The Birth Environment

It is amazing today that our lives are governed by science and yet we are in the worst health of our entire evolution. I look at articles and research papers and wonder how did we get here? Some of the most brilliant minds are doing things that most people would break a rib laughing if they thought about it for two seconds. This article is one of those examples and highlights the illusion we can create in the name of science. I have many examples of cases where what I see in my clinic goes against the so called ‘research’ and yet you are treated like the devil incarnate for even suggesting anything outside the party line. Anecdotal evidence where someone has an experience is not well respected in today’s modern science. The gold standard is the double blind which I find hilarious because at times you sit and think you would have to be doubly blind to see it that way.

Your pregnancy will throw up theories from every corner and from people you never dreamt of. The key is do your own research, believe your own anecdotal evidence and think about it using common sense. Then help the professionals understand what is required to support these Mums to have a really great experience and be proud of their births. What about that baby having a really positive welcome to the world instead of having to deal with a body full of drugs for the first few days? Our modern day approach to childbirth proudly purports the advances made and fancy stats to convince us. But at what cost to Mum and baby? The car may be a great technological advancement but it has killed more people than all the world wars put together. Everything in life has a double edge. When you read the article below you will see that the environment we have created for women does not actually make sense but at least we have some fancy machines to monitor the possible dangers!   CC.

Everyone knows that cats need to give birth undisturbed in a dark, secluded place – perhaps preparing a softly lined box in the darkest corner of the furthest room underneath the bed. And everyone who knows about cats understands that you must never disturb a cat in labour or a newly delivered cat and her litter of kittens. Otherwise the cat’s labour will stop or she may reject her kittens. Everyone knows this.

But just imagine that one day, quite a long time ago, a group of well-meaning scientists decided that they wanted to study how cats give birth. So they asked anyone who had a cat, that when she went into labour to bring them to their laboratory – a brightly-lit, noisy, modern scientific laboratory where scientists could study them, by attaching lots of monitors and probes, surrounding them by strange technicians constantly coming in and out with clipboards…. In the laboratory, the labouring cats could hear the sound of other cats in distress, and there were no private dark corners for them to retreat to, but only rows of brightly-lit cages under constant scrutiny of the scientists.

And the scientists studied the labouring cats in their brightly-lit cages for many years, and saw that their labours were erratic, how they slowed down and even stopped, and how heartbreakingly distressed the cats were. Their mews and their cries were terrible. They saw how many of the kittens were deprived of oxygen and were born shocked and needing resuscitation. And, after many years the scientists concluded  “well, it seems that cats do not labour very well.”

Then, because the scientists were caring people and wanted to help the poor cats, they invented lots of clever machines to improve the cats’ labours, to monitor the oxygen levels in the kittens. They invented pain-killing drugs and tranquillisers to ease the poor cats’ distress, and drugs to make labour become regular and stop it slowing down. They even developed clever emergency operations to save the distressed kittens’ lives.

The scientists wrote scientific papers which told everyone about the difficulties they had observed and how cats do not give birth very well, and all about the clever feline birth technology they had invented. The newspapers and television spread the word, and soon everyone started bringing their cats to the laboratory in labour, because of all their clever feline technology and of how many kittens’ lives they had saved. Looking round at all the complicated technology, people were heard to say, ”this must be the safest place in the world for cats to give birth in.”

Years passed, and the workload at the scientists’ laboratories grew busier and busier. They had to take on new staff and train them in their feline labour techniques, and slowly the original scientists grew old and retired. But sadly the new up-and-coming technicians didn’t know about the original experiment; they didn’t even know it was an experiment. They had never seen cats giving birth in softly-lined boxes in the furthest, darkest corner of the furthest room – why, what a dangerous idea! They were absolutely convinced that cats do not give birth very well without a lot of technical assistance – why, think of all the years of scientific evidence they had collected – and would go home at night feeling very pleased with themselves for all their clever and good work in saving cats’ and kittens’ lives.

Anderson, T 2002 Out of the laboratory: back to the darkened room
MIDIRIS Midwifery digest 12 (1) 65-69
Reprinted with kind permission © MIDIRS, 2003