Thursday
May132010
There Are Cesareans... And Then There's Everything Else
Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 4:31PM
Just when you finished rolling your eyes at newspaper editors who insist on calling vaginal birth, “traditional” or “natural” birth while readers wonder if they should acknowledge the 800 pound vagina in the room, there’s a new surgery normative term in town.
I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen the vaginal birth column in a spreadsheet labeled “Non C-Section Deliveries.” It’s right up there with having patients sign waivers for “attempting” an “elective vaginal delivery.”
Reader Comments (20)
You can imagine my shock and horror when our HEALTH department sent that spreadsheet to me!
That's like calling NOT using a colostomy bag "attempted rectal elimination."
And sex "attempted non-artificial insemination".
Ha! I know, right?
Oh. Em. GEE!
Aww, come on ladies, maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they wanted a generic category to include all those cases where the baby is birthed out of other orifices, like anuses, nostrils and mouths? ;-)
That's disgusting. I'm beginning to get so mad when I read your posts that I might have to stop reading them. It makes me go off on rants and want to break things. Like a doctor's face.
In our little Manage Comments box, I can only see the first line of comments. When I saw yours, B, I thought you were pointing out that it was probably just an unconscious error (with a somewhat telling bias) or just someone who felt that it was gross to type "vaginal" in their spreadsheet.
Then I read the part about nasal birth...
Tiffany, the whole situation is multifactorial. You'd have a lot of different faces of all different professions to break, so perhaps you can channel that hulksmash feeling into something productive. :)
Hopefully my winky face indicated the sarcasm of my post. It is very telling that someone would label a category "non-c-section deliveries". I'd be laughing if the categories were "vaginal deliveries' and "non-vaginal deliveries", because that isn't accurate either (see orifice comments ;-)) It is so simple to be accurate - there is vaginal birth and c-section birth.
Oh, I laughed. Mostly because I didn't expect it.
My grandmother is one of those people who talks constantly about how all the weird stuff she witnesses is a sign that the world is ending.
I'm trying *so* hard not to follow in her footsteps, but ish like this makes it so difficult...
Kind of weird, considering that (at least for the moment) vaginal births are still in the majority.
It's a sad state of affairs when the 21 year old who watches my girls tells me that she needs to hurry up and have her babies before they outlaw vaginal birth. She is very, very serious.
Well I, for one, am totally unconcerned. It appears that they are simply easing us into the inevitable total removal of the mother from the incubation and birth process. Once we get that pesky Bokanovsky process mastered to ensure we have a plentiful amount of service workers, the CDC will start handing out soma and utopia awaits.
Wow- what can you say to that? Also, that's a really high rate!
<<Well I, for one, am totally unconcerned. It appears that they are simply easing us into the inevitable total removal of the mother from the incubation and birth process. Once we get that pesky Bokanovsky process mastered to ensure we have a plentiful amount of service workers, the CDC will start handing out soma and utopia awaits.>>
My thoughts exactly Dana!
Although it does remind me of the awkward term "uncircumcised".
My doc was firstly surprised i wanted to have a vaginal natural delivery for my twins, and was secondly surprised that it actually happened! She was ready for that csection but the babies came out great naturally!
Ever read Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"? In the novel, birth and reproduction were completely removed from the wives and given to surrogates.
What a way to cover up forceps and vaccum deliveries.