Painless Childbirth Operation

We are preparing for the arrival of Threepeat. Loads of nesting and whatnot.

The critter will be delivered by a midwife - actually a nurse-practitioner who is a certified in midwifery and has delivered more than 5000 little humans. We will also have a doula as they're a perk offered by the hospital at no cost and take a little burden off me. As she did with the previous two, the real bearer (of the burden), my wife, plans to go through it without the aid of meds - a real trooper, she. For our day and age it will be (we hope) a relatively crunchy (if increasingly more common) method of bringing another person into the world.

As opposed to say, this, from Life Magazine, 1944, titled Painless Childbirth Operation...

Note the crowd required. Note the direct contradiction of the article's title, "Painless Childbirth Operation", in the mother's face. Note the absense of the sperm donor, dad. But best of all, note in the last frame, as the newborn is presented to mom, a nurse pins her hands above her head. In the entire pictorial essay there is no photo of mom holding child.

Medicine in this country screwed up the very natural act of birth for about a half a century. Only now are we getting it back, but the rise of the cesarean section threatens to rob us of those gains. From birth "operations" to formula feeding to disposable diapers, the litany of stupidity goes on and on. We are one dumb culture if we can't get the basics of reproduction and post-natal nurture right.