Tara Moss
December 14, 2011
Monty Python's 1983 film The Meaning of Life begins with a woman in hospital about to give birth. Comedians Graham Chapman and John Cleese are dressed as doctors in scrubs, surrounded by expensive hospital equipment (including the machine that goes ''ping'').
''Don't you worry, we'll soon have you cured,'' Chapman tells the panting woman. When she asks ''What do I do?'', Cleese replies: ''Nothing, dear. You're not qualified.''
Childbirth is still seen by many as something best ''cured'' by a doctor in hospital. The rate of major surgery for birth has more than doubled in the past 15 years in Australia. More than 30 per cent of mothers now have a caesarean - more than 40 per cent in private hospitals.
Advertisement: Story continues below
And caesareans aren't the only procedure on the rise. Obstetricians in NSW have been given strict new guidelines after a record 34 per cent of women having their first baby were induced in 2009 (more than 50 per cent in three hospitals), causing significantly higher numbers of emergency caesareans and other complications. First-time mothers who give birth in hospital here are now more likely to have a medical intervention than not.
While the medicalisation of birth is on the rise, the demonisation of women seeking natural births continues. A recent article in The Daily Telegraph by Miranda Devine labelled all home births dangerous and home-birthers as selfish "zealots".
It followed a previous article in the Herald in 2009 - the same year the largest study conducted into home births (examining 529,688 births and published in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology) concluded that home births for normal pregnancies were just as safe. In 2009, Devine quoted a doctor saying that ''100 years ago, one in 10 women died from complications of childbirth and [one in 10] babies''. In her article this year, she pointed out that ''3.5 million babies are stillborn, 90 per cent of them in impoverished Africa and Asia'', concluding that we have modern medicine to thank for our better birth outcomes in Australia.
To read the rest of this article click here.