For everyone concerned the lady on the cover looks to be quite fearful or in agony, including @azulaco who must have skipped this bit, she is actually not in agony or feeling anything negative in the cover image. I like the bit about feeling like a lioness.
#GrantlyDickRead #ChildbirthWithoutFear #childbirth #lioness #thepowerofwomen
azulaco I get it, but at first glance, it is still disturbing. You have to read closely to understand the context of the photo. The book is a classic and has some good info, but I think they could have been more thoughtful about the cover picture. (edited) 5y
readinginthedark Wow, this was not my experience either time until the baby was out. ? Good to know about the picture. If you're looking for more experiences, most mothers I know did not have this kind of fulfilling feeling while in labor. Pretty sure I was yelling, "Why the hell did we decide to do this?!" during my first. 5y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark the author‘s thesis is that this is largely due to the way labour is treated in hospitals, especially American ones. That‘s in the appendix, though, so I haven‘t gotten there yet. (edited) 5y
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readinginthedark Hm. ? Not sure I agree. Although the premise that childbirth is more "fulfilling" for mothers who choose to have their babies at home or in a birth center might be true, I think the truth behind it would center more around the mothers' personalities and why they make those choices rather than how it's treated in hospitals. Every hospital is so different; my experience just between my two was worlds apart. 5y
readinginthedark (Not trying to criticize, just discuss. I've been told my comments sometimes sound argumentative--I promise I don't mean them that way.) 5y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark naw you‘re good. He doesn‘t take issue with having births in hospitals, he takes issue with how birth is approached. His physiology is legit, and he is saying that by conditioning women to expect pain in childbirth, they experience pain (and generally a lot of it). By conditioning women to the idea of bearable discomfort, there is a drastically different outcome that spans continents and socio-economic status. 5y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark he‘s saying that even things like “be brave dear” and “as soon as it‘s too much we can give you this” are all ways of making women expect pain, instead of supporting and allowing things to progress naturally. By expecting pain, it messes with the physical body and labour is longer and harder. That‘s what he‘s discussing. Location isn‘t necessarily a factor. 5y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark He‘s just saying that in many hospitals, especially American hospitals, they tend to treat most Labours as risky and problematic when most Labours actually are perfectly fine left to nature. That environment creates stress in the mother giving birth, which prolongs labour and turns bearable discomfort into pain/torture. 5y
readinginthedark Interesting. This may be one of those things that's an average and doesn't apply to me, I guess. I was actually told labor would just be a bit uncomfortable at first (in the childbirth class at the first hospital), but my contractions advanced very quickly without the dilation I needed to push yet, and I was in major pain before anyone expected it. So I didn't have a "this is what you can expect" labor. 5y
readinginthedark And the second time was mainly trying to keep me comfortable and avoid the issues from my first labor/OB. 🤷♀️ So, I suppose the people he'd want opinions from would be those who had a typical labor and delivery experience to have a controlled factor in the experiment. 5y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark but people expected it to hurt at some point. His thesis is that by telling you it would hurt at any point, it‘s a self fulfilling prophecy. I‘ve never given birth (and at this rate I may never get to) so for now this is all theoretical anyway. I just find it interesting. His subtle chauvinism side by side with oddly feminist ideas is confusing and a bit annoying (this is from the 50s after all), but the thesis is interesting. 5y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark he didn‘t really do experiments in the traditional sense. He actually got hospitals to buy into his thesis and the outcomes were really good. There are still the rare deliveries with issues, but much fewer. Yours may have been one of the rare few, maybe it would have been okay. Who knows. His whole thing could be an aberration, but so far it seems unlikely it‘s completely that because of the scale he‘s talking about. 5y
readinginthedark I mean, I guess I'll never know. But I'm pretty sure pushing 8 lbs out of your vagina is gonna' hurt no matter what...maybe just a little less. And that does sound odd. Kind of like when you read classics that have some feminist ideas, but within a framework of patriarchal ideals (such as Shakespeare's plays)! 5y
readinginthedark I did have an excessive amount of tearing down there the first time (sorry if this is tmi) and need surgery now to correct some of the mis-healing, so I imagine mine would have been an exception. 5y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark you‘d think that, because that‘s what we‘ve always heard and believed. He actually claims the opposite. If it hurt as much to have children, people would have stopped long before we ever got to the point in history when we had pain meds for it. The body is designed to dilate and pass this baby. He‘s actually shown proof that the more civilised a society is, the more pain women expect to have in labour. 5y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark in third world countries where women give birth without medical treatment, if you talk to them, they expect discomfort but not pain, and they very rarely experience genuine pain. Their bodies do what all female bodies are designed to do, stretch and pass the baby. 🤷🏼♀️ It seems legit. 5y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark I don‘t know if you ever read outlander, but it makes a valid point. Back before doctors got involved, men didn‘t worry about their wives until it took longer than they were used to and their wives started screaming. They usually didn‘t, because they weren‘t really in pain. They were uncomfortable yes, but not in pain. It definitely gives the mind something to toy with. 5y
readinginthedark Yeah, if he has a lot of evidence that sounds pretty legitimate. Except for the people whose bodies don't "do what they're supposed to." And I can speak from experience to say that you forget how painful it all was. Like, I remember how much pain I was in, and my body shows the wear and tear, but it's not like I'm feeling the pain long enough to decide never to have kids again. It only took me 7 more years. ? 5y
readinginthedark And I don't think people would have stopped having kids altogether even if we remembered. You would still have first-time parents who don't believe it will hurt that badly, and people whose motivation to procreate is stronger than their desire to avoid pain. Not to mention all of the accidental pregnancies from people who don't or can't use protection, especially in an environment where abortion is considered taboo. 5y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark lol there is that. That‘s where I wish I understood his physiology bits more. Your body MAY not have done what it was supposed to, according to his theory, because of social conditioning. Who knows, if you‘d grown up out in the bush somewhere, you may have just popped your son right out. Maybe you would have struggled and some woman in your village would have had to do a bush version of a c-section. 🤷🏼♀️ 5y
readinginthedark I don't know about that. So much of this is impossible to know without hundreds of years of comparative testing between people who grow up and live exactly the same. Does he address the higher ratios of infant death in historic times and places without proper medical care, or is he dismissing that to problems with cleanliness? 5y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark no he addresses that their are cases that do need modern medicine, it‘s just way fewer cases than most people, including doctors, think. He does bring hygiene and sterile environments into it. Yeah. He‘s trying to basically make the best of both worlds. That might be the best way to put it. 5y
readinginthedark That makes sense. There are so many people telling you things when you're pregnant, it's hard to figure out what to expect and what's really true for you. Maybe something like this could work, at least with your typical first-time deliveries. 5y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark yeah, that‘s what I‘m thinking, too. It would have to be a first pregnancy and everyone around her would have to buy in, wouldn‘t they? Maybe he‘ll get into that later in the book. 🤷🏼♀️ I‘ve been having too much fun reading other things. This might not have been the book I was looking for. 5y
readinginthedark Yeah, I hate it when that happens. Although I always have so many books going, I tend to just set things aside until I feel like reading it again (with a few exceptions where I'm really avoiding finishing it). 5y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark right? That‘s what I seem to be doing these days. I‘ve always got a handful of books going at once. 5y
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