Jasper: Hey Tina Cassidy thanks for writing the book Birth! Your main idea about how pregnancy and birth has changed and came to what it is today moved me and made me rethink pregnancy and birth.
Tina: Oh Really, which parts were most effective or important for you?
Jasper: Well, since I just finished the book I'll talk about the last third of the book. You focused on the position of the father during pregnancy and birth and after the baby is born, which added another angle to how birth has changed over time because you went into things like what the fathers role has been in birth over time and what it is now, so this further developed ideas in the first 2/3rds of the book. But let me be more specific. For example on page 207 you wrote: "At the end of the 1960s, only 15 percent of men were attending the births of their children. By the late 1970s, a majority of men were participating right up until the cord cutting. They had to. It was now their duty." This quote presents how you show the change over time. On page 209 you wrote: "A 1992 study asked fathers in the San Francisco area who were present for birth: Were they coaches, teammates, or witnesses? Most men said they ended up being witnesses. Being anything more, at a time of so much turmoil, was too much to ask". This quote shows what this aspect of birth is like today and brings up problems we have with birth now. Something new that I was exposed to towards the end of the book was the things that people do with placentas. I had no idea that placentas were eaten. "They considered the placenta to be sacred, and, of course, because the organ gave life and nothing was killed to put it on the table, it was considered an honor to consume it", (page 218). Before I thought that the placenta was just thrown away after birth, but I learned that the placenta could be used for many reasons, and not just eating, it is used for medicinal purposes in other places too. Overall I got many insights about pregnancy and birth and learned a lot of new things that I had no idea about before reading the book.
Tina: But what could I have done to make this a better book - that would more effectively fulfill its mission?
Jasper: Well, let's be clear, your text sought to provide narratives, historical analysis, journalistic analysis, policy analysis from the perspective of a woman for the book-reading-public to better understand pregnancy & birth in our culture. Given that aim, and your book, the best advice I would give for a 2nd edition of the text would be, to figure out the typical reasons women decide to give birth in a hospital and then confront those ideas and prove them wrong that way women won't fear giving birth at home, or in a birthing center. 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 all the different aspects of pregnancy and birth and how they got to be the way they are. In fact, I'm likely to tell other's about the things I learned about in your book so maybe I can one day help someone out that is going through the pregnancy and birth process!
Tina: Thanks! Talking to you gives me hope about our future as a society!
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
HW 39
Cassidy, Tina. Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born. New York: Grove Press, 2006.
Topics the book has taught me about are: cesarean sections, the role of doctors in birth over time, and tools and procedures of getting babies out.
A major insight the book tries to communicate in the second 100 pages I think is how over time birth has became more of a medical procedure, it is like a surgery now opposed to how it used to be more natural. I definitely agree with this, I understand why it has become this medical procedure because of complications it is good to have help from doctors if needed. I think that people should be allowed to have more control over how they want to have their birth when they're in hospitals. The hospital should not push drugs on the woman giving birth or force them into anything they don't want. I think people should be allowed to do their own birth their own way in the hospital so that way they don't feel pressured and they know there is help from doctors only if they need it.
Some interesting aspects of pregnancy and birth discussed in the second hundred pages that I agree deserve wider attention are the roles of doctors in birth, and what the mother wants to do. I feel like the doctors have taken over the process of birth they are deciding what the woman should do and pressuring women into doing things they don't want to. I think the mother should be able to decide how she wants to give birth and do it that way and then if there are any problems the doctor can come in and help opposed to going to the hospital and the doctors try to give you drugs and trying to make you do an epidural. Also the procedures in hospitals should be looked further into for example shaving a woman right before birth is supposed to be more "clean" but in the book it says the statistics really show that there is a higher chance of an infection.
"Doctors are likely to induce mother who are past their forty week 'due date' out of concern that the baby might get too big for an uncomplicated delivery. But statistics show that half of all healthy first-time mothers have pregnancies that last longer than forty-one weeks, and their births are fine", (Page 178). This was a quote that also applies to what I said earlier about how statistics contradict some of the things that the doctors do. I looked this up and could not find that exact statistic but I found: "the average length of a pregnancy was about 40 weeks + 8 days for first time mothers," (http://www.birth.com.au/Induction-for-being-overdue/When-is-my-baby-due) this shows that average pregnancy length of is already longer than 41 weeks yet doctors want to induce women who pass 40 weeks.
Topics the book has taught me about are: cesarean sections, the role of doctors in birth over time, and tools and procedures of getting babies out.
A major insight the book tries to communicate in the second 100 pages I think is how over time birth has became more of a medical procedure, it is like a surgery now opposed to how it used to be more natural. I definitely agree with this, I understand why it has become this medical procedure because of complications it is good to have help from doctors if needed. I think that people should be allowed to have more control over how they want to have their birth when they're in hospitals. The hospital should not push drugs on the woman giving birth or force them into anything they don't want. I think people should be allowed to do their own birth their own way in the hospital so that way they don't feel pressured and they know there is help from doctors only if they need it.
Some interesting aspects of pregnancy and birth discussed in the second hundred pages that I agree deserve wider attention are the roles of doctors in birth, and what the mother wants to do. I feel like the doctors have taken over the process of birth they are deciding what the woman should do and pressuring women into doing things they don't want to. I think the mother should be able to decide how she wants to give birth and do it that way and then if there are any problems the doctor can come in and help opposed to going to the hospital and the doctors try to give you drugs and trying to make you do an epidural. Also the procedures in hospitals should be looked further into for example shaving a woman right before birth is supposed to be more "clean" but in the book it says the statistics really show that there is a higher chance of an infection.
"Doctors are likely to induce mother who are past their forty week 'due date' out of concern that the baby might get too big for an uncomplicated delivery. But statistics show that half of all healthy first-time mothers have pregnancies that last longer than forty-one weeks, and their births are fine", (Page 178). This was a quote that also applies to what I said earlier about how statistics contradict some of the things that the doctors do. I looked this up and could not find that exact statistic but I found: "the average length of a pregnancy was about 40 weeks + 8 days for first time mothers," (http://www.birth.com.au/Induction-for-being-overdue/When-is-my-baby-due) this shows that average pregnancy length of is already longer than 41 weeks yet doctors want to induce women who pass 40 weeks.
Monday, March 14, 2011
HW 38
Book: Birth by Tina Cassidy
The book is organized with a mixture of Tina Cassidy's own experience with birth and the history of birth so far. She talks about how birth used to be and what it is like in other cultures. She also goes into the physical things about birth like how humans evolved to have wider pelvises. The major question that the book tries to answer is how birth was in the past and how has it changed over time and why? Also: How can we find a way for women to have birth in a safe and joyful way? I think these are really good questions to explore but I wouldn't really know anything about the answer. I think for starters women shouldn't be rushed in a hospital while having birth and they shouldn't be pushed to take drugs and get epidurals etc etc.. I think it should be more of a natural thing and not like a surgery. The major insight the book tries to communicate in the first 100 pages is how midwives' roles has changed through time and it is different in different places. The author talks about how births go better when there is even a midwife just there to comfort the mother. I think that this makes sense and is interesting. But a question that keeps coming up in my head is if there are all the facts and ways that seem to work better than our system how come we don't change? I feel like our country is stubborn sometimes and we don't want to change anything. Some interesting aspects of pregnancy and birth that the author and I agree deserve public attention are: the hospitals should take into consideration how the mother wants to have the birth instead of trying to make them take drugs and do all this stuff that they didn't originally do. Women shouldn't be forced into these multiple interventions. Epidurals have replaced natural things that can help like massaging and breathing exercises. I think overall women should be shown more alternatives for how to have a more joyful birth and a natural birth that is less painful because there are many ways out there. I think the author uses evidence very well. I am convinced by everything the author is writing. Although the book is definitely bias, it only shows one side. The author uses many facts from surveys and some ancient stories. But I think the numbers convince me the most. I can open up to a random page and it'll usually have some type of statistic for example page 14: "Babies born late at night have as much as 16 percent greater change of dying than babies born between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., a 2005 study found." I think it's good because there is all kind of evidence from surveys, studies, her own/friends experiences, old stories, doctors so you get all these different evidences. Overall, I think the book is very convincing.
The book is organized with a mixture of Tina Cassidy's own experience with birth and the history of birth so far. She talks about how birth used to be and what it is like in other cultures. She also goes into the physical things about birth like how humans evolved to have wider pelvises. The major question that the book tries to answer is how birth was in the past and how has it changed over time and why? Also: How can we find a way for women to have birth in a safe and joyful way? I think these are really good questions to explore but I wouldn't really know anything about the answer. I think for starters women shouldn't be rushed in a hospital while having birth and they shouldn't be pushed to take drugs and get epidurals etc etc.. I think it should be more of a natural thing and not like a surgery. The major insight the book tries to communicate in the first 100 pages is how midwives' roles has changed through time and it is different in different places. The author talks about how births go better when there is even a midwife just there to comfort the mother. I think that this makes sense and is interesting. But a question that keeps coming up in my head is if there are all the facts and ways that seem to work better than our system how come we don't change? I feel like our country is stubborn sometimes and we don't want to change anything. Some interesting aspects of pregnancy and birth that the author and I agree deserve public attention are: the hospitals should take into consideration how the mother wants to have the birth instead of trying to make them take drugs and do all this stuff that they didn't originally do. Women shouldn't be forced into these multiple interventions. Epidurals have replaced natural things that can help like massaging and breathing exercises. I think overall women should be shown more alternatives for how to have a more joyful birth and a natural birth that is less painful because there are many ways out there. I think the author uses evidence very well. I am convinced by everything the author is writing. Although the book is definitely bias, it only shows one side. The author uses many facts from surveys and some ancient stories. But I think the numbers convince me the most. I can open up to a random page and it'll usually have some type of statistic for example page 14: "Babies born late at night have as much as 16 percent greater change of dying than babies born between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., a 2005 study found." I think it's good because there is all kind of evidence from surveys, studies, her own/friends experiences, old stories, doctors so you get all these different evidences. Overall, I think the book is very convincing.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
HW 37
Comments I made:
Chris,
I like how you had a specific topic about birth that you wanted to look into opposed to just asking about their experiences. My favorite part was: "While the father is usually expected to be there for morale support and to make sure the baby will have a place to live and be happy, in her case the father was more hands on then she wanted and as a result to that it is kind of like he was also taking care of the baby for nine months. ". I thought this was interesting I had never heard of someone getting too much attention from a male during birth. I wonder why this was a problem for her.. Overall I thought it was a good post and I thought you did well explaining your thoughts about the male role during pregnancy and birth and you were able to get good examples that were different from each other.
Amanda:
I like how you chose people with all different views and explored what the woman's knowledge of the pregnancy and birth giving process mattered. This is kind of off topic but my favorite part was: "but it did scare her because she had never felt another life insider her before." This idea of having another life inside of you made me think about how that must affect the way a female feels about being pregnant. I thought you did well on showing your own opinions for each of the views right after you talked about what they people being interviewed thought.
Javon:
I thought this was really good I like how you listed out the key ideas in each interview and then went deeper into them after. My favorite part was: "In this interview the mother was concerned about the father's point of view about the pregnancy. I will like to do further research on how significant the mother believes the father's opinion is on the pregnancy. Also how important the father believes his opinion is on the pregnancy." This was interesting to me because it made me think about how both the mother and the fathers opinions on the pregnancy are important. The mother could want to keep the baby and the father doesn't want to (vise versa) but how will it affect the child and how will they feel about it? So it is interesting to think about who's decision is more important.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments on my post:
Chris:
I think you did a good job in this post with showing a lot of the actual birth stories. The first paragraph is actually really engaging and i think this is because you didn't over analyze things at the beginning you just left it how the actual story was and that made me want to read more. I think you could have gone into more depth about that though to make your post stronger. I think you have some good analysis too but the best part of your post as the actual stories because they are your view of what your mom told you and its interesting to here about what you think. Your best line was "She feels like the way birth is viewed in America is very bad, she feels like it is viewed as scary and everyone wants to be drugged up so they don't feel the pain. She was not yelling while giving birth she was very calm and said it was not that bad" you talk a lot about what she thinks though and not enough about what you think! Thats how I think you can improve.
Mom's comment: I like that you described that a person may think of childbirth in different ways. "different people take pregnancy and giving birth more seriously than others. For example I saw how my mom read a lot of books and tried to understand the process as much as she could, she changed her diet, and she didn't drink alcohol at all while she was pregnant, just in general she seemed to really care a lot and want to do as much as she could to have a healthy birth." I think this is a great idea that you can further expanded upon. Today there is so much more knowledge about how to train your body/mind to prepare for an extreme physical challenge and about how to treat a newborn baby the first hours after birth etc. I also liked that you picked up on how different it is for female vs. male during the pregnancy.
"there was one more thing that she told me about. She said that it is hard for the male (my dad) to get interested until the baby is actually there and they are far into their pregnancy, so it has to be concrete, the baby actually has to be there and they have to feel the baby for them to be interested. But in the females case it is very different." I believe this is a topic that really needs some studying. How can a male get more engaged and feel part of the whole experience? I think you can develop more interesting aspects of child birth by expanding both these topics.
(The others didn't comment on my post yet.)
Chris,
I like how you had a specific topic about birth that you wanted to look into opposed to just asking about their experiences. My favorite part was: "While the father is usually expected to be there for morale support and to make sure the baby will have a place to live and be happy, in her case the father was more hands on then she wanted and as a result to that it is kind of like he was also taking care of the baby for nine months. ". I thought this was interesting I had never heard of someone getting too much attention from a male during birth. I wonder why this was a problem for her.. Overall I thought it was a good post and I thought you did well explaining your thoughts about the male role during pregnancy and birth and you were able to get good examples that were different from each other.
Amanda:
I like how you chose people with all different views and explored what the woman's knowledge of the pregnancy and birth giving process mattered. This is kind of off topic but my favorite part was: "but it did scare her because she had never felt another life insider her before." This idea of having another life inside of you made me think about how that must affect the way a female feels about being pregnant. I thought you did well on showing your own opinions for each of the views right after you talked about what they people being interviewed thought.
Javon:
I thought this was really good I like how you listed out the key ideas in each interview and then went deeper into them after. My favorite part was: "In this interview the mother was concerned about the father's point of view about the pregnancy. I will like to do further research on how significant the mother believes the father's opinion is on the pregnancy. Also how important the father believes his opinion is on the pregnancy." This was interesting to me because it made me think about how both the mother and the fathers opinions on the pregnancy are important. The mother could want to keep the baby and the father doesn't want to (vise versa) but how will it affect the child and how will they feel about it? So it is interesting to think about who's decision is more important.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments on my post:
Chris:
I think you did a good job in this post with showing a lot of the actual birth stories. The first paragraph is actually really engaging and i think this is because you didn't over analyze things at the beginning you just left it how the actual story was and that made me want to read more. I think you could have gone into more depth about that though to make your post stronger. I think you have some good analysis too but the best part of your post as the actual stories because they are your view of what your mom told you and its interesting to here about what you think. Your best line was "She feels like the way birth is viewed in America is very bad, she feels like it is viewed as scary and everyone wants to be drugged up so they don't feel the pain. She was not yelling while giving birth she was very calm and said it was not that bad" you talk a lot about what she thinks though and not enough about what you think! Thats how I think you can improve.
Mom's comment: I like that you described that a person may think of childbirth in different ways. "different people take pregnancy and giving birth more seriously than others. For example I saw how my mom read a lot of books and tried to understand the process as much as she could, she changed her diet, and she didn't drink alcohol at all while she was pregnant, just in general she seemed to really care a lot and want to do as much as she could to have a healthy birth." I think this is a great idea that you can further expanded upon. Today there is so much more knowledge about how to train your body/mind to prepare for an extreme physical challenge and about how to treat a newborn baby the first hours after birth etc. I also liked that you picked up on how different it is for female vs. male during the pregnancy.
"there was one more thing that she told me about. She said that it is hard for the male (my dad) to get interested until the baby is actually there and they are far into their pregnancy, so it has to be concrete, the baby actually has to be there and they have to feel the baby for them to be interested. But in the females case it is very different." I believe this is a topic that really needs some studying. How can a male get more engaged and feel part of the whole experience? I think you can develop more interesting aspects of child birth by expanding both these topics.
(The others didn't comment on my post yet.)
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