Childbirth: Industrial v. Domestic

For this week’s reading we get to look at a doctor’s biased history of the progress of pregnancy in the past 500 years or so. Alongside that article we also have a critique from a non medical perspective. I think both articles have valuable points on different aspects of childbirth but reading these two articles more than anything just made me unsure about childbirth.
Gawande’s article made a number of points which I thought were interesting and worthy for any family expecting a baby. He narrates a story of the Rourke family’s pregnancy while giving us a long detailed history of how far childbirth has come. His ongoing narrative of Rourke and everything she had to go through was really a strong point in the article. We weren’t forced to read a long article about scientific childbirth jargon but had a remarkable and I’m assuming true story for relief. Gawande gives us fact after fact about childbirth and it all seems valid yet overwhelming. His main point of the article is how childbirth has become a meticulous form of art through all the new advancements in technology. A woman has so many more choices now of how to have her baby and according to Gawande they are for the better. He specifically claims that “almost nothing else in medicine has saved lives on the scale that obstetrics has”. Gawande’s point really hits home when Rourke, who all along wanted an au natural childbirth, was saved after 40 hours of labor through the new technologies of today.
Goer on the other hand seems to believe that the old way of doing things is the best. After reading all the facts about the new industrial childbirths of today, Goer gives us a counter argument for all of it. While it is called a “deconstruction” and Goer certainly does have somewhat of an angry undertone, she gives us numerous facts and numbers that work against Gawande’s argument. She definitely did her homework with close to half of the entire article being statistics on childbirth.
After reading both of these articles I really didn’t know what to think. I want to trust the doctor who should know what he is talking about. But Goer does such a good job contradicting Gawande I was left without closure. Technology is without a doubt something good and many of us might not be here today if not for all the medical advancements in the past century. I also believe that doulas and other methods Goer talks about can be very useful in childbirth. Much like the abortion topic we discusses on Tuesday, I think that every woman is different and the choice is ultimately hers. Bodies react differently and different doctors might have different styles. The best a woman can do is research and learn as much as possible and hope for the best.