how common is it for the anesthesiologist to refuse to give an epidural?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The strand of midwifery that fetishizes "natural" childbirth is unscientific, anti-feminist quackery.

And I beg to differ. I think those theat medicalize childbirth, procedurize it, and make women feel like they are incompetent to handle it, are anti feminists.

Making women feel powerless in doing something that women have done for millennia, and continue to do, without intervention is the problem. Hey, you want interventions... that’s your choice, but you should not be forced into them, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The incredibly high morbidity and mortality rates you're referencing had more to do with how medicine was practiced during the industrial age while more and more women started birthing at hospitals instead of at home and MWs were delegitimized. There is not a lot of data on birthing before the industrial age but what is available shows that mortality rates were not incredibly high. MWs did routinely and successfully deliver babies in cases that would automatically warrant a c/s today.

Saying that women can not birth without medical intervention is one strategy for removing women's agency -- if it's a medical condition then obviously a doctor should be in charge and decide how everything should be done (in ways convenient to them). It's how we ended up with the horrors of twilight birthing ~80yrs ago. It's also how even today women are dictated to on how they are allowed to labor and birth.

Citation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Isn’t this the case for any and all medical procedure and surgeries? I mean if they amputate a limb is pain relief really medically necessary?

Oh this is just about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Birth is not a medical procedure any more than eating a sandwich is, or taking a big dump. Yes it can be uncomfortable and even painful. Yes sometimes things go awry and medical intervention is needed. But otherwise... it what our bodies were literally designed to do.

And yes, I had an umedicated birth, so don't @ me.

LOL. You’re insane. You are incredibly sexist. Who compares birth to taking a dump??

A person who understands biology, and was prepared for (and had) an unmedicated birth. I think its much more sexist to say "women cannot do the thing they were designed to do without medical intervention." Don't we trust women a little more than that? I have no problem with a woman who wants pain meds, getting pain meds. But to assume it should be the default, or is necessary, because women just can't handle it -- nope, that's sexist.

Until about 100 years ago, women also died at incredibly high rates during childbirth. It's not sexist to point out that biology didn't make us the most efficient birthers of our large-headed progeny. Luckily, biology did give us big brains to enable us to solve problems that evolution did not by using tools and interventions...and it's not sexist to take advantage of medical advances.

Knowing that an epidural enabled me to sustain 2 very difficult labors without needing a c-section, I would absolutely argue that epidurals have contributed to reductions in maternal mortality rates. Also, it's more-or-less guaranteed that I and my babies would have died in childbirth without modern medicine...so talking about "what bodes are designed to do without medical intervention" is meaningless to me. Like many women throughout all of human history, my body wasn't properly designed to birth babies...and it's sexist to somehow imply I'm a defective human because of that.

The incredibly high morbidity and mortality rates you're referencing had more to do with how medicine was practiced during the industrial age while more and more women started birthing at hospitals instead of at home and MWs were delegitimized. There is not a lot of data on birthing before the industrial age but what is available shows that mortality rates were not incredibly high. MWs did routinely and successfully deliver babies in cases that would automatically warrant a c/s today.

Saying that women can not birth without medical intervention is one strategy for removing women's agency -- if it's a medical condition then obviously a doctor should be in charge and decide how everything should be done (in ways convenient to them). It's how we ended up with the horrors of twilight birthing ~80yrs ago. It's also how even today women are dictated to on how they are allowed to labor and birth.

Omg. No. So much no. But go ahead and have your baby in a barn with an unlicensed midwife.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The strand of midwifery that fetishizes "natural" childbirth is unscientific, anti-feminist quackery.

And I beg to differ. I think those theat medicalize childbirth, procedurize it, and make women feel like they are incompetent to handle it, are anti feminists.

Making women feel powerless in doing something that women have done for millennia, and continue to do, without intervention is the problem. Hey, you want interventions... that’s your choice, but you should not be forced into them, either.

medical care is anti-feminist?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The strand of midwifery that fetishizes "natural" childbirth is unscientific, anti-feminist quackery.

And I beg to differ. I think those theat medicalize childbirth, procedurize it, and make women feel like they are incompetent to handle it, are anti feminists.

Making women feel powerless in doing something that women have done for millennia, and continue to do, without intervention is the problem. Hey, you want interventions... that’s your choice, but you should not be forced into them, either.

medical care is anti-feminist?

Medical interventions saved my baby's life and my life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The strand of midwifery that fetishizes "natural" childbirth is unscientific, anti-feminist quackery.

And I beg to differ. I think those theat medicalize childbirth, procedurize it, and make women feel like they are incompetent to handle it, are anti feminists.

Making women feel powerless in doing something that women have done for millennia, and continue to do, without intervention is the problem. Hey, you want interventions... that’s your choice, but you should not be forced into them, either.

medical care is anti-feminist?

No, convincing women they cannot do it without medical care is anti feminist. Many women are terrified of the prospect of birth, and that does us a disservice.

But I can already see from the responses, it’s medicalized birth all the way with this group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Women don’t die from pain. They die from bleeding, postpartum infection, breech births, retained contents, etc.

A woman’s “agency” does not override her medical condition/ the judgement of a trained professional.

I'm the PP that started this particular subthread of discussion. My point was that pain management enables women to labor through difficult situations, possibly reducing the number or invasiveness of interventions. I could not have pushed for 4 hours with both of my deliveries without pain medication. I would have been too exhausted to continue, since dealing with pain also takes energy. Instead of 2 c-sections, though, I ended up with 1 vacuum delivery and 1 assisted vaginal delivery.

Despite what the "feminist" PP insists, I would likely not have survived my deliveries without interventions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The strand of midwifery that fetishizes "natural" childbirth is unscientific, anti-feminist quackery.

And I beg to differ. I think those theat medicalize childbirth, procedurize it, and make women feel like they are incompetent to handle it, are anti feminists.

Making women feel powerless in doing something that women have done for millennia, and continue to do, without intervention is the problem. Hey, you want interventions... that’s your choice, but you should not be forced into them, either.

medical care is anti-feminist?

No, convincing women they cannot do it without medical care is anti feminist. Many women are terrified of the prospect of birth, and that does us a disservice.

But I can already see from the responses, it’s medicalized birth all the way with this group.

You’re a horrible horrible person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:doing something that women have done for millennia, and continue to do, without intervention

To be blunt, what women have been doing for millennia= dying of complications of natural childbirth that are readily preventable with modern medical interventions. By itself, the Zavanelli followed by a splash and slash crash C-section probably saves thousands of lives a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:doing something that women have done for millennia, and continue to do, without intervention

To be blunt, what women have been doing for millennia= dying of complications of natural childbirth that are readily preventable with modern medical interventions. By itself, the Zavanelli followed by a splash and slash crash C-section probably saves thousands of lives a year.

And the Gaskin maneuver has probably saved just as many women from your charmingly named “splash and slash.”

Look, there are definitely mothers and babies who would not be here (or be doing as well as they are) without medical intervention. But there are also many who were subjected to excessive interventions, one-size-fits-all approaches, and other attitudes and habits that were not exactly evidence-based, and sometimes downright harmful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The strand of midwifery that fetishizes "natural" childbirth is unscientific, anti-feminist quackery.

And I beg to differ. I think those theat medicalize childbirth, procedurize it, and make women feel like they are incompetent to handle it, are anti feminists.

Making women feel powerless in doing something that women have done for millennia, and continue to do, without intervention is the problem. Hey, you want interventions... that’s your choice, but you should not be forced into them, either.

medical care is anti-feminist?

No, convincing women they cannot do it without medical care is anti feminist. Many women are terrified of the prospect of birth, and that does us a disservice.

But I can already see from the responses, it’s medicalized birth all the way with this group.

You’re a horrible horrible person.

+1
First, OP’s friend wanted pain relief. That’s her right (though I didn’t read page six to know if the reason she wasn’t able to get the epidural). Second, do you really think those millions and millions of women who had no choice but to get through would have really turned down meds? You think no one ever used anything through time? I’ve give birth three times at three different points along the unmediated continuum including an unmediated birth, and I still think you're a wretched person. Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. Pain relief is not anti feminist.

You thinking you know better than every other woman is pretty anti feminist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The strand of midwifery that fetishizes "natural" childbirth is unscientific, anti-feminist quackery.

And I beg to differ. I think those theat medicalize childbirth, procedurize it, and make women feel like they are incompetent to handle it, are anti feminists.

Making women feel powerless in doing something that women have done for millennia, and continue to do, without intervention is the problem. Hey, you want interventions... that’s your choice, but you should not be forced into them, either.

medical care is anti-feminist?

No, convincing women they cannot do it without medical care is anti feminist. Many women are terrified of the prospect of birth, and that does us a disservice.

But I can already see from the responses, it’s medicalized birth all the way with this group.

You’re a horrible horrible person.

+1
First, OP’s friend wanted pain relief. That’s her right (though I didn’t read page six to know if the reason she wasn’t able to get the epidural). Second, do you really think those millions and millions of women who had no choice but to get through would have really turned down meds? You think no one ever used anything through time? I’ve give birth three times at three different points along the unmediated continuum including an unmediated birth, and I still think you're a wretched person. Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. Pain relief is not anti feminist.

You thinking you know better than every other woman is pretty anti feminist.

The anesthesiologist didn’t refuse the epidural because he wanted to deny the patient her “right” to an epidural. He refused it because of some medical reason which OP did not explain. Giving birth hurts like hell but I would prefer that to being dead from an issue related to the epidural.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The strand of midwifery that fetishizes "natural" childbirth is unscientific, anti-feminist quackery.

And I beg to differ. I think those theat medicalize childbirth, procedurize it, and make women feel like they are incompetent to handle it, are anti feminists.

Making women feel powerless in doing something that women have done for millennia, and continue to do, without intervention is the problem. Hey, you want interventions... that’s your choice, but you should not be forced into them, either.

medical care is anti-feminist?

No, convincing women they cannot do it without medical care is anti feminist. Many women are terrified of the prospect of birth, and that does us a disservice.

But I can already see from the responses, it’s medicalized birth all the way with this group.

You’re a horrible horrible person.

+1
First, OP’s friend wanted pain relief. That’s her right (though I didn’t read page six to know if the reason she wasn’t able to get the epidural). Second, do you really think those millions and millions of women who had no choice but to get through would have really turned down meds? You think no one ever used anything through time? I’ve give birth three times at three different points along the unmediated continuum including an unmediated birth, and I still think you're a wretched person. Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. Pain relief is not anti feminist.

You thinking you know better than every other woman is pretty anti feminist.

The anesthesiologist didn’t refuse the epidural because he wanted to deny the patient her “right” to an epidural. He refused it because of some medical reason which OP did not explain. Giving birth hurts like hell but I would prefer that to being dead from an issue related to the epidural.

I didn’t say he did. I said it was her right, as in her decision, to want pain relief in labor. As opposed to the PP who seems to think any woman who has decided they want an epidural is some sort of medically snowed moron.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:doing something that women have done for millennia, and continue to do, without intervention

To be blunt, what women have been doing for millennia= dying of complications of natural childbirth that are readily preventable with modern medical interventions. By itself, the Zavanelli followed by a splash and slash crash C-section probably saves thousands of lives a year.

And the Gaskin maneuver has probably saved just as many women from your charmingly named “splash and slash.”

Look, there are definitely mothers and babies who would not be here (or be doing as well as they are) without medical intervention. But there are also many who were subjected to excessive interventions, one-size-fits-all approaches, and other attitudes and habits that were not exactly evidence-based, and sometimes downright harmful.

The Gaskin maneuver is an intervention, no?

[Anonymous]

My mother had three kids without any pain relief and she says when she hears about the options we have available today, it makes her wilt with envy. Stop glamorizing "what women have done for millenia". These same women would have jumped on the chance to have an epidural if they could. Stop making virtue out of necessity.