Atul Gawande’s How childbirth went industrial reveals me with deep knowledge of labor about its biological process and possible risks, and history of obstetrics in which midwives and doctors developed various ways to deal with the risks that may emerge during labor. However, while Atul trying to approve the advantages of hospital-birth, especially C-section, with “the package of obstetric interventions”, I found the individual example of delivery that he used to connect context fails to support his point and even endangers his points. From the beginning the reader were provided that Elizabeth Rourke is an internist who “had seen fifty births and had delivered four babies herself”. We were also showed that at first Elizabeth Rourke wanted an “natural” and she even did not want an epidural. Did Elizabeth Rourke refuse to use an epidural because as an internist she knew how harmful that can be to her baby? If epidural were really “found to produce babies with better (Apgar) scores”, why did Rourke refuse it? But, at last, because Rourke’s cervix was not dilated big enough to let her child out, she had not only taken an epidural but also undergone C-section. But she regretted for a week because she did not perform an natural delivery. Why? If C-section were really as convenient and harmless as Atul said, why did Rourke refused it even when she had undergone 31 hours of extremely painful contractions. Is epidural and C-section really good to both infants and mothers? I think Rourke’s experience actually threatens the ground of this paper. I also agree with Henci Goer that Atul actually used that individual delivery experience to suggest women to choose cesarean surgery from the very beginning otherwise they need to undergo difficult labors first and then take cesarean surgery.
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