I loved the article. My favorite quote was, "'There is no other circumstance where it is considered acceptable for a person to experience untreated severe pain, amenable to safe intervention, while under a physician's care.'" I hope Dr. Sanghavi does an article on elective cesarean sections soon. Actually, I emailed him just now to request that and to point out this similarity:

This quote from the Globe article:

"As a pediatrician, I have been present at hundreds of births and spoken with dozens of women who passed up anesthesia during labor. One justification I've often heard is that labor pain "empowers" women or gives them a sense of "control." But many women accept pain for a more mundane reason: They are poorly educated about obstetrical anesthesia and don't have access to compassionate and technologically advanced medical care. In that sense, Fanny Longfellow's story is especially relevant; she overcame both ignorance about anesthesia (by teaching herself about ether) and the lack of access (by finding a willing dentist when no obstetrician would tend her). She didn't rationalize the existence of labor pain."

Reminded me of this quote from a recent Salon article:

"However, Katha Pollitt definitely has strong opinions about women framing every decision they make as 'empowering.' She notes in 'Sex and the Stepford Wife' that "women have become incredibly clever at explaining these [demeaning] choices in ways that barely mention social pressures or male desires." But, as harsh as Pollitt can sometimes be, there's always truth behind her observations." http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/07/12/katha_pollitt/index.html

As to the belief that male doctors shouldn't research or write about childbirth, that's as absurd as saying they shouldn't work on breast, uterine, or cervical cancer.

Canuck, it infuriates me that some pompous self-righteous person has the gall to call MY choices about MY body ignorant and uneducated. Your dismissal of the opinion of a medical professional, such as Sanghavi, just because of his sex is infuriating as well.

Also, a lot of people are equating Pitocin with pain medication. Pitocin is used to stimulate contractions, and I agree that that particular drug often leads to problems.

It's also frustrating to see that, as usual, several posters have not read the article before commenting. That quickly becomes obvious when a poster brings up an issue that the article itself dealt with.

I really liked the article. Parents today are unhealthily attached to their children and they "sacrifice" in ways the kids don't even care about. Kids need free time to run around and be creative. What kind of dweebs want their parents with them all the time? That's not love, it's suffocation. Love is knowing that your parents are nearby and will help you if you ask; it's not having them swoop in and participate (take over) your toys, books, and games.

And what's worse than suffocation? It would probably be having someone monopolize your childhood and then, just when you're trying to detach and grow up, she (and the martyrs are almost always mommies) will whine and cry that she gave up everything for you and you owe her. The fallout from "perfection parenting" is going to be bad. The author's kids will probably be better adjusted than most of their generation and her marriage will be stronger than those of her peers.

I'm still shocked that adults bring kids to a child's party and then stay! My parents used to drive up to the curb and watch me bound up to the door. The only parents at the party were the birthday boy/girl's and maybe a few of his/her grandparents. I guess in a few years I'll be one of those "bad mothers" who drives her kid to a party and then takes off for three or four hours of relaxation.

First, I agree with Jason C.'s post. Salon has gone downhill in a time when it should be thriving.

Second, I didn't know anyone still watched MTV. It wasn't cool even back when I was in high school ten+ years ago. If I want a music video, I'll download it. If I want random tv entertainment, I'll check out YouTube. If I want to see whiny teenagers gyrate to bad music... oh wait, I'll never want to see that.

"The authors acknowledge that the study has certain limitations, including concerns about the accuracy of medical information reported on birth certificates...That data is highly reliable for information like method of delivery and birth weight, but may underreport individual medical risk factors." emphasis added

Their data came from, "National linked birth and infant death data for the 1998–2001 birth cohorts (5,762,037 live births and 11,897 infant deaths) were analyzed..." (quoted from their abstract).

So they don't necessarily know why the babies died nor what risk factors the mother or child may have had going into the delivery. They state that they were studying "mothers who have no known medical reason for the operation," but also admit that their information was incomplete and that they had no way of getting complete information on the more than 5 million births they "studied". It's absurd to use lack of information to pronounce someone healthy. Also, note that the "researchers" involved in this study are statisticians, using publicly available data, and simply applying their own conditions and formulae to that data. A different group of statisticians could come up with other ways to exclude or include numbers and their conclusion could be the reverse of the one in the quoted study.

Information is not harmful, but false information or information twisted to suit a particular agenda is very harmful. Doctors and expectant mothers may use this garbage study to make decisions. Would you want to make decisions, or have your doctor urge a certain decision on you, based on incorrect information?