Historical Childbirth Politics 1820-1980

Cruelty in Maternity Wards: Fifty Years Later by Henci Goer,

by faithgibson April 22, 2020

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2920649/ By Henci Goer Abstract Fifty years have passed since a scandal broke over inhumane treatment of laboring women in U.S. hospitals, yet first-person and eyewitness reports document that medical care providers continue to subject childbearing women to verbal and physical abuse and even to what would constitute sexual assault in any other context. Women […]

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Mayday Series: 2B ~ Honoring the lives of 19th Century Medical Heroes Semmelweis, Gordon, White, Holmes, Lister & Koch

by faithgibson May 4, 2019

28-minute read Chapter 2-B: A longer, but more trip in the Way-Back Machine If you started reading the Mayday series, you already know that is devoted to fixing a very specific problem — the inappropriate and potentially dangerou use of electronic fetal monitor on healthy laboring women with normal or “low-risk” pregnancies. Chapter 1 described […]

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Wonderful satire from a website that chronicles man-made (iatrogenic) catastrophe stories relating to normal childbirth

by faithgibson October 1, 2018

This link will make you laugh and then cry! Check it out … http://bornstroppy.com/bleeding-babies/ Backstory: How the routine use of general anesthesia triggered a race to ‘clamp-it-quick’ cord-cutting For nearly a hundred years — most of the 20th century — the obstetrical profession has been in a ‘hair-on-fire’ hurry to clamp and cut the baby’s […]

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Historical Dissatisfaction with “Standard” (i.e. interventive) Obstetrics for Healthy women-normal pregnancies ~ 1950 – 1960

by faithgibson July 21, 2018

Public dissatisfaction in 1950s with half a century of highly-medicalized and invasive “Knock’em-out, Drag’em-out” obstetrics ~ Push-back by public opinion that rejects information about normalizing normal childbirth ~   Public dissatisfaction with childbirth practices first came to light in mid-1950s, when a popular women’s magazine published a ‘whistle-blower’ article by a Labor and Delivery nurse. As […]

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XYZ Dr. J. Whitridge Williams imaginary 1st person narrative of his “Plan” ~1914 Book “Twilight Sleep”

by faithgibson April 2, 2018

Dr. J. W. Williams explains is own Plan — the story I call the “Dark Side of the moon: I can imagine Dr. J. Whitridge Williams, as the former chief of obstetrics at Johns Hopkins University Hospital and current Dean of its world-famous medical school, having a sudden moment of inspiration in which the answer to his […]

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