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Comment by jonah | Hacker News Reader

Yes.

[edit] Part of it is that the patriarchal doctor wants to be "in charge" of the situation and treat childbirth like some kind of medical operation.

(This is not to say that modern medicine saves many children's and mother's lives. A modern, optimal, approach is to have a traditional birth with ready access to a hospital for a c-section, etc if necessary.)

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No, the modern optimal approach is to have a birth in a giant hospital so 1) you don't risk leaving the medical decision of whether intervention is necessary to someone without medical training; and 2) you don't risk the time lag of transferring to a hospital when a distressed baby is getting more brain damage from a lack of oxygen with every second that goes by.

It's possible to give birth in a giant hospital with medical professionals present without being prone and sedated, though.

You're not sedated during birth. An epidural is localized anesthesia.

You seem to be avoiding addressing the "prone" part of the equation.

Why haven't any researchers run a trial to compare the two and revolutionized this area of medicine after pronouncing dramatically better results for the traditional way?

Because the ethics committee is never going to sign off on an experiment that has even a hint of risk to mother or child who aren't already at greater risk from a lack of intervention.

It's the same reason you don't conduct Phase I clinical trials of new chemotherapeutic agents with people who don't already have cancer.

Birth is already risky enough. "Let's science that, to see which has the best outcome," while a completely rational approach not only to decreasing harm, but also to increasing health, just isn't going to fly.

They have, in the UK when you have your first appointment with the midwife they encourage you to consider it as an option. If you decide to do this you will then be assigned an experienced midwife who will attend the birth at your house, will monitor the situation for complications and will have an ambulance on standby at the first hint that things are not progressing normally. Also, if there is any hint of complications at all during the pregnancy you will be strongly recommended to have a birth in the hospital.

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