Why Do Women Go Along with This Stuff?

PREFACE: Normal childbirth has become jeopardized by inexorably rising interventions around the world. In many countries and settings, cesarean surgery, labor induction, and epidural analgesia continue to increase beyond all precedent, and without convincing evidence that these actions result in improved outcomes ( 1 , 2 ). Use of electronic fetal monitoring is endemic, despite evidence of its ineffectiveness and consequences for most parturients ( 1 , 3 ); ultrasound examinations are too often done unnecessarily, redundantly, or for frivolous rather than indicated reasons ( 4 ); episiotomies are still routine in many settings despite clear evidence that this surgery results in more harm than good ( 5 ); and medical procedures, unphysiological positions, pubic shaving and enemas, intravenous lines, enforced fasting, drugs, and early mother‐infant separation are used unnecessarily ( 1 ). Clinicians write and talk about the ideal of evidence‐based obstetrics, but do not practice it consistently, if at all. Why do women go along with this stuff? In this Roundtable Discussion, Part 1, we asked some maternity care professionals and advocates to discuss this question. (BIRTH 33:2 June 2006)