Hospitals gave patients meds during childbirth, then reported them for drug use
themarshallproject.org
themarshallproject.org
And as the article mentions, the outlawing of abortion in some states has accelerated these problems.
It says a child was taken from the mum for 5 months, that's an impossible damage, literally to get back to something similar you need another child + 9 months + all the costs associated to having 2 children (and career progression loss).
Classic "not my problem" case in health care. Clinician 1 gives a typical medication to patient, then their shift ends and they go home. Hours or days later, clinician 2 administers a drug test as part of standard process, then their shift ends and they go home. Clinician 3 then reviews this positive test result and reports it to authorities as part of a mandatory reporting program. Nobody acts as a patient advocate and reviews the full case file. Everyone just does their one transactional piece and forgets the entire history ten seconds later in favor of doing another transactional thing for another patient.
And the different types of labor pain can be treated by different techniques or medications.
Why would it be crazy?
Maybe because those who have painful births are unlikely to want to go through it again?
That seems The obvious guess. It could definitely be wrong but unless research shows otherwise there doesn’t appear to be an a priori reason to avoid painkillers barring further research.
EVERYONE has different experiences and issues. some need surgery, some have a 30 min labour and its almost like a luge.
The answer here is not "every one should just suck it up like they used to" its "every situation should be treated based on the data and facts of scientific theory, and adjusted to deal with the different environmental variables"
Yes its more complicated, but the world and the lived experience of it is not black and white.
Why don't mothers with the most children use painkillers?
Having children fundamentally alters your body, making future births easier, generally. The people with the most children tend to be poorerto, and might not be able to afford painkillers. The people with the most children might be religious families who treat women as machines for producing children. Maybe about a million hypotheses.
But we should be studying it! You are right about that. Our health care system under studies the experiences of women.