Janis McMath
Senior Columnist

 

here are many health fads that bother

me, but one irks me in particular:
Home births. I cannot understand how
such an antiquated method of healthcare
could still be in any sort of demand.

The reasons people list for wanting to
give birth at home are generally: “It’s more
comfortable’, “Being in a hospital room
with strangers and beeping machines is
nerve-wracking’, “I’m not sick, why should
I be in the hospital?”, “Women should trust
their bodies to be capable’, and “There
was a study in Canada that confirmed that
home births can be safer than hospitals
because there is less intervention.”

Let me first talk about the comfort
aspect. While it is fair that one would want
to feel more comfortable about pooping

~

and screaming
while shoving
a large human
cranium out
from inside of
them, it isan
unfortunate truth
that childbirth
is a dangerous
procedure and
it is not safe to
do it outside of a
hospital. In the
past, women and
newborns were
constantly dying
in childbirth
complications.
Even as recently as
the ’6os, reported
an article by The
Guardian, women
were protesting for
more hospital beds
because they wanted
the safety of delivering in

Illustration by Cara Seccafien

a hospital.

I've seen quotes from pro-home birth
advocates along the lines of, “Women
should trust their bodies to be capable of
childbirth.” However, people should not
trust their bodies implicitly to be capable
because there are a whole host of potential
complications while giving birth. In fact,
as stated in an article by The Globe and
Mail, “The BC Medical Association [has
the] view that for the safety of mother and
child, births should take place in hospitals
or in birthing units linked to hospitals.”
The BC Medical Association only advocates
for home births if the mother is low-risk,
and even then they still insist that giving
birth in a hospital is best.

The fact that what is considered a

 

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high-risk pregnancy include conditions
even as common as asthma is an easy
reason to avoid these births. Further, even
if you pass the screening of what is high
and low risk, no one can promise you

that your pregnancy is not high-risk. All
pregnancies have the potential to go wrong.
If there is a health risk involved, it only
makes sense that you are at the hospital
prior to delivering—then you minimize
the risk by being close to all the equipment
that might be necessary to save you or your
child’s life. As we all know, fractions of a
second can be what makes the difference
when it comes to emergency health
situations.

The second common argument which
pro-home birth advocates use is that they
can be “safer” than hospitals. As stated
in The Globe and Mail article, Dr. Michael
Klein, one of the authors of a 2009 study
on home births with midwives, said that
these births are safe (not safer) because of
the medical care system in place made to
support them—not because they have any
actual benefits.

That study also said that planned
home births under regulated midwives
resulted in fewer interventions than
planned hospital births—which is obvious.
If you are looking at a sample of the
population that is generally more low-risk
for pregnancies, naturally they will need
fewer interventions in their pregnancies.
The study is not saying that having a
home birth means that you're less likely
to face intervention in your pregnancy—
it’s saying that if you are in this group of
pre-screened, low-risk pregnant people
(i.e., the healthiest possible to give birth),
you probably will be less likely to need
intervention in your pregnancy.

Lastly, even with all of Canada’s
wonderful regulations in place to ensure

Masculinity 1s not always toxic

> It’s our culture that’s the problem, not our gender expression

Jessica Berget
Opinions Editor

Wwe people talk about masculinity,
the conversation usually revolves
around how harmful it is to society.
Although I do think it is important to
discuss how harmful forced gender roles
can be, we need to clarify that not all
aspects of masculinity are negative—
it’s our society’s oppressive version of
masculinity that is.

First of all, I’m generally not a fan
of the concept of masculine or feminine
traits because anyone can have these traits,
regardless of gender. Although being
aggressive and competitive is seen as a male
cliché in society, women often also possess
these traits. Being sensitive and nurturing

 

is stereotypically equated with women, but
there are many men with these qualities.
This dichotomy also fails to account for
people who don’t fit into these falsely tidy
gender categories. These characteristics
depend on personality more so than they
do on gender.

To me, this negates the entire concept
of toxic masculinity because women can
have traits that society sees as typically
“masculine,” yet they are not considered to
be negative. The construct of masculinity
becomes toxic when these traits are forced
upon people in the form of strictly defined
gender roles.

The problem of toxic masculinity
is not solely on men; rather, it’s our
culture. It’s important to acknowledge
how our society reinforces these roles,
even though many of us try to counteract

these perceptions. As much as we try to
remind men that it’s okay to show emotion
and to be sensitive nowadays, there are
still many people who are not conscious

of these roles and perpetuate these rigid
gender stereotypes, whether they mean to
or not. Since gender studies is a relatively
new topic (sexologist John Money made
the distinction between sex and gender in
1955), it’s a part of our culture that society is
still in the process of adjusting to.

Toxic masculinity is being blamed for
much of society’s hardships nowadays—
and men end up getting the flak for it. It
also seems to me that men are constantly
being blamed for the very existence of
this harmful gender expression, as if they
made it this way by their own design. In
an article by Vice, the author brings up
this very point. School shootings, climate

¢ Home births are selfish
¢ Masculinity is not always toxic
¢ Mental health: The unnecessary debate

..and more!

Home births are a selfish
and unsafe choice

» Medieval medical practices have no place in the 21st century

that home birth is generally a very safe
practice, it causes an unnecessary strain
on the hospital and doctors. In the 2009
study mentioned above, researchers found
that 20 to 30 percent of all home births end
up going to the hospital. This means that
either you did all the research for nothing
and are just being driven to the hospital
anyways, or youre being driven at a high
speed in an emergency vehicle and rushed
through the emergency room.

In the above article by The Guardian ,
one mother giving birth at home even had
to have two ambulances called—one for her
and one for her newborn child. With this in
mind, I would like to revisit the argument
that home births are more comfortable.

In reality, it's only about 70 to 80 percent
likely that it will be comfortable and 20
to 30 percent likely it will be much more
stressful than just going to the hospital in
the first place.

In my opinion, there are no reasons
to have a home birth unless you are selfish
about your comfort. If you live in a country
that does not have regulations on giving
birth at home, it can be very unsafe.
Furthermore, if you are lucky enough
to live in a country that has such a good
healthcare system that it can even support
you at home, do your healthcare system a
damn favour and just go to the hospital to
deliver your baby. Risking both your life
and your child's is not worth the payoff of
sleeping in your own bed.

Home births are a selfish choice
riddled with risks I don’t think anyone
should be willing to take with their
newborn child. Modern medicine is only
trying to do right by everyone, yet people
are still so skeptical. Deliver your baby at a
hospital... and get vaccinated.

change, bullying, and racism have all been
said to be the results of toxic masculinity—
and as an extension, the results of men
themselves. However, | think our whole
culture is to blame for the harmfulness

of these gender roles because we have all
perpetuated these roles at one point or
another. Blaming toxic masculinity solely
on men is hypocritical. There may be some
men who fit in the toxic box but there are
also many who don't, so it makes no sense
to blame an entire gender on a few bad
eggs.

Some people tend to think that all
aspects of masculinity are toxic, but that’s
certainly not the case. It’s only when these
gender roles are so rigid that they become
extreme. It’s because our culture has
perpetuated these roles for so long that
they have become narrow and repressive.