From the book Heart Failure – Diary of a Third Year Medical Student
by, Michael Greger
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Quote from Appendix 52A of the book: Titled – Textbook Misogyny
Doctors are taught in the 2nd edition 1965 – Medical, Surgical, and Gynecological Complications of Pregnancy which is still much in use that assertive women are “dangerous”.
“Those patients who consider themselves ‘socially aware’ …are not necessarily more mature but are trying, by their active interest in everything ‘avant garde’ socially as well as medically, to persuade themselves and others that they are…This is the patient who is interested in such methods as ‘natural childbirth,’ hypnosis, or using childbirth as an ‘experience.’
The intensity of the demands of the occasional woman who is fanatical in her zeal for ‘natural childbirth’…and her uncompromising attitude on the subject are danger signals, frequently indicating severe psychopathology…A patient of this sort is not a candidate for natural childbirth, and requires close and constant psychiatric support.”
I read Michaels whole book, it is excellent, and I highly recomend reading it before you decide to give birth with an Obstetrician.
Jenny Hatch
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