Midwifery

So far, I've delivered three babies and watched many many more. I think, at this point, if I was left out in the wilderness with two cans of soy yogurt, a sterile scissor and a heavily pregnant woman, I could probably survive AND deliver the pregnant woman on my own. I think. Maybe I need a few more deliveries under my belt to be REALLY sure ... but I am more or less confident.

The interesting thing is that most of my deliveries [2/3] have taken place in the setting of midwives who have taken me under their wing and shown me their secret art. Let me tell you : they do SO MUCH better of a job than the M.D.'s do at delivery. They are kind, they are gentle, they rely more on their manual dexterity and clincial acuity than on a million beeping monitors to make decisions. They are more successful at preventing tears and all told, they do a more human, more natural way of delivery. The midwife I worked with was massaging the back of one of the women I helped to deliver -- something no M.D. would ever stoop to do. In fact, the M.D.'s here mimize their contact with their patients to the extreme [ah, yes "sterile environment," huh?] and are, emotionally, one further step away as well. I would much prefer to do deliveries as Midwifes are trained to do it rather than the way medical doctors are trained to do it. The unfortunate part is that this is only possible if I move to Papua New Gunea and practice my secret art in a non-litigeous environment.