I was duped about birth by the doctors

Well, not quite true. I've never personally seen a doctor of any sort while pregnant. True! But I met someone recently who was being convinved to undergo a schedule c-section and I felt the doctor's arguments swaying me just as they were swaying her.

These doctors prey on our intelligence, if that is what it takes. I can see why the more educated are more likely targets for this often unnecessary and dangerous (and unnatural) procedure.

In this case, the arguments that were swaying me were that the doctor was the "only OB in the area who does these types of high-risk deliveries", and that the amniotic fluid was too low. (Funny, his name didn't ring any bells.)

On the former, this mom's baby was breech. I was born breech. Laura Shanley had an unassisted breech birth. Breech babies come out naturally all the time. The thought about most breech being dangerous is that the head is born last and the baby will suffocate in there.

Um. Hello? The baby wasn't breathing before. They all come out and start breathing. Get off your back, use gravity, and birth the head! Then concern yourself with baby breathing.

Now, on the amniotic fluid thing, I have no clue. And then I thought about it and realised that no one ever measured my amniotic fluid during either pregnancy. And I bet in most cases, it is not measured. This mom was at about 40 weeks. Well, duh! Shouldn't her fluid be low? The baby is about ready to come out. (And sure enough, another friend said she was told she had low amniotic fluid and then during birth, she lost gallons of it, so apparently they were, ah, slightly mistaken.) Okay, trample me if this it totally ignorant but my point is that in normal pregnancies, they just don't check this and know what the range of normal is, nor what the meaning or risk of this "condition" are. They only check in cases where they think something is wrong so the data is quite limited. I took statistics. Most people don't have a clue about the validity of statements such as these. Just like the fetal monitoring during contractions: well of course the baby's heart rate is going to soar while baby is getting squished. Duh.

I don't think we convinced this poor mom to trust her more spiritual side and to simply trust birth. I don't know that you really can do that for anyone that hasn't been doing this sort of mental work throughout their pregnancy and possibly starting even earlier.