Alienating child-birth environments

The obstetrics service in most hospitals follows a well outlined procedure, where having a baby, instead of a somewhat mystic experience, is thought of as something of an illness and the stay in the hospital as recuperation. Women who are about to deliver are treated as 'patients' about to undergo surgery. They are sterilized. Their genitals are scrubbed and shaved. They are gowned in white and put on a table to be moved back and forth between the various parts of the hospitals. Women in labour are put in cubicles to pass the time with virtually no social contact. This time can last for many hours. Father and children are not normally permitted to be in contact. Delivery normally takes place in a 'delivery room' which has the proper 'table' for childbirth. There is a marked lack of facilities in which a woman can have a baby as part of a family, with privacy and seclusion afterwards which would enable the new baby to be introduced to the existing family gently and sympathetically and more in accordance with what happens in simpler societies.