Response for 11/11

The reading “The Score; How Childbirth Went Industrial” by Atul Gawande explains the rise of Cesarean sections within obstetric practices and the industrialization of childbirth. Historically, childbirth has been extremely risky for both the infant as well as the mother. Gawande writes how at any point within the process, something can go wrong causing injury or death to the mother or the baby: “For thousands of years, childbirth was the most common cause of death for young women and infants.” Obstetricians had created complicated procedures to deal with each possible scenario. If the baby was stuck one way, you turned the arms like this, if stuck another way you rearranged the shoulders like that, etc.  There was also a huge lack of communication within the practice. The forceps, which had solved a great deal of issues, was kept a secret within the field. Only relatively recently was the secret exposed. As time continued, less people were using midwives and more were going to the actual hospital. Nonetheless, the midwives boasted better results. Less women and children died with midwives. To adjust their results, hospital obstetricians instated new regulations and deaths decreased. One anesthesiologist created a scale for infant’s health that allowed doctors to quantitatively measure the appearance and health of a baby. If below a certain score the baby probably would not survive, if above there was still hope.  Today, 30% of women are receiving cesarean sections. Goer wrote a deconstruction piece tearing apart Gawande’s piece. She is concerned about how nonchalantly Gawande explains C sections and includes several troubling statistics about the dangers one risks in the process.             One point she makes is that C sections are considered interventions and should therefore not be considered routine. They are only meant to be involved in worst case scensarios- the 30% rate for women is unnecessarily high.