Are exhibitionist births dangerous?
By Shanda Deziel - Wednesday, November 23, 2011 - 0 Comments
One of the fathers of the natural childbirth movement says yes
Johannes Kroemer/Getty Images
It may have been the year’s most anticipated birth—and it certainly was the most sensational. On Oct. 25, New York performance artist Marni Kotak delivered a baby boy in a Brooklyn gallery in front of an audience of 20. As worldwide press inundated the gallery for information, Kotak retreated from the spotlight. But a week later she and baby Ajax were back in the gallery talking to visitors and finishing the exhibit she called “The Birth of Baby X”—now complete with the placenta, the bloody pillow and sheets and, of course, the video. Canada had its own public childbirth in October, when Ottawa chiropractor Nancy Salgueiro live-streamed the home birth of her third child over the Internet and 2,500 people watched. Nothing, it seems, is sacred anymore, not even the once very private act of pushing out a baby. And now a retired French obstetrician says stunts like these have not only perverted the idea of natural childbirth, but are actually setting women up for dangerous births.
“We are at the present time—in regard to the history of childbirth—at the bottom of the abyss,” says Michel Odent, who’s been a part of over 15,000 hospital births and is widely considered to be one of the fathers of the natural childbirth movement, having introduced water births in the 1970s. And he blames it on all the people in the room—medical staff, partners, family members, doulas and especially cameras. “People look at [birth] videos and miss the important point—that during childbirth the most basic need of a labouring woman is not to feel observed.”
The 81-year-old doctor describes birth as an “involuntary process” that cannot be helped. So all the support people are making it more difficult for the labouring woman to do it on her own. Fetal monitors, cameras, people talking and other stimuli engage the thinking part of her brain, the neocortex, which needs to be shut off in order for the woman to produce the hormones needed to have a baby quickly and easily. Instead, the majority of women experience long, painful labours and are fed synthetic forms of the “love hormone” oxytocin.
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Double the pleasure? It’s just as it should be.
By The Editors - Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 8:40 AM - 0 Comments
A ruling that a couple with twins can get twice the EI benefits may have set a precedent
Christian Martin and Paula Critchley now have twice the reasons to celebrate. This past spring the Ottawa couple welcomed the birth of twins Lucie and Athena. And thanks to a recent ruling by the Employment Insurance Board of Referees, they will also be getting twice the parental benefits.The decision last week to accept the couple’s argument that they should each be entitled to 35 weeks of EI benefits, since they’re both at home looking after a child, may have set a precedent for future multiple-birth families in Canada. It also reveals the power of fertility to re-shape public policy. Continue…
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As rate of C-sections rises, so do known risks
By Cathy Gulli - Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 12:11 PM - 7 Comments
In the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine researchers reveal that…
In the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine researchers reveal that women who have multiple C-sections at term but before reaching 39 weeks gestation have double the chance of having a baby with serious complications.
In Canada, more than a quarter of women had C-sections in 2006 compared to just 17.6 per cent in 1993. The rise is partly attributed to higher obesity rates and women giving birth later in life. There are also suggestions that some women prefer C-sections as a way of setting predictable delivery dates. C-sections can also be combined with a tummy tuck.
Last summer the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada issued a statement warning against caesarians where possible. It said that unnecessary C-sections put future pregnancies in jeopardy, require longer recovery times for mothers and generally strain the health care system.
A 2007 report by the federal Canadian Perinatal Surveillance System showed that women who had C-sections had three times the rate of “severe illness” compared to those who had planned vaginal deliveries, and they were hospitalized for longer.
SOGC summarized the findings, which were also published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, this way: “…elective C-sections have higher risks of anesthetic complications, major infections, obstetrical wound, and cardiac arrest” and noted that these women “were more likely to require an immediate hysterectomy due to bleeding.”
