From: nelson@cheetah.ece.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson)
Subject: Re: "back to nature" movement
Reply-To: nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu (aka NELSON@CLUTX.BITNET)
Fcc: ~/News/outgoing
Organization: Clarkson University
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 05:06:46 GMT

[ check out the dates here.  I'm finally posting this because tempers may have
  cooled since then. -russ ]

In article <1991Jun18.234759.905700@locus.com> judy@locus.com (Judy Leedom Tyrer) writes:

   So, she has read all the PC magazines and doesn't eat red meat,
   recycles, uses cloth diapers, breast fed her first child until he
   was one, etc.  She actually believes Ed Begley built an electric
   car for under $3000.  We love her and have some lively debates
   since we are not PC, but get much of our information from the
   original journals or at least barely digested.

The term "Politically Correct" (I assume you're not talking about Personal
Computers) comes from an attempt to live a life in harmony with ones
values.  I would guess, then, that you're either using the term
differently than I understand it, or else you don't let your values
interfere with your day-to-day life.

   Well, I am angry at this whole "back to nature" movement that has decided
   doctors are evil and there is never any reason for medical intervention.

Well!  That's about as stupid as unnecessary C-sections!  There is a
time and place for everything.  There are some pregnancies where the
mother and baby are going to die unless the baby is born via
C-section.  On the other hand, there are many, many more babies born
via C-section that simply weren't necessary.   Or rather, before the
mother went into the hospital the C-section wasn't necessary.

   I am angry at the VBAC movement for misusing statistics to indicate that
   C-sections are evil and "true women have vaginal births".

C-sections aren't "evil", they're "just" major surgery.  Why have major
surgery when it can be avoided?

   ANd I am angry because these people influenced my best friend and
   now she and her baby are suffering because of it!  You see, my best
   friend's due date was her 40th birthday.  Her first child was
   delivered by C-section becuase after 52 hours of labor she was
   still not dilated becuase the baby couldn't fit through her pelvis.

The cervix is a muscle.  The pelvis is a bone.  What are you talking about?

   Now there was every reason to believe she would have a C-section again.  Her
   pelvis was no bigger.  The baby was the same size as her first.  All the 
   reasons she had the C-section the first time were there for the second.  In
   addition, she was five years older than before.  Even
   her midwife thought she would end up with a C-section.  But she believed the
   VBAC literature.  She believed she had failed as a woman the first time and
   had a terrible time overcoming both the guilt and the surgery itself.  

Sounds like she didn't trust her midwife.  Sounds like her friends didn't
support her (that's you).  So much of birth is in the mind that it's
conceivable that *you* caused her to fail.  There are times to convince
your friends that they're wrong, and there are times to support your
friends even when you know they're wrong.

   So now, instead of scheduling a C-section on her due date and spending her
   40th birthday with a beautiful, healthy, baby girl, she was one week late
   when she finally went into labor.  They let her labor for 33 hours at which
   time she was only 3 cm dilated.  Then they did a C-section.  THe baby was
   distressed during the labor and pooped.  It aspirated the meconium
   and ended up in intensive care.  My friend had a severe reaction to the 
   epidural (from having labored so long) and when her daughter was born she
   said she didn't even care.  All she could think about was not dying since
   she felt she was very close to not making it.  

Sounds like no fun.  Doesn't compare at all to my friend Gigi's homebirth
VBAC.

   And now she is in enormous pain, exhausted, and doesn't even have her baby
   to keep her company.  And I want you people who believe in all this vaginal
   birth is better crap to give me one good reason why this result is better
   than a scheduled C-section.  It isn't money since NICU is a whole LOT more
   expensive than the surgical costs.   

Not knowing much about your friend, her baby, her midwife, her doctor,
her hospital, etc...., I'm sure I couldn't come up with any reasons
why it might be better.

   The way I see it, there are these Ludite anti-doctor fanatics out

That's Luddite, after Ned Ludd.

   Still, I just wish people would think about the RESULTS of their
   actions, especially when those actions are dispensing opinions
   about things they know little about.  The medical community is not
   a bunch of greedy doctors trying to make a buck.

No, they're not.  But the sum of all the individual decisions made
by everyone involved is evil.  Birth is a normal part of life
(and sometimes death).  We have the technology to prevent those
deaths, but why is it misapplied to the normal births?

   Nor are all OBs out to deliver at their convenience.

But neither do you see OBs scheduling C-sections outside of normal working
hours.

   And having women suffer just to sell a book or make a point is
   cruel.

And implying that authors write books to make women suffer is cruel.

   FLAME OFF.  Sorry if any of you take this as a personal assault.  I hate
   to see people I love hurt unnecessarily, even if they caused it themselves.

Well shit, if *my* midwife says that Heather is going to the hospital,
we're going to the hospital.

[ By the way, she did, and we did.  Mother and baby are fine; he is now
sixteen months old and shows no sign of giving up nursing ]

--
--russ <nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> Companies persuade; Governments force.