The medicalization of pregnancy and childbirth is an occurrence that started in the 19th century and still continues today. It is taking the normal natural occurrence of
pregnancy and
childbirth and making it
an illness in need of medical attention. For thousands of years women have given birth safely with the help of
midwives, friends, and relatives outside of hospitals. But in recent years it has become expected (98% of children are currently born in a hospital) that women are to have babies in a hospital under a physician's eye,
attached to monitors,
given drugs, and given
episiotomies. Women are called patients and admitted to hospitals. Mortality rates have dropped for lots of reasons not just moving birthing to hospitals. Some of these reasons are prenatal care, nutrition, women's health, and the understanding of the woman's body.
Medicalization has its benefits, but it also has created many
problems for women during birth.
In the hospital much of the dignity was taken from childbirth. Women also cannot control their own health and body in a hospital. Women are
shaved, and sliced for reasons that have no real support. For instance episiotomies are often performed so that a woman won’t tear during birth. It's like
burning down your own house so someone else won't. In studies women heal better and faster without episiotomies, have less pain during
sex months later, and have more comfort in the few weeks after childbirth. They are also covered up and draped so that the doctor would only see
a vagina instead of the entire woman. Pregnant women became subjects to the
patriarchal world that we live in, where medicine rules over nature. Traditionally women have given birth squatting or standing, due to
the medicalization of childbirth women now are forced to give birth laying down with their
feet in the air (a position made popular by a
rich and powerful man years ago because he wanted to stand behind a curtain and get a good look at his wife birthing their child). This position allows the doctor to stand or sit without having to put much physical effort into the birth, by bending his/her back. But the position actually makes going through the labor and childbirth
more difficult for women. She must push her
baby in an uphill fashion going against
gravity. In the
hospital, women are usually attached to machines and monitors. This is a sort of
bondage for women. Her body is working extremely hard and she is stuck to the bed in what could be an uncomfortable position for her. When women have the chance they usually prefer to
walk, move, bathe, and bend during labor and birth.
The reason that so many women today still have children in hospitals is because there is a
lack of options, the idea that a woman won’t be able to take the
pain, and that our culture does not support home births. There are fewer
midwives available today. And most of us still think that all births should be under a doctor’s close watch. In actuality
midwives are just as reliable if not more for
low risk women. Let me repeat for low risk women. They spend an average of 50 hours with women before the actual delivery, while doctors spend an average of 5. Midwives are about 1/2 to 1/3 of
the cost of doctors. They perform less
C-sections, episiotomies, and other surgeries.
Hollywood portrays only the most painful and difficult of childbirth and therefore women begin to think that they will not be able to take the pain. The pain may be intense, but many
women today want to be
alert enough to remember their delivery. With the ability to sit in
warm water, and move around more women can deliver their children without drugs.
The medicalization of pregnancy is only one of the many aspects of
women's health that has been turned into an
illness and something that a
woman can no longer control.