Ana Paula Markel's Inferno: An Analysis Of Bini Delivery

Child birth is supposed to be the most natural process in the world. However, this does not seem to be the case in America. Child birth has become an industrialised and unpredictable process that is becoming increasingly confined to the sterile walls of a hospital. In America today fewer than two percent of mothers are choosing to give birth at home (Tuteur 1). Home births are frequently being discouraged by medical professionals within the US, and this trend is different from many other developed and non-developed countries. In America, the comfort and freedom of one’s own home has become a perilous environment for expecting mothers. The causes of this problem are inherently cultural, and statistical trends point to the primary cause being differences in midwives found at homebirths and those in the hospital. Midwives attending homebirths should be better regulated and integrated into the rest of the healthcare system.

As stated by Penny Simkin, April Bolding, Ann Keppler, Janelle Durham, and Janet Whalley, the authors of the number one best-selling book, Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn: The Complete Guide, “While maternity care practices are continually changing the way women are helped to give birth, childbirth itself hasn’t changed. How a women’s body functions during pregnancy, labor, birth, and the postpartum period—and what she needs during these things—hasn’t changed since the beginning of humankind.” The process of birth is one of God’s greatest miracles. Although all babies go through the same stages of conception and development while in utero, that “average gestation period is 280 days, but it can be shorter or longer by as many as 14 days. At the end of the gestation period, the fetus has reached full term and is positioned for the birth process. The process, generally referred to as labor, includes three stages” (Wittmer, Petersen, Puckett, 2013, pg. 103). However, not all babies are born through vaginal births and as technology has increased many doctors are beginning to see a trend of patients asking for elective C-sections for non-medical reasons for convenience and avoiding the pain of labor, as well as concerns about vaginal tearing, incontinence, or other complications.

Not too long ago, the term Cesarean Section would strike fear into the heart's of expecting mothers because of the number of risks involved with the surgery and not to mention the ghastly scar it leaves behind. Today, however, physicians give their patients the option to go through with natural delivery or chose a natural delivery. This may be due to the increase in celebrity trends or because women are having babies later in life and advanced maternal age comes into play when making the decision. Regardless of the increase of this type of delivery, one thing remains true, it is surgery and the

Every year in the United States, more than three million women will give birth. A great deal of these women will have the typical experience of going to the hospital and receiving an epidural because that is what they were told how labor and delivery should be. They don’t have the opportunity to acquire information about different styles of birthing techniques or that they have rights while in labor. After hearing multiple birth stories that were all different, I sat down and talked to my own mother about her own birthing experiences.

The majority of maternity care is provided within a hospital setting and within a medical model (Owens, et al., 2016).

They have the Potential for increased interaction and support with women in labor, by teaching women during the birth process, communication with health care providers, and documentation (Adams, et al., 2016). Also responsible for assessing maternal and fetal well-being; administering procedures and monitoring their effectiveness; providing nursing interventions to assist with a laboring woman’s physical, emotional, and spiritual needs; rendering care related to the birth process, whether vaginal or cesarean; initiating newborn care; and providing care during the early postpartum period (Adams, 2012). Additional roles of perinatal nurses are advocacy and teaching for women during the birth process, communication with health care providers, and

The argument that doctors and insurance companies provide against midwives is that births not conducted in hospitals are unfit and inadequate for dealing with emergencies that require the specialty care of doctors. For that reason, physicians deem that women should only give birth in hospitals to diminish risk factors that could affect themselves or their babies. They claim that birthing centers do not have the necessary equipment or personnel to handle an emergency, if one should occur, but maternity centers in the hospital are safe with ample staff. Childbirth is the single most important reason for hospitalization and accounts for the highest number of occupied bed days; however, the current structure of our maternity system makes it challenging

The medical system has changed tremendously in retrospective to women and childbirth. It was interesting to compare in the article how the birthing process was hundreds of years ago and how much it has evolved. Centuries ago C-section were performed on women as a last resort. Often they were already dead when the surgeries were performed in unsanitary conditions. If the woman was still alive the risk on infection made C-sections not progressive during that era. C-sections today are regarded as a surgical procedure that often have success for the mother and the child. In addition to the birthing process, women have gained great strides in the medical system. They now occupy positions of nurses, doctors, surgeons and specialists. Before, women

In Goer, Henci (1995) book “Obstetric Myths Vs Research Realities” the author reveals the roles of midwives in women delivery and how different it from the roles of an Obstetrician in a hospital setting. According to the author the midwifery attitude towards child birth is that of the mother being the “central role” in the whole scenario of child birth. The mother is the maestro in the orchestra and the midwife job is nothing less than support and guidance. The midwifery view is more of “empowering” the mother in leading the child delivery process. According to the author treatment starts with what the mother can do i.e. the mother’s potential powers and this compliments the midwifery practice. On the other hand, the author sees the medical approach to delivery very much opposite to what has been discussed as that of midwifery approach. The obstetrician sees the mother as incapable of making sound decisions on behalf of herself due to the enormous stressful situation she is going through. The author sees that the medical approach strips mother of her power to deliver naturally and that obgyn is obligated to intervene as baby delivery is a medical procedure and requires medical attention. Here the approaches are very different especially when it comes to providing care, where medical approach is more focused on medication for treating pain while midwives see that medication is “too risky and unnecessary” while alternative treatments do exist and

Cesarean birth can be lifesaving for the fetus, the mother, or both in certain cases. However, the rapid increase in cesarean birth rates from 1996 through 2011 without clear evidence of concomitant decreases in maternal or neonatal morbidity or mortality raises significant concern that cesarean delivery is overused (Caughey, et. Al., 2014).

Although the term caesarean may seem intimidating but thousands are being done safely for maternal/ fetal and medical indications leading to happy mothers and healthy

Additionally, midwifery skills is continually polluted by years of managing labour under obstetric vigilance and high end technology. Consequently, the dominance of the medical model over the biological model persisted with a negative implication for midwifery confidence in promoting normal births (RCM, 2014; Lucas, 2011). Hence, change can only be possible if the blame and claim culture of childbirth and birthing without fear is realised for women, midwives and obstetricians (Johanson et al., 2002). Amidst the medical model dissecting and reconstructing pregnancy and childbirth with disregard for maternal inherent physiology, there is no doubt that the obstetrician plays an important role in preserving lives when complications of pregnancy

Several studies have been piloted on various facets of Home Birth, centering on the levels of safety, benefits, risks and the impact of place in terms of all-inclusive postpartum care at home. Despite a wealth of evidence accompanying planned home birth as a safe option for women with low risk pregnancies, the setting remains provocative in most high resource countries. Birth is an event of great significance in family life; giving birth at home is a custom in many parts of the world because of inadequate access to health care facilities. Although, pregnancy and delivery are, under healthy conditions, normal social and physiological activities, childbirth has become hospital centered in most industrialized countries. Views are exceptionally polarized in the United States, with interventions and costs of hospital births escalating and midwives involved with home births being denied the ability to assist in mothers’ wishes of birthing at home. According to the Population Reference Bureau 's "2010 World Population Data Sheet" approximately 260 babies are born every minute. Approximately 500,000 pregnant women are laboring in the world on any given day (Population, n.d.). However, for being such a routine experience, as seen above, the event of childbirth holds an ‘anything but common place’ in the life experience of a woman.

When women hear the phrase “home birth,” there is usually a negative connotation that comes with it. Modern medicine has made sure that women go to the hospital to deliver since it’s inception. What’s the lesser known fact about giving birth at home is that having a home delivery ,for a mom having a normal and healthy pregnancy, is much more safe for both mother and child. More women should have home births over hospital births because giving birth at the hospital causes an interruption in the mother/baby bonding process, the cost of hospital births is ridiculously high, and most intervention at the hospital is not only unnecessary, but potentially dangerous.

Trends in labor and delivery has played a huge role in America’s Culture. Many people can often be seen taking part in