Break HW

The only normal thing about the giraffe giving birth is that the calf’s legs were hanging out of the mother. Everything else, basically, was recreated to make the giraffe perceive it as a natural birth instead of a normal birth that happens in the fertility center. In the fertility center, there is another giraffe (other than the one giving birth) that acts like a “virtual midwife”. This way, the normal setting looks more natural because the midwife can snuggle up with the giraffe giving birth and encourage it so the giraffe giving birth does not feel separated. After the baby drops out followed by a whole bunch of liquids, the mother giraffe licks, paws, and nudges the baby to get it up. This kind of reminds me of humans spanking the baby to get them to cry or to get the mucus out of their throat. The video mentioned that it usually takes about half an hour for calves to stand up in the wild but the one in the video took less time. The calf in the video was born normally because it inherited the genes from the giraffe in the zoo that enables it to stand up in a short amount of time. Normal giraffe births involve sand being put into the stall instead of the sand being there in the first place.

The doctors in the Monty Python video used expensive machines just so that they can impress the administrator. It gives the administrator a false image of the doctors doing the right thing and it also gives us the wrong image. People listen to doctors because they are the experts and they take the lead when it comes to giving birth. But sometimes, what the doctors are doing may not be the best for the patients and what they are doing is just the easier way of doing it. The purpose of the ping machine is to let the mother know that her baby is still alive but even after the video, the machine still pinged. Even if the doctor say that the baby is alive or that using intervention techniques are easier, it may not be true. The doctors in the video did not use a scissor to cut the umbilical cord because scissors are harder to use and it takes a long time when it comes to cutting the umbilical cord. They only think for themselves and center themselves instead of the patient. After making sure that the operation would make them stand out to the administrator was when they realize that they were missing the patient. Then after getting the baby out, it is supposed to be the time when the mother and the baby meet but the mother did not get to hold the baby or even see if it was a boy or girl. At the end, everyone including the doctor just left the room and did not bother taking care of the women.

In the video with Ina May, she described normal birth as “finger rape”. In normal births, the doctors induce the birth and one way to do it is to use their finger and push the hole open. Ina May refers to the uterus as a sphincter and describes it as shy so when the women is uncomfortable, the “shy sphincter” closes during normal birth. On the other hand, this does not happen during natural birth because there are no strangers to make the women feel embarrassed. The zoo keepers in the video with the giraffe fix this problem by having a midwife at the fertility center so the giraffe does not feel uncomfortable. Doctors try to fix this problem with humans by using drugs like epidural and oxytocin to make the women and the uterus relax but it does not work.

Stacy Fine remembers her second birth with a “gold full moon” in a “soft humid night” (interview with Ina May). Based on her use of adjectives, it can be inferred that it was a pleasant experience more than a painful one. Fine remembered the “natural sounds” that night and she was “encouraged by midwives” to think of the contractions as rushes. I think midwives are a significant part to any birth. They are there for encouragement, support and they take care of the women and the baby before and after birth. Doctors insisted women to use drugs in normal births and would not allow the baby to be born without using drugs back in the 1900s. They think that it is safer for women to use intervention techniques but women and babies have been injured from the instruments that were used. Intervention techniques were meant to decrease the death rates but instead, they have been increasing them. During training, nurses never witnessed a natural birth so they think that interventions are necessary during birth but when really, natural births are shorter, easier and both the women and the baby are not harmed during natural births. Ina May also said that the labor releases hormones that help women feel less pain and help babies breathe better when they are born.