Word: childbirth
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...amazing how we went from barely being awake, to running into a frantic situation,” said Reed, who was born in the back of an ambulance. “I just hope I don’t ever have to see another childbirth unless it’s my kid.” —Staff writer Ying Wang can be reached at yingwang@fas.harvard.edu...
...Delivery rooms tend to be noisy and joyful places. Mothers in the midst of childbirth have been known to scream, swear, and growl. Conversely, obstetricians and midwives maintain a calm and instructive tone. Nurses offer encouragement. IVs drip, monitors beep. The obstetrician, having accompanied the mother-to-be through her uncomfortable pregnancy and painful childbirth, finally delivers the prized baby with the customary, "It's a boy" or "It's a girl." The little one gives a lusty cry then the nurse or pediatrician quickly assesses the newborn, performs any necessary resuscitation, and then, when all is stable, places...
...pregnancy more visibly progresses, the question I'm asked most frequently by relatives and total strangers is not whether I'm having a girl or a boy, but whether I'm having a C-section. Vaginal childbirth is very out these days in Tehran. The procedure is quickly edging out the nose job as the dominant medical trend among Iranians, a people very fond of surgery. No longer the provenance of last-minute complications or doctors' liability fears, Caesarean delivery is viewed here as the modern woman's choice. An Iranian politician I interviewed recently even worked the normalcy...
...Islamic dress, women focused on beautifying what remained visible: their faces. That turned Iran into the nose job capital of the world, and shaped a generation receptive to elective surgery, in particular procedures that broke with tradition: be it the classically hooked Iranian nose, or the female ritual of childbirth. Once having one's nose carved became as routine as a dental cleaning, Iranians simply grew to feel at home with non-medical surgery...
...then letting someone else care for the child. This way, the parent is not tied to an unsustainable burden, and the child is given a suitable developmental environment. Though this may seem like an ideal solution, it ignores several key issues, chief among them the fact that pregnancy and childbirth themselves require significant resources—for example, to pay for hospital fees and compensate for lost wages. Not all maternity leaves are paid, and not everyone can afford an extended unpaid leave. Furthermore, certain types of work (construction, say) are not very physically accommodating towards pregnancy. More importantly, perhaps...