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is born into the world" ( J ohn
16:2 1) .
The long-cstablished standard
hospital practice of taking away a
newborn baby from its mother just
after birth is, under normal condi–
tions, nothing Iess than barbarie.
Mo reover , a famous s tudy
made by Drs. Marshall Klaus and
John H. Kennel of Case Western
Reserve University shows much
the same thing. The two doctors
compared children who had only
brief contact with their mother
just after the moment of birth
with those who had spent muc h
more time. They discovered t hat
the children who had spent more
time with their mothers gained
more weight , had fewer infec–
tions, and after five years, had
higher IQs. S ig nificantly, t he
s tudy a lso confirmed C hris t 's
observation: mothers with longer
contact felt more
rewarded
for
their labor.
But expectant parents have also
t urned to natu ral childbirth as
much because of a revu lsion wi t h
s tanda rd hospital practices as
because of the joys associated
with alternative childbirth .
There are a number of dangers in
the standardized hospital del ivery.
Besides hospi t al-involved infec–
tions and the risk of cr ippling the
baby for Ji fe through the use of for–
ceps, there is the heavy injection of
chemicals into the mother's body at
a time when her baby still has a
direct line to the mother's blood–
stream. As one Cali forn ia obstetri–
cian, Hai Abdul of Azusa, remarks,
" 1
believe that natural childbirth is
safe because you are not taking the
chance of crippling someone with
spinal anesthet ics."
A rcgistered nurse, in a letter
to t he editor in the
Los Angeles
Times
de fending an alternative
birth physician agains t ncgl igence
c harges, declares:
" 1
am very
famil iar with s tandard hospi tal
obs tetrical pract iccs and
1
feel
that many are unnecessary, trau–
matic and even unsafe . For this
reason my husband and
1
made
t he d ecision to d e l iv e r a t
borne...."
Alternative birth advocatcs can
be quite eloquent in their con–
demn ation of certai n s tandard
14
hospi tal practices. Parents' rights
advocate Suzanne Arms recalls
her own experience with s tan–
dardized , hospita l birth as a vir–
tual nightmare: she and her baby
were subjected to narcotics, a nes–
t hetics, labor-inducing d rugs, for–
ceps; she says she still feels the
" pain and guil t of not having pro–
tected my daughter" from the
doctors' overeager intervention in
what should have been a joyous,
natural event.
An article in
The Wa/1 Street
Journal ,
February 15, 1979, also
notes the consumer dissatisfaction
with standardized hospital prac–
tices: "Parents also are rebelling
against regimented and impersonal
hospital routines. They. dislike the
s terile steel instruments, harsh
lighting, uncomfortable stirrups
and tables, shavings, anesthesia and
the usual separation of mother and
child after birth." And Dr. Richard
H. McDonald, former president of
t he Orange Cou nty (California)
Obstetrical and Gynecological So–
ciety, makes astartl ing admission in
an article he wrote for the
Los
Angeles Times
in 1977:"1ndced, it
is hard to refute cr itics' charges that
hospitals have gradually become a
' doctor's domain,' where nurses
seem to cater more to phys icians
t ha n to parent s- to-be. " Dr .
McDonald alsoadmitted the moncy
cost of hospital is "frightful," and,
with "the introduction of new, more
sophisticated equipment,' ' likely to
increase.
As one younger mother. told
United Press lnte rnat ional of her
hospital birth: " With my firs t
baby
1
felt li ke nobody cared .
1
was supposed to do as
1
was told
and not make a fuss abou t any–
thing.
1
couldn' t ask why. Rules
were rules.
1
d id n' t have any iden–
ti ty ...
J
was in that labor room
all alone with someone coming in
to check once in a whi le.
M
y hus–
band was waiting downstai rs.
1
was terri fied."
In a standardized hospital birth
the physician often employs any
number of " procedures," which
may not be free of damage to
ei ther the mother or child: drugs
to basten or slow delivery (often
done, consumer groups charge,
for doctors ' convenience) , cesar-
ean sect ion operations, forceps ·
de livery (o h, wonder ful! ) and
routine cutt ing of the mother's
vaginal area.
Doctor Convenience
T he conven ience of physicians
often dictates certain impositions
on the mother in the standardized
hospital bi rth. Midwives will tell
you that there are certai n doctors
whose babies ar rive on certain
days of the week (regardless of a
baby's schedule!).
This problem was recently high–
lighted in a court case involving the
Dortmund Women'sCiinic in West
Germany. The case brought out
that more than half of all the births
in the cl ini c were artificially
induced: there were few if any
bir t hs on Saturdays, Sundays,
nights or Wednesday afternoon
(which thedoctors bad off!). (Reu t–
ers, May 4, 1981.)
Labor-inducing drugs, oxyto–
cin primarily, can cause usually
st rong and frequent contractions,
which doctors acknowledge can
deprive t he baby of oxygen–
causing brain damage. Tbe best
you can say about the inducement
of labor, however risky, is that at
least it is less barbarie than the
practice in s tandardized hospitals
in the 1950s, where babies would
be ar tificially held back from
birth because the doctor was not
yet on hand!
The Dlsease Theory of
Pregnancy
Another of tbe reason s why
expectant parents turned to nat u–
ral chi ld birth in the 1970s was a
revuls ion towards the " illness–
oriented" atmosphere of most
hospita ls. One writer fo r the
Canad ia n newsmagazi ne
M
a–
clean 's
sums up the unappealing
nature of hospital birth nicely:
" l f
there's one emotion new
mothers may share ... it's frus–
trat ion at a less-than-satisfactory
hospital experience. The place is
so geared to s ickness that child–
bi r th sometimes seems reduced to
i
nsign ificance."
" Doctors," according to Robert
Mendelsohn, M .O., "intervene too
much in what is a natural process.
(Continued on page 36)
The
PLAIN TRUTH