Podiatrists aren't the only Doctors screwing us!

(This is a cross-post from my real blog, www.craftycrofts.blogspot.com)



Doctors and other Dummies.
This post isn't just about barefoot running though. It's about a connection I drew tonight, while researching for info on barefoot running shoes. Yes, that's an oxymoron. Keep reading. Anyway, it occurred to me as I was reading blog posts and message board threads about barefooting, that barefooters are as awed by this Lack of a NEED for technology as homebirthers and natural birthing moms are.
Born To Run.Suddenly lots of friends and their husbands were buyingVibram 5 Fingershoes. I couldn't wait till we went on vacation to an area with a store to try them on. I did not like the way they felt during a lightning fast dash to try them on while leaving relatives and kids in the car. Around the same time, I had been running barefoot a little on my own, unaware of this fad. It felt so good, so free, so childishly FUN! I was pregnant and on concrete, and it felt GOOD!

Tonight's revelation started with thisblog post about an ad:Here's the ad:
Basically, shoe companies and lots of other fitness related companies stand to make money only if you think you need their products. Shoe companies NEED us to think we need specialized shoes. They lose money if we don't need shoes!! We don't need $100 shoes if we realize that shoes are the problem! Shoes ARE the problem.At the same time, all over the country, women are fighting for the right to labor in peace and have a baby without being hooked up to monitors and poked and prodded and drugged. Some are choosing to have their babies at home in order to avoid themedicalization of childbirth.Doctors, Hospitals, medical supply companies, pharmaceutical companies, etc ALL BENEFIT from making women think our bodies are flawed and we need interventions. They all benefit from runners and weekend warriors with injuries they don't realize are from shoes, too.If our bodies weren't made to run and squeeze out babies, then we wouldn't be here. Our ancestors didn't have shoes and epidurals; they had muscles and bones and tendons and ligaments. Sure, somehemorrhaged during childbirth, and some some stepped on something, got tetanus, and died, but for the most part, people ran and people made babies WITHOUT any special equipment.Of course the women who just want to have a baby the old fashioned way, and people running inTarahumara Huarache Sandalsare labeled freaks, weirdos, hippies, etc.
Do we want medals and cookies presented to us on a grandstand for running barefoot or pushing out a baby naturally? No! No, we don't, because we know that the reward is in NOT putting our bodies through injuries caused by all the "assistance" and "technology" available to us.What else out there do we think is helping us when really it's hurting us? The increasing popularity of babywearing and breastfeeding have got to be related to this.I'm pretty sure microwave ovens fit in this category, but, well, I'm not giving up my microwave!! So, I totally understand people who still want their Nikes and Narcotics despite modern research of risks. Some things seem too good to give up.What can YOU think of that would fit in this category of Bad but Profitable? Please leave a comment!

Comments

Shoe companies are dumb, because half of their shoes are for "pronation control", but your supposed to pronate! In fact to run correctly you HAVE to pronate, because thats how feet are designed to move. I was one of those people who "over-pronated" (they might as well have told me my body works too well in shoes) and had "special shoes". Even when I first started barefooting I was convinced the pronating was bad, until one day I decided to let it happen, and magically MYFEETDIDN'THURTANYMORE!!!!! Dang shoe companies were affecting me even after I'd sworn them off. Sorry, the ad brought that out.

As for the comparison with natural childbirth, I'd have to say its a bit of a stretch. You can't die from running, in shoes or no, but before sanitization and high tech medical gear an extremely high percentage of people died during childbirth, includind the babies themselves. Yes your body is designed to be able to give birth, but its gonna hurt, and its pretty high risk. Now that we have a fairly clean world, you can probably do without all the hospital stuff, and people do, but I wouldn't say the hospital procedures are necesarily bad for you, though I guess some of the medications could be. Shoes however definitely have some negative effects.
 
Actually they absolute worst period for infant and maternal mortality was when doctors brought women from the home into hospitals to give birth (and did not understand infection risk). Homebirth is just as safe as birthing in the hospital - most instances of maternal mortality are actually due to he high prevalence of c-sections. Seriously, I gave birth in my living room - it's not that complicated in most cases.


And, of course, you can die from going barefoot - that is the reason those charities that send shoes to developing countries exist.
 
I did say that homebirth is safe now, because pretty much everywhere is more sanitary now. But sanitation still came about because of doctors and scientist who figured out that if you just had excrement and other waste all over the place, people got sick. Maternal mortality isn't really a huge problem now, I'm just saying in the past it was, and doctors are partially responsible for making it better. (If your going to argue that it was scientists and not doctors, most doctors were scientists, or at least a good number of them were.) We don't need all the machines and medications, but we do need sanitation. And in some cases you actually do need the machines and stuff due to certain illnesses.

If you step on something infected, yes, but you could just as well fall on something infected and die. Charities send kids shoes because "Everybody needs shoe" and its probably a fairly big deal to live in poverty but actually own a pair of shoes.
 
I think if you look at rate of injury or trauma, comparing running shoes to hospital births might be very apt. Actual traumatic injury that may be viewed as minor by the medical profession is very common in hospital births (vacuum extraction, torn rectum, anyone???) and not so common in homebirths. Not to mention the much, muchhigher rates of invasive surgical intervention. All of the major causes of maternal mortality are easily treated with what midwives carry in their "black bag" which is identical to what is available at the hospital. I was shocked to find that I shared the same lay midwife with the wife of the head of OB/GYN at my family practice. That is not uncommon at all for L&D nurses and OB's themselves to seek out homebirth for themselves or their partners. It's kind of a dirty little secret.
 
It's not a real effect, likely. They often lump together unintentional, unattended out of hospital births with intentional homebirths attended by professional midwives for these analyses. That would include teenagers delivering a baby they had not told anyone about, for example, or babies traumatized by a precipitous labor. At home would always be a cleaner place for a baby to be born. Read any newspaper - hospital aquired infection is, I think, the leading cause of morbidity in the US or, if not, it's damn close to being.
 

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