I overheard the following while in line to get lunch. The speaker was a nursing student who had just started her OB/GYN rotation.
Student: Yeah. I started last week, and it's so intense over there. Like, the first day, this woman would not take Pitocin. She wanted to go without it. It took forever. We finally talked her into it, though.
Now, I wasn't purposefully trying to eavesdrop, so there definitely could have been more to the story, and there are certainly times when Pitocin is medically necessary, but I couldn't help but feel sad. Here is this young student, a future nurse, and she's being trained in a culture that views a mother's wish for a med-free labor as an annoyance.
I completely agree... not so long ago, pre-motherhood, pre-reading up on this stuff myself, I would have been exactly the same way as that student and what a shame the dominant culture around birth and women's bodily autonomy is like that, where unless you step right out of the mainstream you are swept along, and sweeping everyone else with you towards this place where women's choices are seen as a nuisance.
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