HW 42

Dear, Chuck Schumer

            Have you ever seen the movie The Business of Being Born? Or have you ever read Ina Mays Guide to Childbirth by the famous midwife Ina May. If you have then you know exactly what this letter is about and if not then I’m sure you have an idea from the titles I just named. But let me start by introducing myself, my name is Alex Feldmann and I’m attending School of the Future high school in Manhattan. In my social studies class we have been learning about how the normal may not be so normal when you know about it. One of the topics that we have been studying is childbirth in America. When most people think of childbirth they think of a couple of things that contrast. First one may think of babies and all the joy that comes with having a baby. But in the hospital the experience is a lot different. There isn’t any joy to giving birth in a hospital at all. Birth isn’t looked upon as the start of a new life and great things to come; it’s looked upon as a medical emergency and a business. But still everybody does it because it is “the safe, traditional thing to do.” Well that’s what most people think at least. But from all the research my fellow peers and I have been doing in school and at home we’ve found that this well known statement may not be true. But the good part is that there is an alternative to all business and medical emergencies. This alternative is the way humans have lived since the start and have always been meant to live and this is home birthing. From what we’ve learned about midwives and homebirths in class its possible that birth doesn’t have to be laying on your back in a room where hundreds of people have been the same and not getting the proper emotional and not even the proper physical care that woman need to give a proper birth. Birth doesn’t have to be that painful horrifying story that we have all heard since we were children. So why if birth could be like this then why do most Americans not even consider it? It is because they don’t know and it is our job as Americans to educate the people to see that all the drugs and cesarean section surgery is not how things are suppose to be. Of course there are times where these procedures are absolutely necessary and no time should be wasted but when one in three woman are getting a dangerous surgery that may not even be necessary there is a problem. If you watch the movie the business of being born you will see exactly all the things that I mean when I say we need change. When you ask a woman why they wouldn’t have a home birth they will say that they trust the hospitals more. But what is more important the “safe” environment of a hospital filled with sick people where the woman are treated as a procedure rather then individuals, or a caring loving environment which will bond a woman and her baby for their whole lives. We are scared of change but there is proof that change is okay and can only do us good in this situation. We are the only country to give birth in hospitals and everything is wrong with it. Commercials should be made to educate the typical American who may not know this stuff. We need to change what’s normal to what’s natural and what us as humans were made to do.