As clear as I write it, in the hospital of León they prevent the natural childbirth. I echo a story that has appeared in the Diario de León that I found shameful, truly worrisome: the rejection of the head of the Gynecology Service, Celestino González, to natural childbirth.
The Ministry of Health intends to support the implementation of the Normal Delivery Initiative, which is promoted by the Ministry of Health. This protocol seeks to offer women who wish it the possibility of having a natural birth, without unnecessary interventions or a systematic medicalization that today is known to have negative effects.
However, Dr. Celestino González, who must be poorly informed of current research and the same recommendations of the World Health Organization, believes that natural and normal births are not a good idea and that it would be "back to 30 years".
He complains about the birth plans that ask him not to shave, enemas, forced position, continuous monitoring and episotomy. He rejects them, he says that they would be a problem for their service, which seems to be more faithful to their customs and obsolete organization, than to the wishes of the parturients or the normal physiology of a birth.
Rejects by system the requests for natural childbirth, because it says that they involve more expenses, although it is obvious that the need for an attentive midwife is not more expensive or more complicated than medication, cesarean and instrumental delivery rates or the presence of a gynecologist in cases where. Medically, it can be superfluous.
This battle, which the old-school interventional gynecologists are losing, will still cost unnecessary suffering caused by not letting women who wish to stop it without being intervened as sick, whatever, whatever they say, is known to be counterproductive.
Of course we declined because the requests could not be accepted, given the rules of this service. The mothers wanted not to have a cleaning enema, serum, or shave or an episiotomy (surgical incision in the vulva that is made in certain deliveries to facilitate the exit of the fetus and avoid tears in the perineum). ). This means that we return to the deliveries that the women had 30 years ago and it seems to me a setback. Two midwives per shift attend an average of six daily deliveries and in the case of births without medicalized help would require the exclusive dedication of a midwife throughout the process, in addition, the doctor would not be necessary, except in complicated cases.
In the end all this is born of the lack of modern training of professionals and, the truth, of a corporatism that prevents midwives, professionals of delivery care without complications, do not receive the job responsibilities that, with the current operation of the most outdated services, keep gynecologists.
I think it is time to demand that medical professionals not ignore the requests of women and attend to the advances in knowledge that is their obligation to face. Normal childbirth is a natural process and only medicalization is necessary in the precise cases, not all, much less against the wishes of the parturients, who are not patients if they do not have complications.
It's unfortunate that in the hospital of León prevent natural childbirth. It is time for their ideas and procedures to change urgently and, if necessary, health authorities can intervene to guarantee patients their rights.
