Dr.
Odent and Disasters to Befall the Birth Industry
By: Claudia E. Villeneuve
Results of an interview conducted on September
16, 2003, by Claudia E. Villeneuve, for Birth Issues during
Dr. Michel Odent's visit to Edmonton for a public lecture
and a seminar sponsored by ASAC. In this interview excerpt,
he talks about the disasters to befall the birth industry.
CV: In your recent book The
Farmer and The Obstetrician you explain the striking
similarities between the industrialization of farming and
that of birth. You write that many disasters have faced
industrialized farming, such as mad cow disease and foot-and-mouth
disease. Is there a disaster facing industrialized birth?
MO: It is important to
read this question because often disasters are ways to induce
awareness. These disasters are successful at raising awareness.
Now we are suddenly aware. In my book I throw the example
of the industrialization of farming. After mad cow disease
and foot-and-mouth disease, we said that cattle should not
be given animals for food. Also, after we realized the effects
of pesticides in the food, everybody became conscious how
important it is to have organic food. We might give other
examples of disasters: in August 2003, in Paris, the summer
was very hot and more than ten thousand elderly people died
from it. Nobody anticipated such a climate in August. Now
in France, everyone has realized that the greenhouse effects
are serious, that it would be a priority to stop sending
a lot of carbonic gasses to the atmosphere and not to use
fossil energy. So, you see, disasters create awareness. Now
if you see the industrialization of childbirth, if we go
on like that, concentrating birth in large hospitals, introducing
artifacts and standardizing birth, if we continue disturbing
the birth process, the question is not if there will be a
disaster, but when.
CV: It seems as if we
are waiting for a disaster to befall the industrialization
of birth, before we do something. What is happening?
MO: To anticipate that
birth industry disaster, we must be aware of an aspect of
the current scientific revolution, that I call the scientification
of love. That is the title of my recent book. Until recently love was
a topic only for poets, novelists and philosophers. Today,
the way the capacity to love develops is a study with a scientific
perspective. A real and genuine scientific advance in the
history of sciences is confirmed when knowledge raises new
questions, simple questions. Because we have the answers,
we think of asking the questions. This is exactly what is
happening with the scientification of love. "How and
when does the capacity to love develop?" It is a simple
and new question. For thousands of years humans have been
prophesying love and saying you must love each other, but
no one ever asked when and how is formed. Now that the scientific
studies provide answers, we think of asking the questions. "What
is the link between the facets of love?" Whatever facet
of love you consider, to your family, to Nature, to yourself,
one human hormone is always present: oxytocin .
The pituitary gland produces oxytocin. This is the hormone
of love. Another example of a new question that has arisen,
now that we can think of it, is, "Why do all societies
we know about tend to disturb the so-called third stage of
labour?" The third stage is the last and very short
stage of labour, between the birth of the baby and the delivery
of the placenta. All societies in general have disturbed
the birth process with rituals and beliefs but in particular
that short period of time; for example, by saying that colostrum
is bad, and that giving the breast to the baby immediately
after birth is bad. That disturbs that period. But now according
to modern medicine, we know colostrum is a precious substance.
Today suddenly we think of wondering, "What has been
the evolutionary advantage of disturbing that short period?" From
the many scientific perspectives and studies we know that
the period immediately after birth is critical in the development
of the capacity to love. All this just to say that the scientification
of love has all the characteristics of a genuine scientific
advance.
CV: What would a disaster
in the birth industry look like?
MO: We might expect to
have some problems in the future because our capacity to
love might get weaker. To try to anticipate what sort of
disaster to expect we need to think of the development of
love. There is one perspective that I include in the frame
of research of the scientification of love and it is called primal
health research. This includes all the studies exploring
the long-term consequences of what happens at the beginning
of our life and in particular what happens at birth. This
research is easy to manage in a computer database. The database
makes it easy to check, explore and find correlations between
what happens at birth and what happens later in life. When
scientists look at all these they see that when problems
in a person's life can be defined as an impaired capacity
to love, that is to love oneself or others, they always find
what they call risk factors. And it is almost always about
very important issues particular to our time in history.
For example: juvenile criminality, and the case of teenage
suicide, which is particular of our society. Drug addiction
is a self-destructive behaviour, which exemplifies the incapacity
to love oneself. Anorexia nervosa is self-starvation, autism
is the total incapacity to relate to other individuals. All
of these are presented as an impaired capacity to love. When
we think about the birth industry and what disasters are
we waiting for, it is probably coming from the direction
of the incapacity to love. In fact, we can even wonder if
the disasters are not already happening. There are actually
epidemics of drug addiction, autism, anorexia nervosa, teenage
suicide and juvenile criminality today.
CV: How does disturbing
the birth process correlate with the incapacity to love?
MO: Perhaps now we have
the data, but we want to ignore them. We need to collect
all the scientific disciplines to enrich the study of the
capacity to love. From the study of mammals we know that,
immediately after birth, there is a short period of time,
which is critical, that will never happen again, that forms
the mother and baby attachment. From those different studies,
from all disciplines, which can be brought together, we know
for example about the study of other hormones besides oxytocin
(released for labour) that are present when we feel love.
These other love hormones are endorphins (released for pain
relief) and prolactin (released while breastfeeding). We
really are a turning point in the history of childbirth.
Even though all societies disturb the birthing process, now
there is something new, particular to our society that is
the biggest disturbance: birthing drugs. Until recently in
order to give birth the woman was obliged to release a complex
cocktail of love hormones. They had to because that brought
on labour and birth. Today in our society most women have
babies without releasing this flow of love hormones. Many
give birth by Caesarean section, and among those who give
birth by the vaginal route, most used drugs or pharmacological
substitutes which not only replace these natural hormones,
but also block their natural release completely. These drugs
do not reach the brain so they do not have any corresponding
behavioural effect. For example, we commonly use the drip
of pitocin which is the name for artificial or synthetic
oxytocin, but this pitocin does not reach the brain receptors.
We call this the blood-brain barrier . So pitocin
does not reach the brain and therefore is not a hormone of
love. That is why we say that we are at a turning point in
the history of mankind. So when we try to anticipate which
disaster are we waiting for, so we see that it has something
to do with the capacity to love. What happens is that we
are losing our capacity to love. "Can humanity survive
without love?" That is the real question.
CV: One last note. In
your book The Farmer and the Obstetrician you write
that when travelling to different cities around the world,
you wonder how safe the city is, in terms of crime. Your
rule of thumb is to check their birth statistics as a measure
for their crime statistics. You say that cities with astronomical
Caesarean rates make you extremely cautious. Could you explain
this?
MO: That is a rule of
thumb. It is not scientific data, and it cannot be published
like that, but it could be the basis for an interesting scientific
study. When I was travelling, of course I needed to know
how safe a city was. For example, I asked myself, "Can
I walk this city at 9 p.m. at night?" something like
that. Based on what I know about birth statistics, I found
that in the places where there are high rates of operative
or mechanized births, in general, it is not safe to walk
the streets at night. There is a link. I might give examples
about extreme situations, such as that I do not walk the
streets at night in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City,
Rome or Athens. But also I can give the other extreme example.
I feel it is quite safe to walk the streets at night in Amsterdam,
Rotterdam and Tokyo, because they have a low rate of Caesarean
sections. And places like Paris, London and Sydney are in
between. That idea might inspire future studies.
Dr. Odent is an obstetrician, a midwife,
and a prolific writer. He has been described as a visionary
who seeks small solutions to very big problems. His newest
releases are The Scientification of Love and The
Farmer and the Obstetrician . An international speaker
who is sought after around the world, he founded the Primal
Health Research Centre in London and publishes a quarterly
newsletter which studies the irreversible effects of fetal
life on all aspects of life. His website is www.birthworks.com.
Note: In the article "Dr.
Odent talks about the Caesarean Epidemic" published
in the Winter 2003-2004 issue, Dr. Odent mentioned the
legend of the Greek god Apollo. Apollo opened the belly
of his lover (a Caesarean) and that is how his son Aesculapius,
the God of Medicine, was born.
Article from Spring 2004 issue
of Birth Issues, published by ASAC in Edmonton.
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