Tree of Life Midwifery

Rediscovering Birth

Q: Why are you going to the hospital to have your baby? Why do you have an ultrasound every month? Why did your doctor perform an episiotomy? Why did you need a Caesarian?
A: Because that's the way it's done. It's normal.

In Rediscovering Birth social anthropologist, Sheila Kitzinger, examines pregnancy and birth throughout history and throughout the world to open our eyes to other birth traditions. The medical model of birth which dominates birth in the United States is not the way it's done in the rest of the world. It's not normal. It's certainly not natural. And there are lots of reasons why it might not be best for you or your baby.

Technology is fun. Boys love their toys. Technology invites use just by its existence, whether using it is appropriate. But technological intervention in the natural processes of pregnancy and birth is a two-edged sword. Although it might save lives in an emergency situation, emergency situations are in the minority. All that expensive equipment requires justification in the hospital budget. So now every pregnancy and birth is treated as an emergency, a potential for disaster. What were once emergency medical practices have become routine practices, administered to every one whether or not there is a medical necessity. However, technological intervention in a normal pregnancy and birth usually results in complications and injuries to both mother and child. Just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should.

"...(a mother's) body is treated as a machine whish is constantly at risk of breaking down. The safe removal of the baby from the maternal body which threatens it depends on the expertise of a group of professionals with a closed and esoteric system of knowledge. So birth is a medical, and often surgical event. Each woman having a baby in hospital is transformed into a patient."--Sheila Kitzinger