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> Language such as “failure to progress” is common when a woman doesn’t perform to the expected curve, and diversion from the clock-time framework can be used t

> Language such as “failure to progress” is common when a woman doesn’t perform to the expected curve, and diversion from the clock-time framework can be used to justify medical intervention. This is one of the reasons that the home-birthing movement has recently grown in popularity. Of course these medical interventions have greatly reduced the number of women who die in childbirth.

civilized 5y ago
Funny how such little details that don't fit The Narrative get omitted from this sort of article.
- trs8080 5y ago
  what's "The Narrative"? sounds like some kind of conspiracy?
  - civilized 5y ago
    It's just the story this author is pushing, characterizing time as a form of oppression against women, and dovetailing with other narratives that try to reduce every Western concept and institution to forms of oppression. If rules relating to time exist to help women not die during childbirth, that's inconvenient for the article's chosen single perspective ("The Narrative") and must therefore be omitted. If actions taken on a timetable are a difficult trade-off, it becomes much harder to simply characterize them as oppression.
snowwrestler 5y ago
Well, no. Medical interventions that save lives are not clock-based but skill-based. An emergency C-section works just as well at 41 weeks as it does at 40 weeks. Time-based medical interventions include, for example, inducing labor if the doctor doesn’t think it is starting fast enough. Those are associated with complications, although usually not fatal ones.
- Strilanc 5y ago
  But are the complications from the intervention or from the reason-the-doctor-is-worried-and-intervening? You're implicitly comparing P(complication|intervene) with P(complication|not intervene) but you should probably be comparing P(complication|intervene and want_to_intervene) to P(complication|not intervene and want_to_intervene).
couchand 5y ago
You seem to be conflating two related but distinct ideas. On the one hand, the availability of high-quality science-based medical care has been nothing short of a miracle. On the other hand, the hubris shown by doctors (and generally speaking only MDs, not DOs or nursing staff) is incredible. MDs have a tendency to assume that they alone are able to fix things, and the attitude seems to be that patient rights just get in the way. We see this pattern over and over: doctors tend to not believe in a medical effect until they personally experience it. The treatment of pregnancy and childbirth is one prime example; the history of post-viral syndrome being another good one.

civilized 5y ago

Funny how such little details that don't fit The Narrative get omitted from this sort of article.

trs8080 5y ago
what's "The Narrative"? sounds like some kind of conspiracy?
- civilized 5y ago
  It's just the story this author is pushing, characterizing time as a form of oppression against women, and dovetailing with other narratives that try to reduce every Western concept and institution to forms of oppression. If rules relating to time exist to help women not die during childbirth, that's inconvenient for the article's chosen single perspective ("The Narrative") and must therefore be omitted. If actions taken on a timetable are a difficult trade-off, it becomes much harder to simply characterize them as oppression.

snowwrestler 5y ago

Well, no. Medical interventions that save lives are not clock-based but skill-based. An emergency C-section works just as well at 41 weeks as it does at 40 weeks. Time-based medical interventions include, for example, inducing labor if the doctor doesn’t think it is starting fast enough. Those are associated with complications, although usually not fatal ones.

Strilanc 5y ago
But are the complications from the intervention or from the reason-the-doctor-is-worried-and-intervening? You're implicitly comparing P(complication|intervene) with P(complication|not intervene) but you should probably be comparing P(complication|intervene and want_to_intervene) to P(complication|not intervene and want_to_intervene).

couchand 5y ago

You seem to be conflating two related but distinct ideas. On the one hand, the availability of high-quality science-based medical care has been nothing short of a miracle. On the other hand, the hubris shown by doctors (and generally speaking only MDs, not DOs or nursing staff) is incredible. MDs have a tendency to assume that they alone are able to fix things, and the attitude seems to be that patient rights just get in the way. We see this pattern over and over: doctors tend to not believe in a medical effect until they personally experience it. The treatment of pregnancy and childbirth is one prime example; the history of post-viral syndrome being another good one.