On the Inappropriateness of Men doing Feminine Reproductive Health Care

Nikkiana raised an issue (and what will likely become a rant) for me when she commented in my last blog post about how she prefers seeing women doctors. I understand and sympathize with her views of this. If I am seeing a doctor for something that needs doctoring, usually I don't have a problem with seeing a male physician. There are certain body parts and procedures, however, in which I and most women definitely are NOT comfortable with having a male attendant. This is "light of nature" stuff folks and should be plenty obvious what I am referring to -- anything that has to do with the female reproductive system.

Now before any of you men reading this zone out here, I want you to sit up and pay attention, because you have a part in what I have to say. And I promise not to be graphic.

The demise of midwifery care in North America is largely the fault of women. Some time ago, I did some reading on the history of obstetrical and gynecological care of women in North America and it appears that the switch to male attendants began with women in the upper crust who wanted to ease the birth pangs with drugs. Male physicians were the source of these drugs. Before long, middle class women wanted these drugs as well. As more and more male doctors became involved, the push was on to crowd out and do away with the feminine health care model of midwifery and move women into the more "sanitary" and efficient hospital model where it would be easier for doctors to oversee the birthing process of more than one woman at a time, all managed tidily by nurses who could do most of the dirty work, and where it was easier and safer to administer the drugs.

Obstetrics is a lucrative and never-ending source of income for the medical profession, so the more inefficient, less expensive, and less sanitary appearing model of homebirthing with a midwife was portrayed as something done only by backward and ignorant people. There is an economic incentive to keep female health care in the hands of the medical profession.

As women were moved out of the home, they lost the traditional support that other women (mothers, aunts, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors) during the birthing process, as well as the comfort that this provided. Birth became a sterile and frightening experience where "active management" took over and birth became, not a natural process that it normally is, with the odd complication, but rather a diaster waiting to happen. Moreover, hospital birthing practices are designed to make an inherently female and inefficient process conform as much as possible to a more masculine approach to efficiency, with disasterous results in terms of actual outcome and the ability to provide the best environment for mother/infant bonding. I swear, sometimes, in looking over hospital protocols for labor and birth, that the committees in charge of such things asked themselves what would be the most intrusive and disrupting procedures they could institute for birthing, and then implemented them.

Over 90% of babies born in hospitals today begin life with drugs in their systems. None of these drugs have been tested for safety on the highly vulnerable livers and brains of babies. This is highly ironic given the care most mothers take during pregnancy, to avoid toxic substances (the definition of a drug).


All of these interventions -- from the IV and electronic fetal monitor, to the episiotomy, forceps, vacuum extractor and cesarean surgery have short term effects on the birthing process and immediate and often long-term effects on the physical and emotional health of mother and baby. Things done that simply inhibit the natural and spontaneous behavior of mothers and babies and pose additional risks, for example: restricting what a woman eats or drinks in labor, restricting her movement during labor or delivery, not allowing her to touch her baby as it is emerging, and separating her from the baby at any time after the birth.

The simple act of placing a laboring woman in a room dominated by the presence of a clock and asking her to take off her own clothes and put on a hospital gown can unconsciously alter her behavior and change the natural rhythm of her labor. Parents make their decisions based on false trust in the medical model for birth and from a lack of accurate information...

...The result of our approach to birth is a strange mix of isolation combined with sensory overload, lack of privacy combined with deprivation of appropriate attention, and an undervaluing of the entire experience mothers and babies have.

All of the above is by the way, and you can read more about it on the website that I linked to. It isn't my intention to spend this post on listing all the ways the modern obstetrical practices contribute to harming women and babies. What I do want to focus on is the way that having men perform medical procedures upon women does MUCH to offend and violate the natural modesty that women should have before strange men not their husbands.

Many of these procedures could be done on women by women -- namely midwives. I have been blessed in a friend who is a competent, licensed midwife, who does all my well-woman care. This, unhappily, is not the case for most women because of the way midwifery has been driven out of the mainstream and onto the fringes.

I think it is time that women started to demand well woman care for women BY women once again. And I also think that husbands ought to be demanding the same, in order to protect their women and girls. A girl's first introduction to specifically female health care should not be at the hands of a strange man!

And since I have been dealing with the topic of single women and career paths, I think becoming a doula or a midwife is an excellent occupation that will stand any woman in good stead when it comes time to having her own babies. Just be sure that you marry a man who is understanding about the strange hours you keep and the kind of passion that this type of work can inspire.