French doctor Michel Odent has suggested that women risk being unable to give birth naturally, or even breast-feed their babies, because of modern aids. The 84-year-old, who pioneered the use of birthing pools in hospitals, has argued in his new book Do We Need Midwives? that childbirth has become “medicalised” to the extent that women are at risk of losing their ability to give birth unaided.
He cited research showing that women giving birth between 2002 and 2008 took two-and-a-half hours longer in the first stage of labour than those who gave birth between 1959 and 1966.
“To me it demonstrates the obvious – that women are losing the capacity to give birth,” he said. Odent criticised Caesarean sections and the use of intravenous drips containing synthetic oxytocin on women in labour. He suggested that such drips were reducing women’s ability to produce the hormone naturally.
Oxytocin initiates labour and plays a crucial role in breast-feeding. But evolution erases physiological functions that are under-used, said Odent, warning that one day women might not be able to produce oxytocin.
