208 Rants

In some ways, childbirth is a no-brainer. In most cases, a woman gets pregnant and fast forward nine months later, a child is born. With few exceptions, the process is universal. The stuff that happens leading up to and immediately around the event of childbirth is also mostly universal, with a few exceptions.

Outside the US, in the weeks and months leading up to childbirth, events most notable probably are comments by people around you. You’d probably hear something like this: “My, you’re getting quite big there”, or “You know, based on the bulge profile, the alignment of the stars and the croaking of frogs, I predict its a (insert gender here)”. Or your family furnishes a huge menu of nauseating foods meant to infuse the unborn child with super powers. You may attend a few rituals called for by your traditions. Mostly, you just go about your business until the baby pops out: la la, la la, laa, oops baby.

And when its time for the baby to pop out, unless you live in an absolutely desolate part of the world (in which case you’re wasting your time reading this when you can surf the web for better things), there’s bound to be folk around with prior birthing experience to help you with the process. Its not fun, but someone other than you knows has been there and done that, midwives, doulas, nurses, etc. If you’re lucky, you may have access to medical help should the need arise.

If you’re in the US, medical help for the most part is quite good (if you want to debate that, please find another blog). What’s different are the events leading up to and around childbirth. Even if you’re not a conspiracy nut, you’ll start to see a pattern once you go through the process. Bottomline, there’s a huge push to outsource birthing. Whoa! you say. Outsourcing? Not again! Of birthing? To India? Thailand? What? Where? Seal the borders. God Save America from this new wave.

Its outsourcing of birthing all right, but not to surrogate wombs far away, or even here. Look hard enough and you’ll see a pattern of outsourcing of pre-birth activities that were usually handled by that group of experienced been-there-done-that-oh-so-many-times persons to none other than the really-inexperienced-don’t-know-one-body-part-from-another partner.

In encouraging this type of outsourcing, the “Establishment” (every conspiracy needs one) is pushing this agenda : brainwash the naive partner into thinking (s)he can play the role of a birthing coach. It probably serves the Establishment in at least two ways: stretch the already thin medical staff to cover more births, and to keep “outsiders” such as midwives and doulas away.

When I went through this process, I was reminded of my formative years and the numerous Hindi movies I watched growing up. In those movies, birthing scenes occurred frequently and they usually had these in common: two hives of activity, one that you saw, the other behind a curtain (or similar partition). The latter almost always involved a midwife, old, wise and patient, and she was the primary interface to the birthing process. For reasons unexplained, she always ran into the curtained room with a pot of hot water. If she came out more than once, things weren’t going so well.

Pan now to the other scene: we see the husband (who else would it be in an old Indian movie?), simultaneously anxious for the health of his wife and eager to see his child. He’d pace to and fro, a frown on his forehead, head bent, hands behind his back. Sometimes he smoked. Usually he was alone, but sometimes his close friend was with him. He’d look up frequently at the curtain, waiting, hopeful, listening intently for that cry from the infant. If the midwife came out and there was no cry, cut to scenes of grief. If there was a loud cry and a happy midwife came running through the curtain, roll the happy music and celebrations.

Comparing all that to my pre-birth and at-birth experience, I see clear signs of the Establishment at work. A few months prior to the due date, “They” swung into action. Birthing classes, They called those sessions. Now I see them to be the first step towards the brainwashing process. They were a series of indoctrination sessions, which through the clever use of audio-visual tools and a compelling presenter, hypnotized me into forgetting my intense reaction to blood and bodily fluids. Instead after five sessions, I came out confident that I knew how to count to ten while breathing heavily, and a cheat sheet with the words “Breathe! Count! Push” in large letters. Some sessions included strange yogic poses and large inflatable balls. “You’re going to do great as a birthing coach”, the instructor said on the last day. We were dispatched home with a bunch of printed material and a DVD which can get you in serious trouble at immigration/customs in some countries.

Most people’s experiences with the Establishment will vary after this. Nevertheless, the effects of the hypnosis will stay with you whether your child is delivered via C-section or more conventional means. With the former, you play a smaller role. Clean up, scrubs, walk to the operation room, wait, wait, walk to your assigned spot, wait, wait, peek over the screen, argh, blood, suction, doctors poke around a bit, whoa, what’s the long slimy thing out of my partner’s belly?

The hypnosis really helps with a conventional delivery. Where nature intended the partner to pace, or in the days of the hunter-gatherers, to keep vigil/guard, the delivery setting triggers the main hypnotic trance. You forget your primary duty and enter the delivery room to “assist” as your partner’s “birthing coach” freeing the staff to attend to other cases. Reduce cost, increase throughput– the Establishment has won.

Common to either procedure is this newly developed ritual by the Establishment: “would you like to cut the umbilical cord?” Its one of the secret phrases that triggers a hypnotic trance. “Yes, absolutely. I would” you say as you ignore the scrunching, rubbery sound of the “cutting”.

Fast forward several months and trauma of the scene on the unsuspecting partner has been completely erased. The success of the Establishment’s scheme lies in this unique ability of the human brain to forget the not-so-great-to-remember aspects of the birthing process. Genetics has ensured that this trait has prevailed in humans, because without it, most people will skip having further children. The abundance of multi-child families proves that genetic lines of those who recalled the trauma were down selected.

Bring back the proper birthing process, I say. Let the partners do their rightful duty of keeping vigil. Build them rooms at hospitals for appropriate vigil-keeping. Let the midwifes and doulas and those-who-know-what-they-are-doing do their jobs. Down with the Establishment.