recovering xtian

I personally know of at least 7 women who would have died or at the very least lost their child, if it weren't for the advances in medical technology.

Queen of Swords

My mother had an ectopic pregnancy, and would have died without surgery.

Annabel Lee

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the laboring mother give birth squating in a field.
I'm also very thankful for medical technology.Both myself and my third child would have died without intervention.

What is suspect is the amount of unnecessary medical intervention in pregnancy and childbirth.

LOL Having had two normal births and one cesarean section,the cesarean birth had, by far, the longest and most painful recovery time.
I'd choose forcing a large object through my favorite orifice anytime.

fando

I was pulled out with forceps; my collarbone broke.

IMO, the medical establishment deserves a major dose of skepticism. They have barely graduated from the horrible pseudoscientific procedures of the victorian age. It scares me how much respect docotrs get for their diagnostical procedures, it's basically guesswork based on intuition and tradition. I often go for second opinions just to simulate a means of taking multiple measurements, and the diagnosis of a doctor that can't bother to explain the issues to a scinetifically literate person like me gets dropped immediately. Most people just trust what their first doctor says without question, as if the profession is some kind of shamanistic order with such power over life that it can seldom be wrong. I worry that this unwarranted respect and lack of skepticism causes doctors to become too comfortable with their opinions that they quit questioning themselves.

crab juice

I found my c-section (13cm head, 2 oz shy of 10lbs baby) to be much easier to recover from than my "natural" birth...I wasn't sitting on the sore area during the recovery. I also had torn a bit, so that may have had something to do with it. I had epidurals both times and didn't regret it a bit. Both of my pregnancies developed slight complications at the end, and we thought our older kid was going to be breech, so we were expecting a c-section anyway and epidural anyway.

My motto on such things is "hope for the best but be prepared for the worst". My friend was adamant that she wouldn't have an epidural and started hyperventilating from the pain, if she hadn't had the epi she would have passed out. My other friend had about 15 minutes of pain, 2 big pushes, and was all done with labor in 2 hours, with her first kid. You never really know how it will go. All you can do is be as informed as possible. Congratulations, btw!

Corona688

Being the son of a doctor, I'd have to say you are mistaken.

Guesswork, eh? I suppose research and experience don't count for much in your world.
Not quite true... otherwise, there would be no reason for the proliferation of quacks and 'herbal remedies'. People trust doctors less than they ever have.

And you think the life of doctors is peachy-keen? Whoo, boy. They have the College looking over their shoulder every moment, judging everything they do, and lord help them, so to speak, should they ever be caught doing anything -wrong-. The College is NOT their friend; it is a massive, brooding buearocratic organization with far too much time on it's hands, and the ability to ruin any doctor they feel like for trivial reasons.

DarkDruid

^
|
<img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

As the son of a doctor, too, I can do nothing but agree with you. On another point, it's also amusing to see people get all pissed off at their doctors when the bill is too high, when the insurance company and hospital is getting most of it.

On the other hand, I do have to agree with the general gyst of this thread. People do seem to have some idea that the human body is inherantly flawed and needs as much correction as possible. Not that I'm dissavowing medicine, but it seems that we are approaching an "Age of Hypochondria" so to speak.

Bill

In days past, and not too distantly past, either, it was common for women to give birth to litters of kids during their "childbearing years," or die trying. A large number did die, and for those who did not, a lot of their children did die too.

It borders on the highly-discredited philosophy of "social Darwinism" to assert that those who are going to die ought to die and be done with it. We have low mortality rates in developed countries for both mothers and infants precisely because we treat pregnancy as a "medical condition" (not necessarily an "illness" or a "disease," but certainly a "medical condition"). What I hear you saying is that all of this medical attention is a waste of time. Well, scientific research clearly shows that regular visits to the doctor during pregnancy and a hospital setting for childbirth both contribute to the lowering of mortality for both mothers and children, which is precisely what we have in the so-called "advanced nations."

Why would any woman want to lie in bed and suffer for days when labor can be induced and over in 24 to 48 hours? And why would any parents want to take a chance that "something might go wrong" with the birth of a precious child and not have the appropriate medical people and facilities at least available for use, if needed?

My daughter's birth was relatively uncomplicated, but my wife still needed to be induced (much like the lady, above) after about 24 hours of "nothing much happening." My daughter was born about 8 hours later (she was 5 weeks early, but thats another story...). I don't think that my wife or I would have taken chances under those circumstances, and even in a less-complicated situation, "things can happen," and if the practice of hospital birthing is abandonded, more people (mothers and children) will die. The statistics are pretty clear on that front.

So, other than possible advocacy of "social Darwinism" (letting the weak die), why should we take chances with childbirth?

== Bill

fando

Maybe I was a little harsh and general, but my opinions do reflect the treatment I've received from medical doctors, as well as my parents. If you strive to be a good doctor, then I have nothing against you. Don't take those accusations personally.

There's a discussion about the value of experience in <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=46&t=001036" target="_blank">this thread</a>. Please read that for why I don't give experts the benefit of the doubt. Furthermore, it wasn't so long ago that my mother was given electroshock therapy for no clear reason other than she seemed hysterical (70's). I recall the issue of female hysteria from the Victorian ages. There's a shocking similarity in the method of diagnosis and treatment that my mom received and a typical hysteria case: The doctors did it because it seemed to be a good idea at the time, and was also a traditional approach. Also, my hearing was damaged because my mother feared an ear infection and demanded an operation. The doctors agreed for a reason I am still trying to find out, as the consequences aren't very fun to dwell on.

How am I to trust that a doctor is practicing pseudoscience or not? What domains of knowledge are on firm, researched footing and which are still very much a matter of subjective opinion? What's to prevent harm via bad diagnosis? I do my homework and go for multiple opinions to protect myself from bad diagnosis and pseudoscience.

Hmm.. I think that's a different issue. The reason why quacks and the like proliferate is because people would rather hear positive news than bad. It's not a matter of whether the patient believes the doctor, but how the doctor makes the person feel. If an accupuncturist fools a patient into feeling better, then the patient might dismiss modern medicine as untrustworthy. It's not that they distrust doctors in general, they have just found what they consider a more trustworthy authority.

Who's profession is ever peachy-keen? Consider the acupuncturist practicing in the US. They get belittled by the medical establishment. Their job is not peechy-keen. Try to calm down and consider where my opinion comes from rather than frame doctors as deserving respect in a cold, uncaring world. Crying crocodile tears only gets a 'cry me a river' response, let's not degrade into flames.

[ August 31, 2002: Message edited by: fando ]</p>

alek0

What I would like to know is why are so many procedures persisting in spite of research and experience. Take episiotomies, for example. There is a huge body of evidence that they do more harm than good. While episiotomy may have a place in medical practice if it is absolutely necessary to get the baby out quickly, there is absolutely no point in cutting episiotomies "to prevent tearing" since episiotomies hurt more, heal more slowly, are far more likely to extend all the way through the spinchter, cause higher blood loss, etc. This horrendous practice which doesn't have a shred of evidence behind it other than Dee Lee's sick ramblings (still quoted in modern obgyn textbooks unfortunately) is still persisting with many hospitals having episitomy rates for first time mothers over 90%. If medicine is such exact science, can anyone explain to me why?