In modern Western culture, technology takes precedence and childbirth mostly occurs in a high tech setting with minimal privacy, exposure to bright light and the clinical obstetric gaze. What puzzles me is why approximately 96% of women will follow cultural dictates and submit to entering a strange medical facility where they will be subjected to all manner of intrusive and invasive procedures by people they barely know. And this at the most vulnerable time of their lives, during labour and birth. The prevalence of abuse, enacted on women in hospitals, is without question. Both Sharon Hodges and Henci Goer have researched and written about cruelty to women in maternity wards (Henci Goer, 2010, Hodges 2009). Yet women continue to enter and/or are ushered into medical facilities, unwittingly influenced by the cultural paradigm and the belief that birth is dangerous and something to be feared. Fear of pain, of the unknown, fear driven by photographic and film images in public media, fear motivates us to seek comfort. The neocortex or thinking brain is thus stimulated by our thinking, sends messages to the more primitive protective parts of the brain to activate the flight or fight mechanism. Perhaps women are escaping from intrusive or anxious family members in their home and community or perhaps they are taking flight from their fear hoping the hospital will remove the risk? The dilemma is that in flight mode, women are subsequently less able to adapt to a fight mode, once faced with coercive or invasive behaviour inside the hospital. A woman’s cortisol levels are then raised, as are levels of adrenalin. Frequently, just after the admission to hospital, a woman’s labour may cease or slow down. Adrenalin release shuts down the progress of labour. The mother-to-be is not usually free to leave the hospital and return home; her stress levels are high, so she settles in to the situation as best as she can, imprisoned by her choice to be in the hospital and her fear.
Posted on: Sat, 24 May 2014 03:50:13 +0000
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