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From Sociological Images

OMG it gets worse!

Makes you glad to be in rainy old Britain - no?

That sign is a shocker (course, nothing to stop you pretending said duola is your mum or sister) but please could someone translates the linked site's byline for me. I genuinely don't understand a word:

"Sociological Images encourages people to exercise and develop their sociological imaginations with discussions of compelling visuals that span the breadth of sociological inquiry."

It's basically a site where people sociologically deconstruct images. If that makes it any clearer!

For example- examining the implicit gender roles promoted in advertising aimed at children- pink princesses for girls, blue pirates for boys etc.

That sign was posted because it exposes the inherent sexist and patriarchal attitudes of the doctors, and by extension some members of the medical community.

It really does make me glad I had my DD in the UK. The "doctors birth plan" in the second link horrifies me.

What's a bradley birth plan? they don't seem to like that, whatever it is.

It's on a par with no tinkers, hawkers or dogs.

It occurs to me that this is probably the way many in the Uk operate - they just aren't so upfront about it

your link is a shocker dizietsma. i told my midwife to fuck off because she wanted me to turn onto my back in the pool so that she could monitor the heart beat. There must be better doctors than those in the US.

Bradley is a childbirth Method along the lines of Lamaze or Hypnobirthing.

the fuckers. has to be a place like Utah though.

I don't sya this enough, but thank God for the NHS. And guess which nation has better maternal and baby mortality stats?

info about the Bradley method here - it's pretty uneventful as far as I can work out.

So it's a kind of, away with you and your breathing and relaxing and water and namby pamby womens stuff, and put your feet in the stirrups, there's a good girl.

Thanks youngvisitor

No, I'm none the wiser.

The OB birth plan (in the second link) is the very experience that I had with DB#4... I have yet to come to terms with the whole experience. I felt utterly violated and at no point considered myself or my unborn to be 'safe'.

This took place in the USA so no big surprise there...

Their grammar is crap too. It sounds as if they have only one patient. (Yay - The pedants are revolting!)

The blurb underneath is a bit over the top - all that stuff about" refusing women the right to deny them free access to their vaginas"

Let's hope that they only have one patient left...

Does the US really have worse maternal and baby mortality stats when you split the insured and uninsured, though? I know the US was somewhere around 16th in 1990 for infant mortality overall, but surely that must include a lot of uninsured women who can't get antenatal care. I wonder where they sit for the insured population, which are going to be the ones getting this sort of treatment.

Personally, though, these signs are just horrible!

the second link is completely shocking

The second link is truly terrifying. He induces at 39 weeks? And stirrups?

choosy, if you read Ina May Gaskin, she talks about the maternal death rate being schockingly higher than it actually is reported by the CDC. She explains why she thinks it is significantly underreported. It is not just about being uninsured and no antenatal care. It made a scary read.

I was induced at 38 weeks and the he was a she. The biggest difference in my case was that she was not up-front or honest about her intentions/procedures.

I can only imagine how traumatic it would have been if my first delivery had been so awful.

Oh Cadmum , I'm so sorry to hear that. Have you been in contact with the Birth Trauma Association?

AFAIK the uninsured still get to give birth in hospitals due to medicaid. DH is American and his uninsured cousin was on medicaid. She was induced at 40 weeks for "too little fluid" (a common US OB excuse for induction) and after 3 days of labour with no progress, surprise surprise, ended up having a c-section.

We want to move to the US in a few years, but I've insisted we have our 2nd child in the UK before we go because I am so horrified by what I hear about US Obstetrics. Plus they don't offer G & A, and I found that really helpful in labour. Don't get me wrong, I have my issues with our local maternity hospital, but I'd rather take my chances here with the slightly annoying NHS than the "put your feet in the stirrups and shut your mouth" US.