Zygote Essay

According to “Human Sexuality: Diversity in Contemporary America,” women and couples planning the birth of a child have decisions to make in variety of areas: place of birth, birth attendant(s), medication, preparedness classes, circumcision, breast feeding, etc. The “childbirth market” has responded to consumer concerns, so its’ important for prospective consumers to fully understand their options. With that being said, a woman has the choice to birth her child either at a hospital or at home. There are several differences when it comes to hospital births and non-hospital births.

An argument for the case of minimal medicalized intervention during birth can be made in terms of low-risk pregnancies and reserving medical interventions for high-risk deliveries and emergency situations. The purpose of this paper is to ensure that members of the childbearing community, including healthcare professionals, are familiar with alternative interventions to cesarean section and thoroughly consider the risks and benefits of said interventions so that natural child-birthing methods can be promoted in low-risk situations.

North America’s childbirth conditions and practice have been revolutionized throughout time. Today, many aspects of childbirth are carefully inspected to create, in their opinion, the healthiest environment for the women and child. The vast majority of Americans birthing environment takes place at a “hospital, birthing-centers, and homes,” while “planned home births” are fewer then 1% of birth (347). When having a planned at home birth, a birthing center will bring all the required equipment to your

However, Ricki Lane, the producer of the film, “The Business of being Born,” hopes that viewers will see that economically, births out of hospitals and at home is cheaper with a midwife, who will charge their patients only $4,000 for everything, including post-natal care. Whilst, a normal vaginal birth can cost up to $13,000, and a birth with multiple drugs involved, which typically leads to C-Section costs up to $35,000. However, with the American Medical association’s relationships with the hospitals and insurances, they are actually discouraging home births and midwifery, when the truth is that, statistically, it is safer and cheaper with home births and midwifes. It kind of makes you wonder just what exactly is on their agenda when it is a common practice to give births at home in both, developing and under developing countries, and has been for hundreds of years.

The ability to preselect the gender of one’s baby is fairly new. In the early 1990’s, scientists revealed two methods for parents to select the sex of their child, known as MicroSort and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). MicroSort involves “…sorting and separating a man’s sperm into X-bearing sperm … and Y-bearing sperm…” (p. 263), while PGD, “…involves testing embryos … for the characteristic of sex and then preselecting embryos for implantation based on sex preference” (p. 261). However, it was not until the late 1990’s that the media began broadcasting this phenomenon to their audiences. Newsweek, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Time Magazine, the Washington Post, and 60 Minutes are just a few of the several sources that reported on this new concept (p. 265). Although sex selection seemed as if it would become the next craze among new parents, several key factors

While this seems like it could be great and harmless, when you really think about it you are trying to create something that does not exist, perfection. Specialists say you can control the gender of your child by what is today’s most well-known method called, The Shettles Method, which involves timing a woman’s cycle to the couples position during intercourse. Though this seems like a harmless method, experts “worry that some parents will place unrealistic hopes on a sex-determination technique and become disappointed [if] they [don’t] succeed. The method could either fail to produce a baby of the desired sex, or the right-gendered kid could grow up with traits that contradict with parental expectations... ethicists worry about the welfare of the child” (Zamora).

There has been a long debate over which birthing method women should use today: natural versus medicalized. The World Health Organization defines natural birth as a vaginal birth without the use of any.. and medicalized birth as being .. However, medicalized births are becoming increasingly popular in the United States. The use of technology and medical interventions in the birthing process has increased despite the unchanged basic physiology of childbirth. One of the most common medical interventions in the birthing process is having a cesarean delivery. Despite the known risks of having a cesarean section performed, the rates of this procedure have increased much higher than the acceptable rate of 10-15% as recommended by the World Health Organization. This is due to the reason that cesarean sections are now being performed as a matter of convenience of the physician or at the request of the patient more often than being performed as a life-saving intervention. Thus making surgical and medicalized interventions a part of a common routine in the childbirth experience.

First and foremost, a person’s genitalia does not and cannot define their gender, as gender is an expression and is unrelated to genitalia. One’s assigned sex at birth, based solely off of genitalia, is defined as that person’s ‘cisgender’(insert citation). This may be different from the gender one expresses themselves as. People who must represent themselves as their cisgender are enslaved into their body; they are stuck in place, being restrained by the crushing weight of a ball and chain of societal values, with no say as to what they truly believe they are. Each and every individual suffers, knowing they do not pertain to any kind of body that which they identify with. Ignorant parents and doctors find themselves misgendering their children at birth, and as an unfortunate consequence, for the rest of their lives. The child never is able to express their opinion as what they themselves may identify as. One possible example of a parent showing at least a shred of respect for their newborn could be showing their baby the color spectrum and allow them to pick their favorite color that represents a gender. That is one of the ideal

Let me give you a scenario; It’s 3:00am. Rushing down the halls of a hospital you are on your way to support a person who is doing one of the most beautiful and complex things in life. Giving birth. You are the doctor in the room. Cutting the umbilical cord you hand the mother her child. She smiles up at you with tear rimmed eyes and you wrap the child up in a blanket and hold out to her a beautiful baby _____. Boy or girl? It doesn’t really matter which you say so long as you say one or the other, right? Within a few moments after birth and a quick scan between the legs of the child will enable you to develop a gender label for the child that they will carry for the rest of their life relevant to their sex.

According to the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNMb) (2015), home births account for 1.4% of all births in the U.S. In eight years the number of home births in the US increased by 41% (ACNM, 2015b). Providing home births falls within the scope of practice of midwives and is supported by the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM, 2015b). A mother can have the option of a home birth as long as the home birth follows regulations set in place by the state and can provide a favorable safe environment for both mother and newborn (ACNM, 2015b). Both the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) state that the ultimate decision of having a home birth is a patient’s right, especially if she is medically well informed (Declercq, & Stotland, 2016).

In the end, this can all be avoided by the simple decision to be able to choose the baby’s gender.

Babies are expensive and being able to plan ahead is so helpful. Finding out the gender of your baby ahead of time could lead to disappointment. I have a friend that is due with twins any day now. The twins are conjoined and are not expected to live longer than a few hours after birth. The parents are, of course, devastated but trust that God has a plan.

Delivering vaginally in any if these cases would be very difficult and dangerous not just for the mother, but also for the baby. However, cesarean delivery is not always chosen in advance, it is also used in emergency situations and during difficult deliveries where it may be the safest option about 10 to 15% of women develop problems that lead to cesarean birth (Lenox Hill Hospital, 1)

Can you think of any advantage(s) for a couple to know the gender of their child while it was still a fetus in the womb?

Pregnancy can be one of the most life-changing and exciting experience a mother could ever have. When a woman is pregnant, one of the most common questions that people will ask is, “Is the baby a boy or a girl?” Parents have the opportunity to find out the sex of the baby beforehand by going through a procedure known as an ultrasound. An ultrasound relies on sound waves to create an image of the baby in the uterus. This safe and painless procedure normally takes place between 18-20 weeks of pregnancy. Thanks to the advancement in our technology, parents have the ability to determine the gender of their offspring. Gender selection is available all around the world but is illegal in certain countries such as China, India, Australia, Canada, and the UK. As a result of the ban on gender selection in these countries, people who wish to go through with this procedure must make a trip to the U.S where it is legal. This raises the question of whether parents should be allowed to choose the sex of their baby as well as the pros and cons associated with this procedure.