--- In hudvalleybirthnetwork@yahoogroups.com, Janet Donat <donatjanet@...>
wrote:
>
> I apologize that I didn't include more info regarding the article in the New
Yorker. I was
dashing out the door and didn't have time to run up and get the magazine that
was still on
my bedside table from the night before.
>
> For those interested, the article The Score: The effort to make childbirth
safer written
by Atul Gawande (who I assume is a MD) appears in the October 9th issue of the
New
Yorker magazine. (There is a drawing of airplanes flyling over the Vermont
countryside on
the cover).
>
> Janet
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail.
>
Thanks, Janet, for recommending the article. It is available for free online
from the New
Yorker website, I just downloaded it. Atul Gawande is an MD-- he is a surgeon. I
read a
very interesting book he wrote about some of his patients called Complications.
I had a bit of a different reaction to the article. I actually think it is a
fairly good
representation of what has happened in obstetrics in this country, as sad as
that is. I didn't
sense that he was advocating this trend, just reporting it. Am I being too nice?
I think that doctors, lawyers, and patients are all turning away from bodies and
intuition
and looking to technology to rescue them from something that they might not
actually
need to be rescued from. It's scary and sad. An article like this can be a good
jumping-off
point for discussion in classes and during OB appointments. We can't turn this
situation
around until people acknowledge that it is happening. People also need to take
responsibility for 1) their own behavior and 2) the impossibility of
guaranteeing that
everything will be perfect WITHOUT BLAMING OTHERS AND SUING!!
I just started reading a recently-published book called Birth, which seems to be
a history
of birthing practices and practitioners in this country. So far it is very
interesting, I'm not
sure what the tone will end up being. Has anyone else read it? Several centuries
ago
people just expected that they and/or their baby had a huge chance of not
survivng birth.
Midwives were revered and feared for their ability to save mothers and babies
when no one
else could (hence being called witches.) I'm so glad I am living now, and not
then, but we
have really, really lost something over the years...it's like King Midas...too
much
knowledge and technology, where has it left us?
Kathy