Book Review: ‘Birth Control,’ by Allison Yarrow - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/19/books/review/birth-control-allison-yarrow.html?smtyp=cur
Yarrow systemically makes the case that the dominant methods of childbirth in America are the clumsy evolution of earlier medical practices that were designed to protect the privilege, status and convenience of 20th-century male doctors. Labor can be a tedious waiting game, but modern medical interventions like pitocin, a synthetic oxytocin that triggers uterine contractions to help induce labor, are often followed by a cascade of further interventions that might not have been needed otherwise. And although supine deliveries, Yarrow writes, “are associated with more perineal trauma and difficulty birthing than upright positions” (such as squatting), more than 90 percent of hospital deliveries are performed on the patient’s back, a position that “allows doctors visibility, makes it easier for them to catch babies.” She also calls out examples of some common but outrageous obstetric violations — internal rummaging and surreptitious snippings performed unnecessarily and without consent — that can haunt their patients for years to come. Yarrow convincingly recasts this country’s maternal health care system as needlessly dehumanizing, prioritizing expediency and profit over the best interests of a population of women rendered vulnerable.