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Women were never meant to give birth on their backs

bbc.com

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Re: Women were never meant to give birth on their backs

#21

Post by stavros »

puelocesar wrote: post #18
stavros wrote: post #13

This article mixes the science with unnecessarily gendered language. It turns "a lying down position helps the doctor" to "men decided women should be on their backs" and "one pervert king liked watching women give birth, therefore somehow that's why". Can't we just focus on the scientific advantages and not try to shoehorn sexism into everything?

I think you are being a bit hysterical and trying to find an issue where there’s none. The article is just trying to find an historical explanation on why something so inefficient became norm in modern civilization, there’s no sexism here…

So you think "doctors wanted to see better and didn't think it would hurt anything" and "It's all because of a Frenchman who decided it was more convenient – for men." are equally gender-agnostic?

Re: Women were never meant to give birth on their backs

#22

Post by hgoel »

stavros wrote: post #13

This article mixes the science with unnecessarily gendered language. It turns "a lying down position helps the doctor" to "men decided women should be on their backs" and "one pervert king liked watching women give birth, therefore somehow that's why". Can't we just focus on the scientific advantages and not try to shoehorn sexism into everything?

The claim also just doesn't make a lot of sense. So, a king or doctor decided women in France should be made to give birth on their backs a couple hundred years ago. Even if we accept that this would've been enough for a complete shift in how women give birth within France, how does that spread across the world?

I'd be interested in if these claims fit with places where "traditional" births/care systems are more common, i.e. places where births are primarily supported by the elder women of the community rather than formally educated medical professionals. Though, such places are also less likely to be reached by researchers.

Re: Women were never meant to give birth on their backs

#23

Post by ekjhgkejhgk »

stavros wrote: post #17
torlok wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's useful to drive the point home that there is no good reason to give birth lying down. Otherwise you make it sound like "scientists say you should try this", and not "this was a stupid idea in the first place".

My issue with the article in general is that it undermines its own persuasiveness. It doesn't seem to say "giving birth sitting is better", or even "doctors wanted to have better visibility", but tries to cast it as a story of deliberate male oppression. It's just unnecessarily divisive to try to turn this into a case of sexism, and I feel it takes away from the scientific angle of the article. Someone might very wel…

I agree with you. Whenever anyone says "oh this is actually the males doing XYZ" it reduces the persuasiveness.

It reminded me, I'm in an activist parents group and the other day a mom there was arguing that when the media uses the word "parenting" in the context of our focus subject, it's really a manifestation of the patriarchy keeping women oppressed (the implication that dads don't really parent, they just help the moms). There's loonies everywhere.

Re: Women were never meant to give birth on their backs

#24

Post by bad_username »

stavros wrote: post #13

This article mixes the science with unnecessarily gendered language. It turns "a lying down position helps the doctor" to "men decided women should be on their backs" and "one pervert king liked watching women give birth, therefore somehow that's why". Can't we just focus on the scientific advantages and not try to shoehorn sexism into everything?

This is why legacy media keep losing audience and trust.

Re: Women were never meant to give birth on their backs

#25

Post by graemep »

conception wrote: post #8
ViktorRay wrote: post #4

I wonder what it would take to get hospitals to change how women give birth based on this scientific evidence.

Hospitals are starting to bring midwives and doulas back. Of course, educating women and families about their options and pushing back on inducing labor and c sections would help as well.

Midwives provide most of the care for most births in hospitals in the UK AFAIK and have done so for decades (certainly where my older daughter was born).

Re: Women were never meant to give birth on their backs

#26

Post by bl4kers »

ViktorRay wrote: post #4

I wonder what it would take to get hospitals to change how women give birth based on this scientific evidence.

In the U.S. at least the incentives are perverse. Probably what would actually move the needle is a test trial with results showing it's more cost and resource effective

Re: Women were never meant to give birth on their backs

#28

Post by impossiblefork »

stavros wrote: post #16
impossiblefork wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but isn't the "one pervert king liked watching women give birth, therefore somehow that's why" actually correct, so that we should say something like "one pervert king liked watching women give birth and that's why people have done it this very, very silly way"?

The article explicitly says that we don't know how much he influenced anything, so the mention just seems to be thrown in for the controversy: > "The influence of the king's policy is unknown, although the behaviour of royalty must have affected the populace to some degree," Given that we aren't sure that the king affected anything, mentioning this feels more like editorializing than evidence.

I don't really agree, because these kings really had a say and people basically worshiped them. People imitate all sorts of things from how the kings and the courts did things, things like not buttoning the lowest button on their jackets, etc., so I think it may well have had a substantial influence.

Re: Women were never meant to give birth on their backs

#29

Post by ShowalkKama »

impossiblefork wrote: post #28
stavros wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article explicitly says that we don't know how much he influenced anything, so the mention just seems to be thrown in for the controversy: > "The influence of the king's policy is unknown, although the behaviour of royalty must have affected the populace to some degree," Given that we aren't sure that the king affected anything, mentioning this feels more like editorializing than evidence.

I don't really agree, because these kings really had a say and people basically worshiped them. People imitate all sorts of things from how the kings and the courts did things, things like not buttoning the lowest button on their jackets, etc., so I think it may well have had a substantial influence.

knowing and thinking / assuming are two different things. Saying that "that's why people have done it" is simply and categorically wrong.

It is no doubt something that could prove interesting if shared when presenting the research (e.g. I went down this route, find this weird thing here, that unusual story there) but this article does accompany you through that process, it just presents the findings which makes the inclusion of this fact quite questionable.

Re: Women were never meant to give birth on their backs

#30

Post by scratcheee »

conception wrote: post #8
ViktorRay wrote: post #4

I wonder what it would take to get hospitals to change how women give birth based on this scientific evidence.

Hospitals are starting to bring midwives and doulas back. Of course, educating women and families about their options and pushing back on inducing labor and c sections would help as well.

They already tried pushing back against c-sections, turns out giving overly opinionated options to women that discourages things that are medically beneficial in a large portion of cases is not helpful and caused a lot of unnecessary suffering and some deaths, now that policy is thankfully long gone, though the opinionated attitude it generated in some continues on sadly. my wife had a particularly large first baby, natural birth might have worked, but would have been risky, rather than being given unbiased options, she was pressured towards induction over c-section since it was “more natural” (I suspect mostly because it would have looked better in the hospitals stats to keep the c-sections down). The early induction failed after days of suffering (as early inductions usually do, turns out), and then she had a c-section anyway (which having reviewed the options was her original preference, but was pressured out by the doctor), the c-section was vastly more successful, as you’d expect from the statistics (and a lot less suffering, which doesn’t show up in the stats but is obvious once you concider the process). Im willing to agree neither should be recommended in most cases, natural births are safer in most births, but the best thing anyone can do is give the facts as they apply to the person giving birth (and keep their opinions well out of it).

I fully admit that personal experience has biased me strongly in favour of c-sections, but only when the stats support them, which they often do.

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