KW: "Hey - thanks for writing Born In The USA. Your main idea(s) regarding the unnecessary measures that doctors take persuaded me to rethink pregnancy and birth in America"
MW: "Really, which parts were most effective or important for you?"
KW: Well, in the last third of the book you focused on how we as Americans should change how birth is done in this country, which connected to, and further developed the ideas in the first four sixths of the book. But let me be more specific."
MW: "Please do."
KW: "Oh, I will."
MW: "Splendid."
KW: "Earlier in the book, you discussed how there are countries like the Netherlands which have a higher home-birth rate then the United States, while still maintaining lower natal mortality rates (Wagner,145.) Near the end of the book, you write about how that even though doctors advise against it, for low-risk births, planned home births lead to lower amounts of complications; making them the better option. (Wagner, 240.) At the end of the book, you explain how there is a Obstetric monopoly. Women have to realize the wrong-doings of the medical world during birth, such as unnecessary interventions during birth, and act to change these wrong-doings to change the way birth is handled for the better. (Wagner, 249.)"
MW: "But what could I have done to make this a better book - that would more effectively fulfill its mission?"
KW: "Well, let's be clear - your text sought to provide policy analysis from the perspective of a doctor that doesn't agree with his peers for the book-reading-public to better understand pregnancy and birth in our culture. Given that aim, and your book, the best advice I would give for a second edition of the text would be to make sure that the same ideas that are present throughout the book are presented in a variety of ways. You did this to a point during your book, by using personal stories compared to statistics, but it also go redundant. Also the way the book is written, it may seem as if it is attacking women who have gotten C-sections at points. That could turn some people off so the changes that should be made aren't necessarily about the content, but the style. But I don't want you to feel like I'm criticizing. I appreciate the immense amount of labor you dedicated to this important issue and particularly for making me think about home births in relation to hospital births and how rewarding home births can be. Also, it made me think about midwives vs. obstetricians and that even though obstetricians have a medical degree, most of the time what they do is unnecessary. In fact, I'm likely to advise people against the "traditional hospital birth" with a obstetrician as a result of your book."
MW: "Thanks! Talking to you gives me hope about our future as a society! Because you are so smart, insightful, and handsome."
Monday, March 28, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Homework 39- book response 2
Wagner, Marsden. Born in the USA How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First. Berekely and Los Angeles, California: University of Berkely, 2006. 1-189. Print.
While both "The Business of Being Born" and the book "born in the USA" both preach midwifery and home births they approach it differently. The book gives more hard numbers, with small bits of heavily biased analysis, while the movie gives long talks and examples, followed by small bits and numbers. Not saying that the book doesn't give examples, for almost every data set (survey, who stat, ect.) there is one powerful example. Which is a very good strategy to sell his points. because the shock value of the story has you looking at the numbers saying, "Wow, this happens to 36% of people. This needs to be changed." The movie doesn't use this tactic, or at least not as well. The movie is showing a few smooth deliveries assisted by midwives. I must add that these aren't using totally different techniques to display information and persuade the viewer/reader as the author from born in the USA, Marsden wagner, is in the movie, almost directly quoting his book.
From pages 100-200 there were two different chapters that each had a major insight. "Freedom, family sanctity, the women's choice, and human rights should dictate place of birth." (Wagner, 151) Many people, especially from the medical world are trying to tell people that birth belongs in the hospital. These people for the most part aren't thinking about what the women wants, they are thinking about what is most convenient for them. Which is usual at the hospital, where the doctors feel most comfortable.
The other big insight from the second hundred pages was "Pitting pregnant and birthing women against those doctors and hospitals who abuse their rights is, one hopes, only a temporary buy necessary strategy in giving birth decision-making rights back to women and families." (Wagner, 181) Doctors and other people in the medical world (hospital administrators, insurance providers, ect.) "strongly influence" women during labor and the birthing process. This can range from giving advice that benefits the doctor and not the mother, to giving unwanted procedures. To get to the point, women have less power then they should and that has to change.
-Obstetricians are against out-of-hospital birth, and don't even want to look at the facts about it. (Wagner, 132)
-There are far fewer interventions in out of hospital births. (Wagner, 135)
-There are countries with much higher home-birth and lower natal mortality rates then the United States. (Wagner, 145)
-Obstetricians have much worse track records regarding how women are treated during birth, yet are more used and respected then midwives. (Wagner, 155)
-Patients have a lot of rights that aren't respected by doctors. (Wagner, 174)
Marsden Wagner used the information that the Netherlands has a 36% planned home-birth rate, and a lower natal mortality rate then the United States.
"In Peristat-II from 22 weeks gestation, after France, The Netherlands had the highest fetal mortality rate (7.0 per 1,000 total number of births)." (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19192585)
This is relevant to Marsden Wagner's arguments, because all he is trying to prove is that having a hospital birth isn't the only way to go. That countries outside the U.S. have a lot of successful home births. This proves it because the Netherlands has a .7% perinatal mortality rate. While the U.S. Showed 1.4% in one study.
While both "The Business of Being Born" and the book "born in the USA" both preach midwifery and home births they approach it differently. The book gives more hard numbers, with small bits of heavily biased analysis, while the movie gives long talks and examples, followed by small bits and numbers. Not saying that the book doesn't give examples, for almost every data set (survey, who stat, ect.) there is one powerful example. Which is a very good strategy to sell his points. because the shock value of the story has you looking at the numbers saying, "Wow, this happens to 36% of people. This needs to be changed." The movie doesn't use this tactic, or at least not as well. The movie is showing a few smooth deliveries assisted by midwives. I must add that these aren't using totally different techniques to display information and persuade the viewer/reader as the author from born in the USA, Marsden wagner, is in the movie, almost directly quoting his book.
From pages 100-200 there were two different chapters that each had a major insight. "Freedom, family sanctity, the women's choice, and human rights should dictate place of birth." (Wagner, 151) Many people, especially from the medical world are trying to tell people that birth belongs in the hospital. These people for the most part aren't thinking about what the women wants, they are thinking about what is most convenient for them. Which is usual at the hospital, where the doctors feel most comfortable.
The other big insight from the second hundred pages was "Pitting pregnant and birthing women against those doctors and hospitals who abuse their rights is, one hopes, only a temporary buy necessary strategy in giving birth decision-making rights back to women and families." (Wagner, 181) Doctors and other people in the medical world (hospital administrators, insurance providers, ect.) "strongly influence" women during labor and the birthing process. This can range from giving advice that benefits the doctor and not the mother, to giving unwanted procedures. To get to the point, women have less power then they should and that has to change.
-Obstetricians are against out-of-hospital birth, and don't even want to look at the facts about it. (Wagner, 132)
-There are far fewer interventions in out of hospital births. (Wagner, 135)
-There are countries with much higher home-birth and lower natal mortality rates then the United States. (Wagner, 145)
-Obstetricians have much worse track records regarding how women are treated during birth, yet are more used and respected then midwives. (Wagner, 155)
-Patients have a lot of rights that aren't respected by doctors. (Wagner, 174)
Marsden Wagner used the information that the Netherlands has a 36% planned home-birth rate, and a lower natal mortality rate then the United States.
"In Peristat-II from 22 weeks gestation, after France, The Netherlands had the highest fetal mortality rate (7.0 per 1,000 total number of births)." (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19192585)
This is relevant to Marsden Wagner's arguments, because all he is trying to prove is that having a hospital birth isn't the only way to go. That countries outside the U.S. have a lot of successful home births. This proves it because the Netherlands has a .7% perinatal mortality rate. While the U.S. Showed 1.4% in one study.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Homework 38- book response 1
The book, born in the USA, is organized so that the book is divided into chapters. Each chapter has a new main idea. The chapters are organized where main ideas are presented at The beginning of the chapter, and as the chapter progresses there are details about the main idea.
As a side note: at the start of every chapter there are quotes related to birth. What I find interesting is that Wagner includes quotes from a variety of people, authors, actors, ect.
The main question that this book is trying to answer is "what is birth like in America?" The way Marsden Wagner answers this question in the book is good. First discussing the medical standard for birth, the c-section vs. Natural birth, midwifery. Each chapter goes into a different aspect of birth in America. But the problem in some of the writing is that instead of trying to answer "what is birth like in America?" he's answering "what are the flaws in the birth system?" which may just be another main question he's trying to answer.
The main insight that the book is trying to get across in the first 100 pages is that birth isn't done in done in one way. I believe that he does a good job displaying this insight in the book. I like how he doesn't jump focus between the different ways, but still covers them. This is another aspect of the book where the bias against the doctoral system can be seen.
One interesting thing that the book explains is that there is this unwritten code between doctors, a code basically saying even when a doctor is wrong, they are right. Another interesting aspect is that midwives are very educated but doctors don't take them seriously. A point that is stressed in the book is that in low risk births, the amount of babies dying is higher with doctors then midwives. Usually OB interventions are more hurtful then helpful.
Marsden Wagner uses a variety of sources. He uses statistics from studies, peoples personal stories, and his experiences. I think all the evidence he is using is truthful, it's just biased. Like the first story he told in the book was about a woman that almost died because of a possibly avoidable operation. I'm sure that story is true, but it makes it seem like that happening all the time, which it could be but the percentage of births affected by it isn't significant enough to show. His personal stories are very insightful, because he's a doctor himself and it gives you an inside view of this whole other "doctor world". All the information that has been presented toe in this book seems credible and relevant. I think this book has a lot of insightful information that is helping me learn what birth is like around me.
As a side note: at the start of every chapter there are quotes related to birth. What I find interesting is that Wagner includes quotes from a variety of people, authors, actors, ect.
The main question that this book is trying to answer is "what is birth like in America?" The way Marsden Wagner answers this question in the book is good. First discussing the medical standard for birth, the c-section vs. Natural birth, midwifery. Each chapter goes into a different aspect of birth in America. But the problem in some of the writing is that instead of trying to answer "what is birth like in America?" he's answering "what are the flaws in the birth system?" which may just be another main question he's trying to answer.
The main insight that the book is trying to get across in the first 100 pages is that birth isn't done in done in one way. I believe that he does a good job displaying this insight in the book. I like how he doesn't jump focus between the different ways, but still covers them. This is another aspect of the book where the bias against the doctoral system can be seen.
One interesting thing that the book explains is that there is this unwritten code between doctors, a code basically saying even when a doctor is wrong, they are right. Another interesting aspect is that midwives are very educated but doctors don't take them seriously. A point that is stressed in the book is that in low risk births, the amount of babies dying is higher with doctors then midwives. Usually OB interventions are more hurtful then helpful.
Marsden Wagner uses a variety of sources. He uses statistics from studies, peoples personal stories, and his experiences. I think all the evidence he is using is truthful, it's just biased. Like the first story he told in the book was about a woman that almost died because of a possibly avoidable operation. I'm sure that story is true, but it makes it seem like that happening all the time, which it could be but the percentage of births affected by it isn't significant enough to show. His personal stories are very insightful, because he's a doctor himself and it gives you an inside view of this whole other "doctor world". All the information that has been presented toe in this book seems credible and relevant. I think this book has a lot of insightful information that is helping me learn what birth is like around me.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Homework 36- blog comments
From my team:
From Sam:
I really like your observation of not really understanding what these stories mean especially because you have nothing to compare them to because the t.v. does lie to us. I feel like this blind intelligence is really something that you can build off of to help further your independent research because what do these stories mean? Was what the first women really went through significant in terms of birth stories (it seems so to me). I feel like maybe going in depth a little more on the other stories would have given it something to compare it to. But i can understand your interest in the first one because it caught my attention as well. Good writing Kevin.
From my mentor (dad):
The sharpest insight that I saw in this post was when you were trying to relate these stories back to the course, or anything. You said that you don't have anything to relate it back to because the little extent of your knowledge is very questionable. You also had a thought provoking idea when you talked about the fetus being a parasite. I never heard anybody Call a fetus that before but the way you presented it made sense.
One thing that you should work on in future posts is your wording and flow. If you can get your posts to flow better, they will be better.
From my protogé (little brother):
I think the best part of this blog was the first story you talked about. You went into a lot of detail in that one, and that made it interesting. You also used some good words to describe how she felt "her life changed completely". Other then that your tv thing was good too.
This post made me want to hear my own birth story. It made me realize that every pregnancy story is not the same. Every one is different and there are a lot of things that affect birth.
This blog post was very strong Kevin, you obviously put alot of time and effort into. Specifically your thoughts on the males position in the birthing processnshowed alot, you stated that he didn't have many good insights and I think your ability to sort the good insights from the not so good shows a deeper level of analysis. My favorite thought is when you stated that "I can compare them to what I see on television, but I don’t believe that birth is depicted well on television, that it is mocked." I felt this line was the strongest because I could relate to it the most. I have never seen a real birth but I have seen it on t.v. And after hearing the birth stories that I retrieved and everyone roses it does seem like they are almost mocking it on t.v. As you said.
---------------------------------------------
My comments:
To Sam:
This post was really cool. I love the first person narrative. I also like that the point of views that were represented were all from the childrens perspectives, the second hand storytelling was interesting. I found the second story to be the most interesting, and I think it inspired one of your bolder questions: "Are they afraid of what will happen after words or are they willing to accept that for what they will be creating?" When you explain the person talked about if the family that gave thier child away knew they could provide for him or her. Like Andy would say, it's developing one of those "bubbles".
Overall I really enjoyed reading your post, partly because it didn't go on and on, partly because it had a great style to it, and partly because of the interesting information it provided. Keep it up.
-Kevin
To sharif:
This is definitely one of your better written posts. Little grammatical error, sharp insights. To be honest I was surprised. When you were talking about your mothers interview you had me laughing, which means I wanted to read more because I found it interesting. Your post was fairly long but it had good structure to it so it didn't seem as long. It wasn't that repetitive either, as every story had a different focus. What I would suggest is making transitions between the stories, and connect them to each other. Like in the interview with your mom, you discussed a "connection" with you (as a fetus/newlyborn child) and then you again made a similar reference in the story with your family member. Because of this, you could have related them, made a deeper connection between them.
Maybe this is a topic you could study further.
Good writing man. Exceeded my expectations!
-Kevin (comment back!)
From Sam:
I really like your observation of not really understanding what these stories mean especially because you have nothing to compare them to because the t.v. does lie to us. I feel like this blind intelligence is really something that you can build off of to help further your independent research because what do these stories mean? Was what the first women really went through significant in terms of birth stories (it seems so to me). I feel like maybe going in depth a little more on the other stories would have given it something to compare it to. But i can understand your interest in the first one because it caught my attention as well. Good writing Kevin.
From my mentor (dad):
The sharpest insight that I saw in this post was when you were trying to relate these stories back to the course, or anything. You said that you don't have anything to relate it back to because the little extent of your knowledge is very questionable. You also had a thought provoking idea when you talked about the fetus being a parasite. I never heard anybody Call a fetus that before but the way you presented it made sense.
One thing that you should work on in future posts is your wording and flow. If you can get your posts to flow better, they will be better.
From my protogé (little brother):
I think the best part of this blog was the first story you talked about. You went into a lot of detail in that one, and that made it interesting. You also used some good words to describe how she felt "her life changed completely". Other then that your tv thing was good too.
This post made me want to hear my own birth story. It made me realize that every pregnancy story is not the same. Every one is different and there are a lot of things that affect birth.
This blog post was very strong Kevin, you obviously put alot of time and effort into. Specifically your thoughts on the males position in the birthing processnshowed alot, you stated that he didn't have many good insights and I think your ability to sort the good insights from the not so good shows a deeper level of analysis. My favorite thought is when you stated that "I can compare them to what I see on television, but I don’t believe that birth is depicted well on television, that it is mocked." I felt this line was the strongest because I could relate to it the most. I have never seen a real birth but I have seen it on t.v. And after hearing the birth stories that I retrieved and everyone roses it does seem like they are almost mocking it on t.v. As you said.
---------------------------------------------
My comments:
To Sam:
This post was really cool. I love the first person narrative. I also like that the point of views that were represented were all from the childrens perspectives, the second hand storytelling was interesting. I found the second story to be the most interesting, and I think it inspired one of your bolder questions: "Are they afraid of what will happen after words or are they willing to accept that for what they will be creating?" When you explain the person talked about if the family that gave thier child away knew they could provide for him or her. Like Andy would say, it's developing one of those "bubbles".
Overall I really enjoyed reading your post, partly because it didn't go on and on, partly because it had a great style to it, and partly because of the interesting information it provided. Keep it up.
-Kevin
To sharif:
This is definitely one of your better written posts. Little grammatical error, sharp insights. To be honest I was surprised. When you were talking about your mothers interview you had me laughing, which means I wanted to read more because I found it interesting. Your post was fairly long but it had good structure to it so it didn't seem as long. It wasn't that repetitive either, as every story had a different focus. What I would suggest is making transitions between the stories, and connect them to each other. Like in the interview with your mom, you discussed a "connection" with you (as a fetus/newlyborn child) and then you again made a similar reference in the story with your family member. Because of this, you could have related them, made a deeper connection between them.
Maybe this is a topic you could study further.
Good writing man. Exceeded my expectations!
-Kevin (comment back!)
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Homework 36- Pregnancy and Birth Stories
For this assignment I interviewed two women and a man about their experience with birth and pregnancy. One of the women I interview had birth related complications, while the man was a product of a complicated birth.
The first woman I interviewed has given birth twice. She told me that the second birth was much easier for two reasons, one was that she knew what to expect from the first, and two, her second labor time was only a few hours; compared to over 24 the first time. She said that while pregnant for the first time that she was nervous, that she never had felt a change like that before. She was always very active and loved to work. When she got pregnant at first, not much changed. As time passed and her pregnancy progressed she just felt really drained. After a while she couldn’t go to work anymore. Without work or anything she was bored all the time. She said it made her depressed. Not only did she have to deal with the physical sickness and other woes of being pregnant, she lost the life she had. She was limited from doing a lot of the things she enjoyed. She did say that she had a lot of support from her husband, friends, and family. Which was the highlight of her pregnancy, because she got a lot closer with the people around her. She said it was hard for her to go through, especially the first time because she didn’t know how it was until she actually went through it.
The other woman I interviewed said that her one (and only) pregnancy wasn’t terrible. She said it gave her a lot of free time to do things that she had wanted to do, most notably, relaxing. She said being pregnant makes you think a lot, and if you can do that without becoming overwhelmed it is enlightening. She said she didn’t physically enjoy being pregnant, but mentally it helped her. She said that she had complications when she gave birth, but she didn’t want to go into it. Which of course I wouldn’t push for her to talk about but it did make me wonder how scared she must’ve been about that (See end of post, this what I built off of.)
The last interview, which was with a man, who is a father of two, isn’t worth giving a whole paragraph, because there really weren’t that many good insights. But there were a couple. He talked about how hard it was to help his wife try to cope with pregnancy birth because he couldn’t even imagine going through it. He also said that he was a lot more stressed out during the process, but he doesn’t regret having children at all.
I don’t know how these stories will fit into the unit, because I have nothing to compare the stories to. I can compare them to what I see on television, but I don’t believe that birth is depicted well on television, that it is mocked. Later on in the unit, perhaps when we are in the scholar phase I could analyze these stories more accurately. Right now I’m still unsure of what I should think about birth. They did answer some of the questions that I had about how it feels to be pregnant, saying that physically it isn’t pleasurable. Which is understandable because when you make it as simple as possible, being pregnant is just having a large parasite. It’s funny that people are happy to have parasites sometimes. That being said, all of these people made the process of pregnancy difficult, but they also would all say it’s worth going through.
What long-lasting affect (if any?) does losing a child (especially during labor) have on parents?
Friday, February 18, 2011
Homework 35- Other peoples perspectives (1)
As I interviewed people from my peer group, I noticed a lot of them, at least the ones from outside the course, didn't think a lot about birth. Which I expected because before we started the unit I didn't think about it either.
In interviews with girls, one of the biggest worries that came up was the pain that a woman goes through during child birth. One interesting insight I got from my friend Christina was, "I know it's going to hurt, every girl or woman does, but it is only natural to feel that pain, birth is a natural thing so it should be done naturally. I know it will probably different when I'm actually going through it though." What I found interesting was the last of that quote. It's true, how can we really say a lot about child birth and how it should be done when we haven't gone through it. I can stand up and say "C-sections aren't the natural way to give birth, so they shouldn't be done." But I also haven't to go through the immense pain associated with giving birth, so what gives me the right to say that? Maybe I don't have the right to.
A thought provoking, yet simple question a couple of the people had was "Who should be in the room at the time of birth?" All of us agreed upon the mother (obviously) and the father, because they created this soon to be child. We also agreed that there should be somebody assisting the mother, such as a doctor. Then the divide came after that, friends? Family? Neither? My friend Danny said, "It should be up to the mother to decide who is in that room with her. It is her child so she can be the only one to say for sure. It's like as I am pro-choice, that mother to be has the CHOICE to have an abortion or not. Why? Because its her child." I agreed with him. Under normal circumstances it isn't fair to have somebody tell you who is allowed to watch YOU give birth.
Based on the interviews I conducted people in my age group don't have a very clear idea of birth, or know much about it in general. The most experience that they/we have with it is televisions portrayal or with the births of family members. But I also think that this subject doesn't really affect many people in my age group, as most people in our society don't have children in their 20's and 30's. It isn't like food, which everyone has to eat and illness, which everyone has to experience.
In interviews with girls, one of the biggest worries that came up was the pain that a woman goes through during child birth. One interesting insight I got from my friend Christina was, "I know it's going to hurt, every girl or woman does, but it is only natural to feel that pain, birth is a natural thing so it should be done naturally. I know it will probably different when I'm actually going through it though." What I found interesting was the last of that quote. It's true, how can we really say a lot about child birth and how it should be done when we haven't gone through it. I can stand up and say "C-sections aren't the natural way to give birth, so they shouldn't be done." But I also haven't to go through the immense pain associated with giving birth, so what gives me the right to say that? Maybe I don't have the right to.
A thought provoking, yet simple question a couple of the people had was "Who should be in the room at the time of birth?" All of us agreed upon the mother (obviously) and the father, because they created this soon to be child. We also agreed that there should be somebody assisting the mother, such as a doctor. Then the divide came after that, friends? Family? Neither? My friend Danny said, "It should be up to the mother to decide who is in that room with her. It is her child so she can be the only one to say for sure. It's like as I am pro-choice, that mother to be has the CHOICE to have an abortion or not. Why? Because its her child." I agreed with him. Under normal circumstances it isn't fair to have somebody tell you who is allowed to watch YOU give birth.
Based on the interviews I conducted people in my age group don't have a very clear idea of birth, or know much about it in general. The most experience that they/we have with it is televisions portrayal or with the births of family members. But I also think that this subject doesn't really affect many people in my age group, as most people in our society don't have children in their 20's and 30's. It isn't like food, which everyone has to eat and illness, which everyone has to experience.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Homework 34- First thoughts on birth.
To tell the truth, I don’t know what my first thoughts on this unit are. I was reading some of my peers posts and I don’t really feel the same way as them. A lot of the posts my classmates wondered what it feels like to actually give birth or to be a parent. Some of them don’t even want to have a child (or father one) at this point. For me personally, none of that really matters. That I can’t really see myself fathering a child at this point, that I’m not mature enough to even think about any of that.
A lot of people think that the birth of a child is important, but I see it in a different way. That while the birth of a child is important it isn’t the most memorable thing. When someone has a child, they don’t know much about it. It’s kind of like a relationship; people talk about their anniversary like it was the best day of their relationship, as compared to when they had their first kiss, which is probably more important. I see the moment of birth to be less important when compared to something such as a baby’s first steps or first words.
One thing I do think about is what a name means to a child. In the movie, “Big Daddy”, starring Adam Sandler, Adam’s character is basically forced to adopt a five year old. He doesn’t really like the idea at first, but he falls in love. But one thing he did in the movie is let the kid pick what he wanted to be called. This made the kid happy. I want to know is the freedom of picking your own name (and to be allowed to freely change it over time) better then just having one assigned to you.
Questions: (I don’t have many)
Should you have to be married to have a child with someone?
What health benefits does a c-section have?
Can the pain of childbirth be related to anything?
What effect does someone’s name play in his or her life?
How come mothers are seen to be “more important” to children?
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