RE: Medicalization of Pregnancy and Childbirth: The History of Midwives To A Male Dominated Doctoral Profession
Wow! Thank you so much for the great comment. I worked hard on this post so I really enjoy hearing what others thought. I have never heard of financialization before but I kind of knew the concept even though I didn't know the word.
I think you hit the nail on the head with what I've studied about medicalization. I love the idea of cheap hospitals with midwives. A lot of the alternative birthing clinics are like that and focus on comfort and health over rules/protocol, insurance, and more.
The medical industry is so messed up in their priorities....money over helping people. Medicalization is a process to control people to keep the medical establishment in power to profit. That's why doctors won't prescribe self treatment or alternative medicines because the potentially lose control over patients as the seek outside treatments.
I'm working on part 2 which deals with modern times. In modern society it's interesting to see people push for more choices and alternative methods.
The medical system, like all of our systems of organized complexity such as our economy and the environment, is a complicated beast. It is easy to presume in the financial sector, for example, that the people busily issuing debt are selfish and self absorbed and know exactly what poison they are dripping into the economy -- but when you sit down and talk with them, they don't see it that way. They are just helping Joe buy a small company that holds a patent that he needs, or helping Jim equitize some of the value of his company so he can use that money to put a new roof on his shop. Each and every step makes some logical sense -- it is only when you scan back and look at the big picture that you can see how these all work together to create a bubble of debt that in aggregate is bad for everyone -- even though the front half of this bubble, before the crash, feels great, it's the last half of the bubble that's the killer.
Similarly, doctors don't necessarily refuse to prescribe self treatment or alternative medicines because they know they will work and don't want to lose patients -- very few doctors are selfish like that. Most of them won't prescribe alternative treatments because their paradigm has taught them that these are jokes and useless, and they don't depend on self treatment because the patients themselves won't do it. For example, type II diabetes is considered a "disease" but it is just a syndrome that happens when you get fat, get too little exercise, and base too much of your diet on carbohydrates. It can be easily cured 99% of the time by going off carbs, losing weight, and exercising regularly. And doctors usually give patients this information, and even if they don't get the information from their doctor, that information is floating around out there for anyone with the interest in finding it. And this is not new information -- medical books from 1900 had lists of all the carbs people with diabetes shouldn't eat even though they didn't really understand the concept of carbohydrates.
The problem is that people know there is a choice, which is to go on meds, which is easy, instead of changing their lifestyle, which is hard. So they make half hearted attempts at change, which don't work, and then stay on meds for the rest of their lives. Problem is, the meds don't work as well as the normal body, so they get endless complications like infections, kidney failure, amputations, strokes, and heart attacks. And that expense, keeping people alive long after their body has given up, is the back half of the medical bubble -- that's the killer expense that will bankrupt the economy.
The root of the problem from my perspective isn't the people giving the care or extending the loans. It's the people behind those people, the people who set the rules and set the paradigm -- those are the folks who are really to blame. Understanding how we got where we are will be incomplete from my perspective until we also consider the corrupting influence that insurance, both public and private, has had on the process, the corrupting influence of medical licensure requirements that has in part prevented the emergence of alternatives, and on the financial side of things the corrupting effects of legal tender laws and government backstopping of banks.
Sorry for the long reply. Thanks again for a good article -- looking forward to your next one!
I love long replies!! lol. You could write your own article on the subject. If you ever do feel free to drop a link in a comment on one of my posts.
Everything you say I agree with. The medical world is so complex when you look at it from a societal point of view. In experiencing the medical system myself when I was pregnant it was a fascinating experience as a sociologist (what I am). I had gestational diabetes and a got a random doctor assigned to me who I only saw once. He told me I had it and gave me insulin and needles to give myself shots right off the bat. He acted like I was an idiot for refusing them for non-medicine methods (diet change and scheduled eating). The diabetes went away after the pregnancy was over. It was interesting because doctors are socialized to think a certain way and act a certain way and they exert their influence over you as a way of controlling you.
You're right about the pills too. My mom has diabetes and won't change her lifestyle but the drugs, longterm have wrecked her body. She gets new pills for the new problems they create and is completely dependent on those meds because of her own choices and belief the doctors are giving them to her because they are the best thing for her.
Here's the link for part 2 if you want it. https://steemit.com/steemstem/@marxrab/the-medicalization-of-pregnancy-modern-medicine-as-a-form-of-social-control