HW 40 - Insights from Book - Part 3

Hey! You’re Tina Cassidy right? Oh my god! I can’t believe it’s actually you! Thanks for writing Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born. Your entire book supported the argument that home birth or birth at a birthing center is a much better alternative than hospital birth which made me decide where I would want my child to be born. My SAT tutor made fun me when I told him my history class about birth but when I explained to him how intricate your book is how you take the reader through a journey depicting how society has stigmatized birth to be something like a disease instead of a miraculous and beautiful part of life. It surprised me that there are so many things about birth that I did not know prior to reading your book.

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

The duties of the father chapter, which started on page 198 I believe, was simply fabulous. It gave me a proper idea as to what I can do when I am a father. The part I found most interesting was about how the role some fathers play can affect how painless the birthing process can be for the mother and the child. Just being there for emotional support can mean so much more to the mother than when the father just sits in the waiting room. It was also very interesting to learn about how other cultures and how our culture in another time periods felt about the father being in the delivery room. I think that was around pages 206-211, but I’m not sure. I found your sub-chapter on couvade syndrome fascinating, which I distinctly remember to be page 210 because I had it bookmarked. I find the concept of a father feeling similar symptoms as the mother during the birthing process very interesting and I wonder if I will ever experience something similar. I think your book is just fascinating and I bet it educated a lot of the common people to be somewhat more learned about the world around them.

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

Oh man… There are almost no flaws in this book but one thing that stuck out to me when reading was that the book seemed one sided. I felt as if you used a lot of statistical evidence to prove your point but the context of the evidence wasn’t the same. For example, when you were talking about maternal death rates, you compared evidence from a small town doctor hundreds of years ago to modern government issued to evidence. I thought that to be a little iffy. If you ever right a new book or revise this book, I think you should change some of the sources you used as evidence. 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 how society has changed from thinking birth is a miracle to stigmatizing birth by introducing modern techniques and interventions. Before reading your book, I had no idea as to what a birthing center was or what midwives were and now that I am more aware of today’s industrialized hospital system, I am definitely going to try and urge my future partner  to give birth either at home or in a birthing center.

HW 39 - Insights from Book - Part 2

MLA Citation: Cassidy, Tina. Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born . 1. Grove Press, 2007. Print.


     Just like every book and movie, the book had much more details about everything the movie discussed plus some additional information. One example of the additional information is: The historical aspects that surround birth and how homo sapiens have presumably changed from how they used to give birth to how they give birth now. The difference in diets between the first homo sapiens and the modern day woman plays a big role as to how their pelvises were and are shaped. One example of something that “The Business of Being Born” treated differently was that the movie started with some of the positive aspects of birth in hospitals. Some women in the intro said something along the lines of, “you go in and you come out”. Even though there was a lot of corny music playing in the background which degraded those women’s opinions, the movie still had some positives to say about birth in hospital while the book was completely biased about how birth should be handled the “natural” way. To sum it up, the book, Birth, had a lot more historical references that predates modern equipments (ie: forceps, sutures, fetal heart rate monitors) while the movie only discusses what happened in the past 100 years or so and all of its evidences are from statistics or stories that were passed down.


     I felt as if the book’s major insight in the mosh-pit of historical evidence was; how midwives struggled through the obnoxiousness of male doctors throughout history to get to the respected position they are at now. Another key insight was; over the course of recent history (100-150 years) doctors have had far less successful delivers compared midwives. This is of course relative to the ratio of women that went to “professional” doctor and to those that had midwives come to them. I personally believe that the stigmatization of midwives is mostly because midwives were women. I think if the first publicized midwives had picked a better name to represent themselves, they would have had much more success with the male dominated world of obstetricians. As for the second possible insight of the book, it is quite obvious as to why doctor have less successful deliveries than midwives. The doctors have no emotional attachment or any sentimental connection with the baby or the mother. Before lawsuits became popular, doctors probably didn’t even care if the baby had lived or died just as long they got paid.


Interesting Aspects of Pregnancy:
1. History of the caesarean section and where it is practiced (103)
2. Too Posh To Push (123)
3. Different types of forceps throughout history (168)
4. Optimal labor positions (181)
5. A father's duties (198)


Independent Research:
Throughout the book Cassidy gives a biased perspective on how home birth is better than hospital birth. I wanted to research more about that issue because that seems to be the main discourse in relation to birth. 
"... studies have suggested that planned home birth may be safe and with less interventions than planned hospital birth." (Olsen, Jewell) This statement agrees with the claims by Cassidy in Birth. I am inclined to agree with this statement because it looks at both planned hospital birth and planned home birth. Most hospital births are usually emergencies where the mom gets rushed into the OR for a C-Section just after she heard that her water just broke.  "Planned hospital birth may even increase unnecessary interventions and complications without any benefit for low-risk women." People rush to the hospital because it symbolizes a sense of safety which gives people the illusion that if you are in a hospital, you are safe. At least that is what the common people think. That is why it is not surprising that scholars and individuals with college level education prefer using a midwife than an OB/GYN.


Olsen O, Jewell D. Home versus hospital birth. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 1998, Issue 3. Art. No.: CD000352. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD000352

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

"The Surprising History of How We Are Born: Birth" by Tina Cassidy

How is the book organized?
In the introduction chapter of "Birth", Cassidy discussed how her experiences while she was pregnant mixed with stories she heard from her friends influenced her to write this book. From chapter one on, the book is very heavy on facts derived from personal stories and other primary and secondary sources such as history books.

Essential Question:
From what I have read so far, the question Cassidy wants to be able to answer, not necessarily with this book, is; How is it that "...we can touch the moon and predict the weather, map the human genetic code and clone animals, digitize a photograph and send it from Tokyo to Tehran with the touch of a button, but we can’t figure out how to give birth that is --simultaneously and constantly--safe minimally painful, joyful and close to natures design."?
- No one can really answer that question, but if I were to theorize, I would say it is because the human race is the most fit to progress in this world and the universe knew this when it created us, hence, the universe decided to give us a harder time when reproducing. Why? Maybe so we don't "breed like rabbits" and soon run out of resources to sustain our population yet all the other types of animals on the planet.

Major Insight:
I think the major insight that Cassidy tried to convey was the importance of midwifery in our society and how it isn't given enough attention.
Everyone needs help. No matter how experienced or confident you are at doing something, a little useful advice or a general push in the right direction never hurts. Some first time mothers may be skeptical at the idea of just one midwife being able to help her through this strenuous process and may eventually give in to the industrialized system of today's hospitals. Most common people would do this. Only people who are educated and well informed on how pregnant women are treated in hospitals will choose the natural and traditional process which is; being surrounded by their loved ones and a midwife who helps her through every step of the way.

Evidence Convincing?
I think the evidence is very convincing since Cassidy uses various primary sources such as stories from mothers who gave birth in hospitals, birthing centers, and at home. This helps the reader, it helped me, get a wider perspective on the whole birthing process and helped me see the pros and cons of every method or location. The author also used historical data to give threaders insights on how the common diet affect a woman's pregnancy. So far, I think the book is very convincing but I look forward to learning more about the pros of child birth in hospitals since that is he most common form of gin birth nowadays and so far in the book, Cassidy has only focused on the cons.

HW 37 Comments on Birth & Pregnancy Stories

From Sarwar Sarker (Mentor)
With due respect I want to say, often we male do a little thinking about pregnancy and birth related matters with some exceptions of course. I am happy that you have chosen this topic which will definitely enlighten you a lot. Mothers are really great people who take all the severe pain and hassles during pregnancy and during delivering the child.

You wrote, "I feel as if the only thing they could have done in the situation is hold the mother's hand or told the mother repeatedly how it would all be okay... Anyone who ever watched Grey's Anatomy can do that and I really think that just being there wouldn't give them a clearer idea as to what was actually going on", this has provoked me to remind you that like many of us you are ignoring precious bondage and emotional attachment between pregnant mother and beloved ones. Though mothers forget acute discomfort and pain due to pregnancy, while have their babies but the sacrifice they make is invaluable. Although, science has made delivery much safe, however, mothers in many occasions remain between death and live condition, especially if complicated medical condition exists.

I would also suggest you to interview more people including those who had been present in the labor room and who closely supported mother during pregnancy. These will give you more in-depth information and knowledge about pregnancy, birth complicacy and emotional attachments of mother and beloved people with the upcoming child.

Also suggest you to edit some words, like 'all of the responses from face-to-face or over the phone interviewees ...' as you haven't done any phone interview, in last para, first line and ‘However, the mother was no…’ in first para.

Again thanks for choosing a touchy topic to explore.

From Amanda (Ex-Group Member)
Hey Abdullah,
I think your best line is “I feel as if the only thing they could have done in the situation is hold the mother's hand or told the mother repeatedly how it would all be okay” this caused the most reaction out of all the other lines in your post, I think it certainly depends on the person father/spouse willingness to be in the delivery room. I know it would mean a hell of a lot for the father of my child to be in the room, yet to hold my hand maybe, but more so I know they had a closer to equal experience in the birthing process. Just because the man/woman isn’t the one giving birth doesn’t mean they should be allowed to be excluded from the process.
I found your post interesting because I enjoyed comparing and contrasting our interviews. when I first started to discuss birth and pregnancy with my interviewees I received a lot of information that I could have predicted such as, the couple attended birthing classes, or giving birth was difficult and it hurt, I also liked the line "All of the stories that my interviewees had told me just highlighted all the information that I already knew about birth and really did not give me any new insight." because I came across this problem early in my interviews, and enjoyed how you bluntly said I the interviews reaffirmed previous knowledge. You could possibly get past this in the future so you can gain deeper insight by asking the interviewees why they think they choose to go to a hospital.
Good work, Amanda.

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For Sarah (Group Member),
The most interesting point, in my opinion, was; "For one of her births she went to a hospital and she felt like she was being treated for a 'disease'." This started me thinking of how society usually looks at the process of birth as something that is very dangerous even though mankind has been going through it for ions. I enjoyed reading your post because I found many similarities between your interviews and my interviews. For example, the mothers talking about how difficult and strenuous the process was for her. I also liked your insight on how love should be a motivation for having a baby. I enjoyed reading your post and look forward to your future posts.

For Johnny (Group Member)
I found your post interesting because it had some clever insights on how stress can play a major role on the process of birth and the whole pregnancy extravaganza as a whole. I really think that the topic you chose to explore further is very interesting since it goes over a topic that is not only relevant to the world, but also relevant to us. I hope you achieve success with your future research.
Abdullah

HW 36 - Pregnancy & Birth Stories

For this assignment, I only interviewed women who are already mothers including a woman who is pregnant with her second baby. My mother, in her interview, which was done over email, shared with me some of the things she was thinking when she was very close to giving birth. She went over some of the dominant soical and religious norms and also mentioned how her entire family and my father's side of the family supported her the entire time. I also interviewed a woman on the train who was pregnant and also had a child who was clinging on to her hand very tightly. She shared with me some stories about the hardships that she faced when she was pregnant with her first child. She was a single at the time but she had full support from her family. The baby's grandmother was living with the mother during her last trimester and she never complained when she was woken up in the dead of night because the mother was in pain or even because the mother just wanted something to drink. The mother appreciated the full support of her family but she confessed that she always wished that the father of the baby could have been there with her through the difficult and tiring process. However, the mother was no happily married to a man who was very caring and helpful during her current pregnancy. I did not ask her why the first father had bailed out because she looked very happy and I didn't want to upset her. Both my mom and this lady gave birth in a hospital surrounded by doctors and family members.

I did not interview anyone who's only accomplishment was that they were present during the birth of a baby. I feel as if the only thing they could have done in the situation is hold the mother's hand or told the mother repeatedly how it would all be okay... Anyone who ever watched Grey's Anatomy can do that and I really think that just being there wouldn't give them a clearer idea as to what was actually going on. Sure they would have actually gotten to see the "beautiful" process but how's that different from just watching a birthing video? Bottom line, I really don't thing being present during a birth would give anyone special knowledge or insights on birth. I really wish I could have interviewed a professional doctor who was well educated about the topic but alas, I could not find one that wasn't busy with work up to the necks. All of the stories that my interviewees had told me just highlighted all the information that I already knew about birth and really did not give me any new insight.

All of the responses from the face-to-face or over the phone interviewees showed little insight which meant that they were only thinking in bubbles. This may be because they weren't fully prepared for the questions or because they were nervous. The interviews that I conducted over email showed bubbles being connected to form proper responses. This just goes to show how our society has changed so we are now more open to discuss things when there is a barrier between people. This change in my opinion is definitely an upgrade since the rapid development of technology will only decrease face-to-face interactions even less and people who do not adapt, will be left behind.

Going back to birth, I really think the only way someone can educated or enlighten another student about birth only if they have given birth themselves or if they are a doctor. Which really sucks for us guys since we like to pride ourselves on knowing more than women yet we need to go through college and medical school to be qualified to know about birth... One topic that I would like to know more about by dong independent research about is the different birthing procedures.