HW 40 - Insights from Book - Part 3

"Hey Tina Cassidy thanks for writing Birth. Your idea that a natural process which women are capable of doing on their own has turned into a nightmarish industrial atrocity, persuaded me to think differently about hospital births."

Tina: 

"Really, which parts were most effective or important for you?"

"Well, in the last third of the book you focused on postpartum depression and the history of a fathers role in the birthing process, which have outstanding connections to the first 2/3rd of the book. More specifically, the historical aspect of men being aloud in the birth place. I found it interesting that since ancient times fathers did not participate in the birthing process.(p.32) These women had no option of the support of a father. So why is it that modern women find it easer to give birth with there husbands present. (p.198)

2. The placenta cocktail mentioned in page 219 most definitely caught my attention. With all due respect it made me want to barf. But then i thought about how most mammals do this. They just don't mix it with ice and V-8 juice."

Tina:

 "But what could I have done to make this a better book - that would more effectively fulfill its mission?"

"Well, let's be clear - your text sought to provide narratives, historical analysis, journalistic analysis and policy analysis from the perspective of (doctors, mothers, fathers and more) for the book-reading-public to better understand pregnancy & birth in our culture. Given that aim, and your book, the best advice I would give for a 2nd edition of the text would be, to add to your appendix. I loved having the information about maternal death but seeing more statistics may have been useful. For example, I would have liked to see statistics on infant mortality by nation, and breast feeding verses non-breast feeding infant health. But I don't want you to feel like I'm criticizing. I appreciate the immense amount of labor you dedicated to this important issue and particularly for making me think about the women whose child was devoured by a rat in the primitive days of hospital births & causing me to think about the benefits of a home birth. In fact, I'm likely to visit a birthing ward and volunteer with new born babes as a result of your book. This will not only give me good experience but i will also use this as a way of learning more about the topic."

Tina:

 "Thanks! Talking to you give me hope about our future as a society!"

HW 38 - Insights from pregnancy & birth book - part 1

1) The book Birth by Tina Cassidy, is organized into nine chapters and an appendix with a list of about one hundred countries their maternal mortality rates. She discusses the negative aspects of typical birth in our country. The first few chapters focus on historical and evolutionary aspects of birth. It then, in chapter three, starts talking about the modern atrocities of birth.

2) The question Tina Cassidy answered is, How can I "figure out how to give birth in a way that is--simultaneously and consistently--safe, minimally painful, joyful, and close to nature's design?"
I like how she acknowledges that some sort of pain relief as a priority of many women. The movie we are watching does not do this. I think this is important because most american women expect pain relief as a part of a humane birth experience. Even if all evidence points to the contrary, it is important for the book to be relatable for women in our country.

3) The major insight the book tries to portray is that birth, a natural experience only for women, has been horridly taken over by male doctors. Tina Cassidy demonstrates a poor immigrant women named Mary Conner, being used as a guinea pig to test the new pain reducing techniques. As she was slipping in and out of consciousness the doctors were pre occupied and failed to notice that she had given birth. She also failed to notice until she regained conciseness and said she felt that she had delivered a stillborn. The doctor came to examine her.
"She stated she thought her child was born. I immediately examined and found the child beneath the hips of the mother, in a lifeless condition, and mutilated, apparently by rats. In the position ware the child was, life could have existed but a few moments." (p.55)

4) KEY POINTS:

Evolution Effecting birth:

One of the first points brought up in Birth is that human females have a smaller hip size to baby head size ratio then our monkey like ancestors. This ratio imbalance is caused by the two characteristics that make humans remarkably distinct from apes.The first being smaller hips due to the ability to stand upright. The second being huge baby heads to accommodate larger brains which make us more intelligent. These two traits are something people tend to be proud of. Why is it that we don't imbalance labor pains associated with this?

Creation of C-section: 

Something that most celebrates and rich women chose to do over natural birth, originally spread because people the catholic church valued the fetuses life more then the mothers. This was because the fetus was unbaptized and they believed if it died the baby would remain in purgatory for eternity. So it originated out of something that was expected to kill women.

Males role in birth:

Males have had a swaying role in the birthing process. Up until recently it was considered odd for men to join their partner in the birth process. I think it would be interesting to learn why men were all the sudden allowed to witness birth. This is discussed in a chapter that I have not gotten up to yet.

Disposal of afterbirth:

In many cultures women have been instructed to labor over hay in a barn. This practice includes, women of the southern USA and all over europe. This practice has only taken place by women who were poor. They do this out of disgust of the placenta.

5) The author offers statistical evidence to support ideas that require straightforward evidence. She also incorporates her personal experience to give examples of how she felt during birth. I would say that all and all she is good at balancing logical evidence and statistical evidence appropriately. Although sometimes she incorporates her personal opinion. 

HW 36 - Pregnancy & Birth Stories

Interview #1

One thing I initially noticed was that the first interviewee T was far more open about her opinions then all of the teen interviewees. I assume she has told this story many times so it may come easer to her then teenagers who do not fully know what their perspectives are.

I started the interview by saying:

How did pregnancy effect you physically and emotionally?

T: I was very sick the first three months. Every morning no matter what I threw up. I sometimes had to give my self an extra hour in the morning so I could throw up before I had to go to work. Emotionally I was just overwhelmed with joy and excitement. It was one of the happiest times of my life."

This demonstrates the battle of emotional joy and physical pain that occurs when during pregnancy and birth. This seems to be a trent in all of the interviewees's experiences.

Me: Did you encounter mood swings?

T: No. Not that anyone told me about. But I did have anxiety about being able to provide the best life possible for the child. 

What I think she meant by saying that was that she didn't think that she had hormonal mood swings yet she did have mood swings, or deep swaying thoughts, relating to her situation.

Me: DId anyone say anything to make you nervous?

T: Yes! The doctor recommended all of these books about what could possibly go wrong during pregnancy and that really caused me to be nervous. The books did not help me have a baby or be a mother. The books only helped me learn more about what will happen physically.

Me: Would you say you had a stressful pregnancy?

T: No just when my husband had to move to a different city because of work with out my husband for a few months. The only difficult part was being alone.

All of the women I interviewed said that part of the reason they chose to become pregnant was because of there husbands. It is evident that it is easier to rase a child with two parents and all of the women seemed to hate it the most when they felt alone.

Me:What is something you remember about giving birth?

The nurse and my husband miscounting when they were counting my breaths. He'd be saying 'one' while she was saying 'three'. 

Interview #2

R is a woman who has given birth three times. During the interview we didn't specify which birth we were discussing so it just was about her birth experience in general. I asked her how birth effected her physically and emotionally. She said "Physically it started with intense nausea. Then the nausea stooped and everything tasted weird. Emotionally I was really excited. I think I got a little crabby." Like the woman in the first interview she read books about the process of giving birth. She had a better experience with the books then M. She happily mentioned, "The Bradley method". After further research I found that the Bradley method is a company that teaches classes to soon to be parents. Then we discussed the actual act of birth. She said that she liked having a midwife. For one of her births she went to a hospital and she felt like she was being treated for a "disease". The conversation then led to what caused her desire to have kids. She said "love for the person I was with"

One thing I found interesting about R's interview was that she said that what sparked most of her desire to have children was the fact that she was with someone she loved. The other women I interviewed all said that they had wanted children for other reasons. I noticed that the most common story I encountered was that women went about 30 years without wanting children and then bam! They all the sudden wanted to have kids. I can only assume that R had her children at a younger age then the other women I interviewed so she would not have the same hormonal "flashes" of thoughts of being a mother.

hw 35

What are the psychological issues that can be caused by birth?

New mothers can get something called postpartum depression. From what I have heard, this can result in a mother feeling anxiety because she feels that she is an inadequate parent. I wonder if that feeling of inadequacy often comes from the expectations mothers instill in themselves from our society. That would make the feeling of inadequacy a cause of postpartum depression which would account for the increase in amount of women who are diagnosed with postpartum depression. After reading the list of symptoms of postpartum depression from webmd.com, I notice that all of the feeling towards a patients baby are feelings that someone gets when they are around anyone for extended periods of time. I am sure that there is a cretin amount of pressure that comes with being around your own child but that could all connect back to our social obligations to be perfect parents. A question I would like to answer over the course of the unit is how do social obligations effect our mental health when it comes to child birth?

Another aspect of birth I would like to look further into throughout the unit is statistics on infant mortality, birth trauma, and maternal death. I had a discussion with my mothers friend who is a midwife who claims that home births reduce the risk of infant and maternal mortality. I have yet to find statistics on this but I remain optimistic about the claim. Even though women have been able to do births on their own sense the beginning of man kind we seem to have a desire to be assisted. What causes this pressure to get as much assistance with an act that seems to come naturally? It is the desire to do what is best for your unborn child. So I stand inconclusive on wether home birth is healthier then hospital births but I intend on researching the topic. 

HW 31 - Comments 3

To Elizabeth

''The oldest definition was recorded around 1200 meaning, 'morally evil'"
When I read this it reminded me of how people used to think that if someone was sick that they were possessed by the devil or some evil spirits.

To Javon 

I liked how you discussed a very basic part of illness and dying. Families response. "Before this Interview I could have imagined that my brother being that he is so young would have been more affected and more hurt by the death of his mother than my grandmother was."

HW 30 - Illness & Dying - Culminating Experiential Project

The goal of my project was to further examine the differences between allopathic and homeopathic health care. When we discussed the dominant discourse we looked at acupuncture as less commonly thought of as the normal health care. For my project I focussed on the healthcare aspect of illness and dying. As the illness part is usually avoided through some form of health care. Over a long weekend I chose to interview people who work for different types of health care. One is a doctor who specializes  in dealing with premature new borns and the other is a acupuncture student approaching the end of her education. The doctor was to represent the dominant social practices and the acupuncture therapist was to represent the un-dominant social practices. 

In the movie Sicko by Michel More he discussed primarily the downfalls of United States insurance companies. He discusses doctors being forced to abandon there values because of the insurance companies. He shows the negative only (not that there is much of a positive).After seeing Sicko I was shocked to see that these insurance companies usually pay for acupuncture. "They look at it as preventive health care." That seemed to strongly appose the evil portrayal of the health care companies in Michel Mores  movie.  

During my interview with the doctor I saw that she had struggled with health insurance companies. Yet usually the insurance companies deal with the patients parents after the procedures have been done. I asked her if she has ever encountered a patient whose insurance company refused to pay for a necessary treatment. She responded yes and said you can usually fight back. 

For some reason i was under the impression that homeopathic and allopathic clashed more then they actually do. Both the doctor and the acupuncture student accepted that their profession dealt with different aspects of health. The acupuncture therapist said that acupuncture and chinese medicine is great for preventive health care but "will never cure cancer." she says that acupuncture is great for pain relief. From the interviews I concluded that the two aspects do not necessarily need to follow the Homeopathic Vs Allopathic attitude. 

HW 29 - Reading and noting basic materials

international health care:

Sicko 

This country has so much pride for our democratic ways that have given us our world power status. Sense the beginning of the country immigrants have come here with the hope of passing on our democracy security to the next generation. For many countries universal health care came with their democracy. The film sicko by created by michel more demonstrates our countries health care compared to Canada, Cuba, United kingdom and france. These nations all have free, socialized, government funded, health care.

Although we did not see the section of Sicko filmed in cuba i chose to watch it on my own time. We did not watch this part in class because (I think) michel moor discusses how he wants "to be treated like Al-Qaeda." This part showed uninsured 911 first responders receiving medical care from doctors of another country. These people were sobbing at the generosity of the medical personal. Michel more reefers sarcastically to cuba as a, "godforsaken third world country" Then latter reveals the service it does to its people. Michel more does a good job in using music, tone and sarcasm to show his point.

I was first confronted with the idea of universal healthcare when i was on an 8th grad trip to costa rica and i got a flew. I had a 102 degree fever and a sour throat for a weak. I went to the doctor and they did not ask to see anything. Not my health care card or passport or social security or anything but my name. I got prescribed antibiotics for free. This treatment was free for me because I am and was under 18.

Effect of dieting on family:

Everyones process of ding is different. When family of Jamaica Kincaid brother was dieting it brought them closer together. She began to admit that she loves him. It is a wonderful demonstration of the different ways death can be interpreted. It proves that in the end we all end up dead. Jamaica Kincaid showed the process of her brother dieting. "I loved him" she admits.