Great read. BFing the two-week-old right now. He didn’t make his birth weight last week, which bothers me, but not nearly as much as it might if our now-three-year-old had not also had a similar pattern. The 3yo is a monster, size-wise, compared to our other kids, too. Oh, my husband and I have eight living children. I birthed them all, have breastfed them all, and after this many, I’ve learned not to get nearly so upset about some of the markers as I did with kid #1 and #2. I appreciate your recognition that tech can actually add unnecessary and even invasive layers between moms and children rather than assisting their bonding.
And as you also note, while tech can be beneficial, it can often be a hindrance during pregnancy, labor, and delivery. The inconsistency of accurate contraction measuring (yep, had that again this time), the stress on fetal heartbeat monitoring (the medical people thankfully weren’t nearly as obsessed with this as they have been in past L & Ds), the not letting moms eat due to anesthesiologist requirements, etc. I’m so grateful I had a CNM (certified nurse midwife) for the first five kids. So much less invasive, so much less stressful than the full-blown “hook them up” L & Ds most women in western medicine have. My DO this time thankfully let me eat whatever I wanted during labor and also let me move and deliver where I wanted, bless her.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your experience, and congratulations on your new little one. 8 kids, that's amazing! We met a family at the beach last summer who had 8 children and the husband said to me: "the more you have the easier it gets!" lol
Thanks. It’s true in some ways that the more you have, the easier it gets (kids get older! You have actual help! They become funny, thoughtful, neat human beings!) It’s also just hard (it’s a lot of people :)). But the blessings are uncountable. This becomes more evident the longer time goes on, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
This was brilliantly written and echoes so many of my own thoughts on this topic. I think the impulse to keeping making more THINGS needs to be harnessed and applied elsewhere. The sort of waste and toxic load that comes along with these things is an abomination. When you pair that fact with the fact that they are essentially just training us to mistrust our body basic intelligence- I think it is very easy to see the net negative here for everyone except the people behind the product.
There are just some areas of life that do have have a requirement for technological meddling.
Thanks, Emily! Yeah it really is training us away from ourselves isn't it. I feel it on small, benign levels too, like Spotify's algorithm training me to listen to what it recommends to the point where I forget what I even like sometimes, which is pretty scary. And then of course the more concerning examples, like a laboring woman being told she's not having a contraction because it's not showing up on the monitor:
“Under the technocratic model, the information produced by machines is considered more authoritative than the information produced by people… Initially, in medicine, the physician was totally dependent on the patient’s verbal report and on his own senses of touch and observation for knowledge about an ailment or condition. With the invention of tests and procedures, medical practitioners have become increasingly removed from the need to physically interact with their patients. The recent shift in birth from a focus on the woman herself to a focus on diagnosis by machine parallels the same move in medicine as a whole, and both reflects and perpetuates our higher cultural valuation of objective knowledge over subjective experience. Brigitte Jordan (personal communication) reports repeated observations in hospitals of women still writhing in pain from an ongoing contraction while the nurse stood by insisting that, since the monitor was not recording it, the contraction must be over. Such indeed was the experience of several women in my study, one of whom added, “I even found myself apologizing to the nurse, who was waiting for the contraction to be over to do a cervical check, for the pain I was still feeling, because clearly I shouldn’t have been feeling it.” Such reliance on machines assures that the question of who knows what is going on, as well as what is best for the woman and her baby, will be neatly resolved in favor of those who have access to the more valued technologically obtained information."
--from Birth as an American Rite of Passage by Robbie Davis-Floyd
The Spotify example is so illustrative of the small ways in which in these things touch us in almost imperceptible ways as they are so baked into our everyday.
Your example here about the tocodynamometer is so spot on. I actually just saw recently at work an article on how the university that the hospital works with is pioneering an ultrasound technology to better read contraction patterns and intensity. It was of course written in a way that made it sound like such an amazing advancement-but I was just astounded at how invasive this really is. Just use your eyes and ears and make sensorial observations and trust women! Not to mention this information really isn’t all that helpful or necessary. Just another thing to add to the rest of the things.
Yep, more stuff so we can Figure Birth Out, once and for all! I love the monty python skit I embedded so much for it's hilarious accuracy on that subject. The mothers you work with are lucky to have a nurse who trusts women.
Entering the third trimester at the moment, and I've largely made it my goal to stay away from the onslaught of infinite data and available information, other than reading the two Oster books that folks recommend, and talking with my widwife. Even trying actively to avoid it though, I'm hit with it somehow? Osmosis? Even the tests we've been encouraged to take throughout pregnancy have felt like too much. People didn't used to be able to find out if this and that was "okay" or "normal" until the kid was born. In a way, of course, I'm grateful—but also, what do I do with this information if it comes back unfavorable? And how do I manage the anxiety of that kind of questioning while waiting for test results? In so many ways, the more information I have gotten about pregnancy and birth, the more disconnected I feel from the process and from my baby, and the more anxious and generally mentally unwell I am. I remember reading a quote from a midwife somewhere, "for every book you read about childbirth, you can add two hours onto labor."
Ugh Hallie, I really feel you on this. It feels almost impossible to hold all the information while also holding, and honoring, the mystery of it all— especially in the third trimester, when the veil is starting to thin. I really feel that prioritizing down-regulation of the nervous system, practicing the art of listening to our intuition (which can be so damn quiet and hard to hear sometimes!), and prioritizing overall relaxation is just as important as educating oneself in pregnancy. We just value the data so much more than anything else, and we equate it with being responsible. So it’s hard. I like what French OB Michel Odent said once: “I usually claim that pregnant women should not read books about pregnancy and birth. Their time is too precious. They should, rather, watch the moon and sing to their baby in the womb.” :) I also like what they say on the Down to Birth podcast: “Hear everyone. Listen to yourself.”
Wow, yeah... it's so easy to get caught up in all of it, with this subtle voice in the background telling you if you're not doing all the things, all the tests and scans and tracking, then you must be missing out on some important life-changing information. there's something to be said here about our obsession with OPTIMIZATION/perfection here, too, I think. One of the main reasons I felt I had to slide off IG is because after becoming a mom I just felt absolutely assaulted being sold all of the things and all of the differing opinions. It was totally influencing my perspective (not to mention when you're into birth stuff it can be kind of exhausting/emotional reading about it all the time).
Great read. BFing the two-week-old right now. He didn’t make his birth weight last week, which bothers me, but not nearly as much as it might if our now-three-year-old had not also had a similar pattern. The 3yo is a monster, size-wise, compared to our other kids, too. Oh, my husband and I have eight living children. I birthed them all, have breastfed them all, and after this many, I’ve learned not to get nearly so upset about some of the markers as I did with kid #1 and #2. I appreciate your recognition that tech can actually add unnecessary and even invasive layers between moms and children rather than assisting their bonding.
And as you also note, while tech can be beneficial, it can often be a hindrance during pregnancy, labor, and delivery. The inconsistency of accurate contraction measuring (yep, had that again this time), the stress on fetal heartbeat monitoring (the medical people thankfully weren’t nearly as obsessed with this as they have been in past L & Ds), the not letting moms eat due to anesthesiologist requirements, etc. I’m so grateful I had a CNM (certified nurse midwife) for the first five kids. So much less invasive, so much less stressful than the full-blown “hook them up” L & Ds most women in western medicine have. My DO this time thankfully let me eat whatever I wanted during labor and also let me move and deliver where I wanted, bless her.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your experience, and congratulations on your new little one. 8 kids, that's amazing! We met a family at the beach last summer who had 8 children and the husband said to me: "the more you have the easier it gets!" lol
Thanks. It’s true in some ways that the more you have, the easier it gets (kids get older! You have actual help! They become funny, thoughtful, neat human beings!) It’s also just hard (it’s a lot of people :)). But the blessings are uncountable. This becomes more evident the longer time goes on, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
This was wonderful! Thanks for sharing your thoughts, I definitely agree!
Thank you Kali! Glad I'm not alone.
Great read! I'm with you! x
This was brilliantly written and echoes so many of my own thoughts on this topic. I think the impulse to keeping making more THINGS needs to be harnessed and applied elsewhere. The sort of waste and toxic load that comes along with these things is an abomination. When you pair that fact with the fact that they are essentially just training us to mistrust our body basic intelligence- I think it is very easy to see the net negative here for everyone except the people behind the product.
There are just some areas of life that do have have a requirement for technological meddling.
Thanks, Emily! Yeah it really is training us away from ourselves isn't it. I feel it on small, benign levels too, like Spotify's algorithm training me to listen to what it recommends to the point where I forget what I even like sometimes, which is pretty scary. And then of course the more concerning examples, like a laboring woman being told she's not having a contraction because it's not showing up on the monitor:
“Under the technocratic model, the information produced by machines is considered more authoritative than the information produced by people… Initially, in medicine, the physician was totally dependent on the patient’s verbal report and on his own senses of touch and observation for knowledge about an ailment or condition. With the invention of tests and procedures, medical practitioners have become increasingly removed from the need to physically interact with their patients. The recent shift in birth from a focus on the woman herself to a focus on diagnosis by machine parallels the same move in medicine as a whole, and both reflects and perpetuates our higher cultural valuation of objective knowledge over subjective experience. Brigitte Jordan (personal communication) reports repeated observations in hospitals of women still writhing in pain from an ongoing contraction while the nurse stood by insisting that, since the monitor was not recording it, the contraction must be over. Such indeed was the experience of several women in my study, one of whom added, “I even found myself apologizing to the nurse, who was waiting for the contraction to be over to do a cervical check, for the pain I was still feeling, because clearly I shouldn’t have been feeling it.” Such reliance on machines assures that the question of who knows what is going on, as well as what is best for the woman and her baby, will be neatly resolved in favor of those who have access to the more valued technologically obtained information."
--from Birth as an American Rite of Passage by Robbie Davis-Floyd
The Spotify example is so illustrative of the small ways in which in these things touch us in almost imperceptible ways as they are so baked into our everyday.
Your example here about the tocodynamometer is so spot on. I actually just saw recently at work an article on how the university that the hospital works with is pioneering an ultrasound technology to better read contraction patterns and intensity. It was of course written in a way that made it sound like such an amazing advancement-but I was just astounded at how invasive this really is. Just use your eyes and ears and make sensorial observations and trust women! Not to mention this information really isn’t all that helpful or necessary. Just another thing to add to the rest of the things.
Yep, more stuff so we can Figure Birth Out, once and for all! I love the monty python skit I embedded so much for it's hilarious accuracy on that subject. The mothers you work with are lucky to have a nurse who trusts women.
*most basic intelligence
Entering the third trimester at the moment, and I've largely made it my goal to stay away from the onslaught of infinite data and available information, other than reading the two Oster books that folks recommend, and talking with my widwife. Even trying actively to avoid it though, I'm hit with it somehow? Osmosis? Even the tests we've been encouraged to take throughout pregnancy have felt like too much. People didn't used to be able to find out if this and that was "okay" or "normal" until the kid was born. In a way, of course, I'm grateful—but also, what do I do with this information if it comes back unfavorable? And how do I manage the anxiety of that kind of questioning while waiting for test results? In so many ways, the more information I have gotten about pregnancy and birth, the more disconnected I feel from the process and from my baby, and the more anxious and generally mentally unwell I am. I remember reading a quote from a midwife somewhere, "for every book you read about childbirth, you can add two hours onto labor."
Ugh Hallie, I really feel you on this. It feels almost impossible to hold all the information while also holding, and honoring, the mystery of it all— especially in the third trimester, when the veil is starting to thin. I really feel that prioritizing down-regulation of the nervous system, practicing the art of listening to our intuition (which can be so damn quiet and hard to hear sometimes!), and prioritizing overall relaxation is just as important as educating oneself in pregnancy. We just value the data so much more than anything else, and we equate it with being responsible. So it’s hard. I like what French OB Michel Odent said once: “I usually claim that pregnant women should not read books about pregnancy and birth. Their time is too precious. They should, rather, watch the moon and sing to their baby in the womb.” :) I also like what they say on the Down to Birth podcast: “Hear everyone. Listen to yourself.”
I wrote more extensively on my own experience with exactly what you’re talking about in this older post: https://open.substack.com/pub/halfbakedstack/p/faith-the-mystery-and-needing-to-518?r=p6a5j&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I am wishing you all the very best in your pregnancy, birth and mothering journey!
Wow, yeah... it's so easy to get caught up in all of it, with this subtle voice in the background telling you if you're not doing all the things, all the tests and scans and tracking, then you must be missing out on some important life-changing information. there's something to be said here about our obsession with OPTIMIZATION/perfection here, too, I think. One of the main reasons I felt I had to slide off IG is because after becoming a mom I just felt absolutely assaulted being sold all of the things and all of the differing opinions. It was totally influencing my perspective (not to mention when you're into birth stuff it can be kind of exhausting/emotional reading about it all the time).
also, 14 kids, that's epic! thanks for reading!