Medicine: Primitive Pain

In the hot & heavy debate over "natural" v. "painless" childbirth, the naturalist school has a pet argument: childbirth among primitive peoples, they contend, is easier than among women "degenerated by civilization." Not so, declare Drs. Duncan E. Reid-and Mandel E. Cohen of the Boston Lying-In Hospital in the current Journal of the American Medical Association

A few observations support the "naturalists'" claim, say the Boston doctors, but these few have been "made up . . .by hearsay, anecdotes and, in some cases, possibly by bias and prejudice." The fact is, say Reid and Cohen, that the only careful, scientific study of primitive women (Pima and Apache Indians) in labor led Anthropologist Ales Hrdlicka, also an M.D., to conclude: "The healthy Indian woman suffers . . . quite as much and as long as the normal white woman." As for the idea that primitive women go back to work in the fields a few hours after having a baby, investigation showed that Navajo mothers "do not return to their household duties for about a week after an uncomplicated delivery."

Drs. Reid and Cohen admit that, unfortunately, "the ideal method which will insure complete relief from pain in all patients is not yet available." However, since the practice of painkilling in labor has accompanied a drastic decline in maternal and infant mortality (mainly the result of such unrelated factors as the wonder drugs and careful use of aseptic techniques), they argue that this is no time to change the routine: "Reintroduction of a method which women of earlier generations had to accept ... is not, in our opinion, compatible with the best interest of either mother or child." *