Your own experience makes the case perfectly - while a home birth would probably have been preferable, your sixth sense about your baby's medical issues necessitated the trip to the hospital. I think most women probably have this fear, which leads otherwise rational, intelligent women to go to the hospital where they are then convinced by well-intentioned doctors to go through extensive medical procedures. Everybody has the baby's best interest at heart, but when something goes wrong people are sometimes quick to throw blame and it becomes almost impossible to tell if someone was at fault, or if the tragic death was actually a sad fact of life.

The thing is that when something DOES go wrong (as it did with me) your opinion about this may change. Birth is a natural process, but so is death--something the natural birth community never wants to talk about.

Monitor me in any way possible. A dead baby is a lot worse than a c-section. Trust me on that one.

are things out of hand in some situations, yes, of course.  However, for the majority of people, the system works just fine.  Having your baby in a hospital just in case something goes wrong seems like a wise and reasonably prudent thing to do.  Hospitals don't have to be scary, monitors don't have to be scary, even IV's don't have to be scary.  They are all there just in case something goes from the "okay we're watching just in case mode" to "ut-oh mode" quickly.

And - as to the monitor in particular ... here's one dad's point of view.  While yes its clear when the mom-to-be is having later contractions, and in the beginning I'm sure she'll be telling you when she's having them as well ... since you are not actually the one feeling them ... its nice to be able to have that additional window into what is going on.  Should this replace talking to, supporting, and comforting your partner?  Of course not.  But as an additional bit of insight I found it to enrich the experience.

I agree that there is nothing wrong with having medical intervention waiting in the wings in case something happens, but what we're talkinga bout here is how medical intervention is used as the norm when nothing is wrong.  Of course sometimes bad things happen during birth and we are all glad that we have the technology that can save our children's lives, but there is no reason for technology to overwhelm the birthing process.  What a monitor can do a nurse can do with a stethescope, unobtrusively every 20 minutes or so.

I think the point the article is trying to make is that for all our  technology and medicalization of birth, which drives prices through the roof, we are not creating an environment that is noticeably safer for newborns than countries that don't lean as heavily on intervention....so, why do we need to use it as such a crutch....answer: doctor's are afraid of getting sued for malpractice so they control all aspects to protect themselves.

This piece echoes Gawande's piece in the New Yorker on C-sections from a few months ago - though his piece was unabashedly pro-C-Section.  

I have a number of friends who live in the US and so far NONE of them have given birth vaginally.  Everyone was either  "emergency" C-sectioned, or was induced which then resulted in a C-section.  Someone else is awaiting her scheduled C-section in a few weeks.  I have to kindly nod my head when post-partum everyone tells me that "healthy mom healthy baby" is all that matters.  They are absolutely right.  

However, medicalizing and technologizing birth means that there is only a few experts in the delivery room, and those are the RNs and OB/GYNs.  The machines tell you when you are contracting (for anyone who has ever felt a contraction you certainly do NOT need a machine to tell you), the doctors tell you when to push.  And the maternal and fetal death rates in the US are embarrassing, despite all of this expertise, and money.

This attitude is patronizing and condescending towards the women giving birth - not exactly the kind of support you need when you are in labour...someone telling you how you should be feeling, and what you should be doing.

My first son was born naturally--not even an epidural.  It was hell.  And, no I did not know how to push and I never felt the urge to do so.  My second was born via c-section after induction.  His heart rate was dropping after each contraction.  The doctors knew this because of the monitors.  He was born with the cord wrapped around his neck twice and his arm once.  He ended up being fine.  I had a c-section with the third also.  I know natural is the way to go, but I had to have c-sections.  And they saved my son's life.  I didn't mind the monitors because while I wasn't contracting, I heard my son's heartbeat and it kept me focused.  

I think our infant mortality rate is embarrassing, doctors expertise and reasoning vary.   You've all heard the old joke "what do you call the guy who graduated from medical school last in his class??  Doctor"    

I believe it is up to all of us to find out as much as we can about our pregnancies and the birth process and to ask ask ask why something is being done.  If you have a gut feeling about something, get a second opinion.  

I know myself well enough to understand that the monitoring gave me a sense of peace--knowing I was alright and so was my child.  If something was wrong, I'd know it and felt my doctor would do everything in his power to make sure my baby and I were going to be ok in the end.  Other women want more of a natural type birth and they should be entitled to that.  

"So what do we do?"

The state of medicalized birth is not going to change until we, as consumers, stand up and demand it to change.  

1) Write to your local hospitals, asking them to promote empirical standards to their labor wards.  Today ACOG and others are promoting litigation-based instead of evidence-based care in their written principles.  We need to ask for mother-friendly birth as endorsed by the World Health Organization: http://www.motherfriendly.org/

2) Choose your providers (OBGYN, hospital, midwife, doula) carefully.