Comments on: What timing! ACOG releases asshat statement

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Raising My Boychick is now on Facebook « Raising My Boychick — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 09:04:05 +0000

[...] What timing! ACOG releases asshat statement [...]

By: Hillary

Hillary — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 01:52:30 +0000

Thanks you so much for writing such a kick ass article. Smart. The more we keep talking the better things will get.

By: Radegund

Radegund — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:52:27 +0000

Great post! I love how you've analysed the issue. I'm interested in developments in this area because I had a run-in with a Dublin maternity hospital weeks before giving birth to my elder son in 2004 - blogged about here, if you're interested. Reading back over that post and my responses to comments, I note that my understanding of the kyriarchy has come on a lot in the last five years, which is encouraging.

By: Arwyn

Arwyn — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:04:15 +0000

That’s really interesting Gloria. I knew about altered digestion in labor (makes sense: all the body’s energy is going elsewhere!), but I hadn’t heard of a connection between vomiting, blood sugars, and lactic acid in the baby. I’d be really interested in seeing the article if you have a link (or the title, and I could look it up).

By: Lauren @ Hobo Mama

Lauren @ Hobo Mama — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 03:48:11 +0000

Another factor to bring up is that these new guidelines will take forever to be actually implemented in hospitals, as I found when my baby had surgery and the hospital was using pre-anesthesia guidelines that were a decade old. It's like episiotomies, too — they're not recommended to be routine anymore, but that's not stopping a lot of hospitals/doctors. So women are going to read about these new guidelines and go to hospitals thinking, "Well, at least I can drink a little water now" — and they'll be shot down. And, yes, it's especially lovely to deny obese women liquids. That'll learn 'em to lose weight before going into labor...

By: Kelley

Kelley — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:14:04 +0000

This link was posted on the FB page of a the woman attended my 3rd birth (2nd at home) whilst a midwifery student in Australia. She’s now a wonderful asset to the USA (her homeland). Anyway, I just love this the way this is written and I have little to add regarding access to fluids in Aussie hospitals. My first was hospital and I remember sipping water, and chewing ice. I don’t recall being hungry or thirsty though – or being denied but I certainly wasn’t offered anything else.
But in comparison, at home my midwife told me to have a hearty breakfast high in carbs (I chose porridge, ie. Oatmeal I think you call it) and drank sportsdrinks after that as I needed it. I didn’t need permission, I just did what I needed to do…..And that’s the point!
Why can’t they (or most of us) see this paternalistic behaviour is all about control?

By: Nicole Murray

Nicole Murray — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:12:48 +0000

Thanks for this, Arwyn! I completely agree.

By: Gloria Lemay

Gloria Lemay — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:31:23 +0000

When a woman eats to her own taste in the early birthing hours, that food does not digest the way it does normally. However, the food provides energy (sugars) to the birthing woman/baby dyad. The reason that women vomit when nearing the pushing stage is that the body is automatically calibrating how much sugar should or shouldn’t be in her body and, at transition, the levels drop dramatically in order to protect the baby’s brain from a lactic acid buildup during the pushing. How do I know this? An amazing article pub’d in Scientific American. Not many ob/gyns read that magazine so I’ve never heard them discuss this phenomenum. There are so many things that are unknown about the birth process. We’re so much better to trust what Mother Nature has been perfecting for thousands of years than trust a flawed profession that has hurt and killed so many women and their babies.

By: Arwyn

Arwyn — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 04:07:53 +0000

While I’d be happy to see ACOG as an organization go up in flames, as I pointed out in the post, it’s not enough to just say “screw you guys, I’m going home” (to quote the ever enlightened Cartman). I mean, feel free to! I did, and I adored my homebirth. Choosing to step outside the system is a perfectly legitimate form of protest and revolution. But not everyone can or wants to, and it’s unacceptable that these troglodytes are still getting away with such blatant, unsupportable misogyny.

I can’t help but think that American obstetricians away from the influence of ACOG would be significantly nicer, safer doctors.

By: Arwyn

Arwyn — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 03:59:16 +0000

No worries. I like the derivation you thought it was, and I’m sad to learn of the “beget” origin. I’m honestly bummed about the loss of “git”. It had been one of my favorites, with none of the obvious problems of sonuvabitch, asshole, etc. Ah well. Kyriarchy is everywhere. :-/

(At least we still have douchebag!)