Mr

             WHY MIGHT IT BE ARGUED THAT CHILDBIRTH HAS BEEN MEDICALISED?
             WHAT ARE THE POSITVE AND NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES OF SUCH A DEVELOPMENT?
             In the past few decades there has been an increasing medicalisation of childbirth. This has resulted in a major trend that was identified as early as 1975 by Oakley whereby the rising proportion of hospital deliveries indicated a shift from the natural process to medical intervention. Currently in the UK, 98% of women deliver in the hospital (Campbell & Macfarlane, 1990 and Audit Commission 1998), despite the lack of firm evidence that hospital births are safer than one at home.
             Differences in opinion as regards to this debate can be observed in the perceptions of childbirth from organisations representing mothers (e.g. Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services) who see childbirth as
             "a normal physiological event...and remains so until there are signs that it is diverging from the normal"
             compared with the medical perspective where it is
             "a potentially dangerous event which can only be judged safe in retrospect"
             There is some tendency for women feel that their pregnancies are apparently 'diagnosed' by doctors. According to the Oxford Medical Dictionary 'diagnosis' is
             "the process of determining the nature of a disorder..."
             substantiating the suggestion that doctors increasingly treat childbirth as a pathogenic condition.
             The argument that childbirth has been medicalised is insinuated in the statement "Medicine operates as a powerful institution of social control" (Conrad & Schneider). Thus this medicalisation has social advantages and disadvantages and these with its consequences will be discussed below.
             Advantages of childbirth medicalisation
             The benefits of medicalised childbirth can be illustrated statistically when comparing the mortality and morbidity during childbirth in developed and developing count...

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Mr. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 04:14, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/15270.html