represent the overestimation of how helpful all of the obsteric intervention really is. There are many points in the book so far that have got me thinking. The author's opinion on epidural's is one of them; for example, on page 54, she asks "Is epidural block safe? Epidural can hardly be called "safe" when close to one-quater (23 percent) of women receiving it have complications." (Wagner, 54) I never would have imagined that the percentage could be that high, considering all the people I know who have recieved an epidural, including my mother. Not even the movie we are watching in class has looked on the subject in such a light. (Or at least not yet) As far as evidence goes, the author of this book has done a stupendous job so far. There have been at least five large, detailed tables of statistics to prove Dr. Wagner's point. However, the source of this information is not always clear, but the position of the author leads me to believe that the information is accurate. Also, the real-world examples that the author provides are extremely powerful. There is an extremely good example on page 84 (I won't quote it because it is too long) that deals with a young married couple who's pregnancy went smoothly when the day that the mother was due had finally arrived. The two practicing obstericians practicing in the town decided that pitocin, and epidural, and an epistotomy needed to be executed even though there was not scientific evidence that there was a problem. The baby ended up being vaccumed out and was diagnosed with severe brain damage, all because of this unnecessary intervention.