My patients are sectioned frequently. Maybe not at a higher rate than anyone else (though standing in the freezing OR at 4 am it sure feels like it), but enough that I can find the 3-0 Vicryl suture (944J, in case you’re wondering) with my eyes closed. I could circulate on a section asleep if I had to. The OR and I have made our peace.
It wasn’t like that when I started, all full of big ideas about How Birth Should Be and terror of breaking the sterile field. Then I labor-trained in a hospital where we crashed a patient about once a night on average: a true splash-and-dash crash, where you shoot films later instead of counting sharps and laps ahead of time. The OR loses its ability to intimidate quickly when you’re under the sterile drape pushing a head back up someone’s vagina.
I love the OR, and I understand how its sense of control, of a world free even from the invisible chaos of microbiology, could appeal to a provider. There is no control in birth, only preparation so thorough it makes a Nepalese trek look like a spontaneous walk down the block. But anyone who thinks they control labor or birth is lying to themselves, or to you.
The OR is different. The worst has happened: you’re there. The baby will be out shortly, and wrapped and weighed and measured, and dad will snap photos while mom gazes sleepily at her new baby. It’s seductive, you bet, and no one knows that better than I do.
But I need to believe in birth, in our basic biology. We’re not androids or arthropods. We’re primates, and primate life is by nature messy. In our fear of chaos, we risk eliminating what makes us most human.
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