Wednesday, October 30, 2024

the last book I ever read (Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through a Country's Hidden Past, excerpt ten)

from Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through a Country's Hidden Past by Giles Tremlett:

Spain has a historically high caesarean rate. One study, from 1998 and concentrating on Catalonia, showed 26 percent of births were done by Caesarean. This was two and a half times, for example, the rate in Holland or Sweden. Numbers were riding rapidly. One hospital reached 38 per cent. Some other western countries are now beginning to catch up with that figure, but others have kept them down to around 10 per cent. Medical intervention, in Spain, does not end there. Episiotomies are performed on nine out of ten first-time mothers. Enemas and pubic shaving are also a routine part of the mother-to-be’s trip down the birthing production line at Spanish hospitals. All this, the report pointed out, contravenes a World Health Organization (WHO) resolution on the rights of pregnant women. The fact that the rate of caesareans surges of Friday and Saturday mornings suggests some are performed for the convenience of doctors keen to get away for the weekend (though some mothers are also keen on ‘convenience’ births). Private hospitals are the worst, performing 30 per cent more caesareans. One child I know was, her parents now suspect, delivered several days early by programmed caesarean just so a doctor could get his bill in before the end of the second quarter. I would like to think that was not true. But a theatre nurse said she once threw a doctor’s surgical instruments to the ground – so they would require re-sterilising – because he was trying to rush an operation so he could get to a Real Madrid game.



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