"Too Posh to Push"

Before I let too much time come between now and this year's Ohio Latinamericanist Conference, I wanted to write a little about it.

By far my favorite presentation was Jill's presentation during the "Empowering Women through Change" panel (avec moi) entitled "The Rising Rate of Cesarean Birth in Brazil." I never thought I would be interested in any discourse about pregnancy or birth, but I became fascinated. The presentation was so informative and inspiring in fact, that I offered to present the information in my Women's Studies capstone class this week, as it is relevant to the topic we are covering right now which is "Maternal and Permeable Bodies." (That presentation never came to fruition, but I was totally willing!) Because I don't have any of the information in front of me, I will not explore this topic in as much depth as Jill did. I will simply touch upon the main points I remember. Some of the reflective points will be my own, but most of the information I am paraphrasing from Jill's research. She's the brains of this operation.

I want to make a disclaimer here: I am not demonizing or blaming women who do have C-Sections. This procedure exists for a reason, and I know several women in my own life who have had to deliver in this fashion. I want to explore here how c-sections are resorted to for reasons that have nothing to do with preserving the health of the mother and child.

C-section rates are rising in many places all over the world, but in Brazil the figures are unprecedented. Here you can see the rates represented all over the globe, up to 80% in private clinics in Brazil. Already, Jill's audience was engaged and gasping at the statistics.


So why are women going through a more invasive procedure during childbirth, electing to be cut open and have a higher risk of infant mortality and secondary infection in the mother? Granted, there are legitimate reasons that lead to cesarean section births. But the line of necessity often begins to blur, especially in a country where 80% of private clinic births are c-section births.

1. Pregnancy as Sickness- Pregnancy is often seen as a malady, and not associated with a very normal and natural part of the life of many women. Thus, removing a fetus like a cancer, that is with scalpel and sponge, may seem like a natural medical procedure.

2. Doctor/Patient Disconnect- Doctors are often guilty of thinking that their patients do not understand the medical procedure or terminology they are using. This is not necessarily a myth, as many people clearly are not familiar with complex medical terminology. However, this is an opportunity for the doctor to explain his or her way through the procedure and complexities, rather than just leave the patient in the dark because they “couldn’t possibly understand.”

3. The Marvels of Modern Medicine- We still live in a world of positivism. Science seems to trump all knowledge, and anything involving modern technology is said to "revolutionize" just about everything. Juxtapose shiny, sterile medical instruments with a woman grunting and pushing a being through the holiest of holy orifices, and we can start to get a picture of how the modern way is seen to be more medical, scientific and modern. An audience member shared that when she had her child through vaginal birth in the US, her friend had recently given birth in Chile via C-section. When said audience member admitted to delivering "traditionally," her friend replied, "like an Indian?" This shows that vaginal birth is even racialized.

4. Too Posh to Push- Victoria Beckham had a C-section, so did Angelina Jolie, Christina Aguilera and Claudia Schiffer. It is more expensive and thus it is a kind of status symbol. Classism is thus at play along with racism. (Update: At least Kourtney Kardashian did it this way!)

5. The Virgin and the Whore- Straight up, in layman’s terms, women want a tight vagina. Or rather, men want women to have a tight vagina. Vaginal birth clearly messes with this. But you can stay good and tight for your man. Your sacrifice is an incision just below the bikini line (which can often be small or later corrected with plastic surgery).

6. Health Insurance- Of course we cannot talk about any problems in the world of medicine without revealing the seedy underbelly that is health insurance. Jill shared that in Appalachia women who have one c-section are required to give birth through c-section every time after that in order to have it covered by health insurance.

I could go on forever, but I will stop there and I hope I have convinced you of some of the underlying reasons that many women go under the knife unnecessarily during childbirth.