Dr Cynthia Gabriel PHD and doula from Michigan comes from a rich background in anthropology studying the cultures of birth in Canada, Russia and the United States as a doula. I once hear her speak about her experience of supporting 65 births in a Russian hospital where all the births were completely natural with absolutely no intervention except 1 which was a C-section due failure to progress. This kind of statistic is unheard of in the United States! Her assessment is that the outcomes of birth and the use of medical intervention are largely cultural. In the United States birth has become highly medical-ized fundamentally, due the mass commercialization from pharmaceutical companies, allopathic medicine and mass media that have molded an idea that only external applications can assist in healing. Were as in Russian, the culture has a general belief that the body was designed to have a more natural healing ability.
