PREGNANCY IS NOT A DISEASE

WHAT PREGNANCY IN A HOSPITAL REALLY MEANS: A TRAP, NOT CARE

(A brutally honest Indian exposé on how medicalizing pregnancy destroys natural life, trust, and future health)

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INTRODUCTION

Pregnancy is not an illness. But hospitals are illness factories.

Why, then, are healthy, vibrant women sent there like patients, tracked like lab rats, and manipulated into surgeries they never needed?

This is not an essay of rebellion. It is a map back to trust.

Because in the name of "modern care," women are being robbed of their instincts, babies of their birthright, and families of their truth.

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1. HOSPITALS SEE NATURE AS A RISK, NOT A WISDOM

Hospitals are trained to watch, worry, and warn.

They don't see the pregnant body as wise. They see it as unreliable.

A little pain? Must be scanned. A slight change? Must be fixed.

What they call "care" is actually surveillance.

Real-life case: Swathi from Mysuru had a calm pregnancy. But one late scan showed slightly "low fluid." Panic followed. She was induced. Her cervix wasn’t ready. C-section followed. Baby was born but taken to NICU. Breastfeeding failed. Trauma began.

She said later: *"I should have trusted my body, not the machine."

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2. ULTRASOUNDS: THE NEW RITUAL OF FEAR

Multiple ultrasounds are marketed as "safety." But what do they really do?

Disrupt fetal tissue with high-frequency waves

Undermine mother’s intuitive listening

Shift trust from body to screen

No long-term study proves that 5-10 ultrasounds in a pregnancy are safe. You are the experiment.

Truth: In villages, women give birth without a single scan. Safely.

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3. HOSPITAL VISITS CREATE AN OBEDIENT PATIENT, NOT A STRONG MOTHER

You wait for hours.

You say "yes" to whatever the doctor says.

You fear missing any test or pill.

Pregnancy becomes a syllabus. Not an experience.

Result: You stop asking, "What do I feel?" and start obeying like a child in school.

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4. TESTS TURN YOU INTO A DIAGNOSIS

Hemoglobin 10.9? Iron tablets. Random sugar spike? Gestational diabetes. Baby slightly small? More scans, more stress.

Truth: Every body is unique. But hospitals need numbers.

Every woman is now a label. Every label demands a protocol.

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5. THE PROFIT OF PAIN: MONEY IN EVERY INTERVENTION

A natural birth earns the hospital a small fee. A C-section earns 5 to 10 times more.

The logic is simple:

Longer stay = more billing

More injections = more profit

More fear = more compliance

Truth: Even private insurance is milked dry by manufactured complications.

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6. INDIAN HOSPITALS LOVE TO SCARE YOU

"Baby is too big." "Cord around the neck." "Water is low." "You have no pain yet? Dangerous!"

Most of these are false alarms. In natural births, these variations are common and non-threatening.

But fear sells. And fear silences.

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7. DESTRUCTION OF EMOTIONAL SAFETY

Harsh lights. Cold tables. Beeping machines. Impatient staff.

Your most sacred moment becomes clinical.

Real-life case: Nalini from Bengaluru gave birth in a private hospital. She wasn’t allowed to walk or eat. She was scolded for screaming. Her husband wasn’t allowed in. She said later, *"I felt like an animal in a lab."

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8. BIRTH IS FAST-FORWARDED FOR CONVENIENCE

Natural labor can take 12-24 hours. But doctors don’t wait.

Oxytocin to speed up

Epidural to kill pain

Vacuum or forceps if head is "stuck"

Emergency C-section if “progress is slow"

Truth: Every intervention causes another.

This is not care. This is assembly-line birthing.

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9. THE DEATH OF TRADITIONAL MIDWIFERY

India had a network of birth-supporting grandmothers, midwives (dais), and intuitive rituals:

Squatting positions

Belly massage

Warm baths

Music, touch, rest

Hospitals killed it. Replaced it with sterile gowns and ticking clocks.

Truth: The grandmother was replaced by a bill.

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10. BABY'S FIRST TOUCH IS A STRANGER’S GLOVE

In a natural birth, baby goes to mother’s chest immediately.

In hospital birth:

Baby is taken away

Cleaned, weighed, jabbed

Wrapped in plastic and returned like a parcel

Golden hour of bonding is stolen.

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11. POST-BIRTH TRAUMA IS NEVER ACKNOWLEDGED

Women are stitched without explanation.

Catheterized and immobile.

Breastfeeding is rushed or ignored.

Mental health is drugged, not healed.

Result: Thousands of Indian mothers suffer silent postpartum depression.

They’re told: "At least the baby is safe."

But what about the mother?

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12. MEN & FAMILY: HOW POWER MASQUERADES AS CARE

Many fathers say: "I’m paying for the best hospital. You’ll be safe."

But often, it’s control. A way to say, "You don’t know. I do."

In-laws say: "Home birth? What if something goes wrong?"

Fear disguised as love.

Truth: It is easier to obey than to trust. But obedience kills instinct.

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13. A LIFETIME OF DEPENDENCY BEGINS HERE

Pregnancy care becomes:

Pills before birth

Injections at birth

Vaccines after birth

Formula for convenience

Checkups forever

You don’t become independent. You become a medical subscriber.

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14. CULTURAL SHAMING OF NATURAL BIRTH

"You didn’t go to a hospital? Are you mad?" "What if the baby dies?" "Homebirth? What are you proving?"

A society that has forgotten its own traditions mocks those who remember.

Real-life case: Pooja in Hyderabad had a homebirth with a trusted midwife. Her family boycotted the event. She said later, "I cried. But I also healed."

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15. WHAT TO DO INSTEAD?

Learn from traditional midwives and birth workers.

Trust your body. Eat ancestral foods. Move daily.

Walk barefoot. Sleep early. Breathe deep.

Surround yourself with loving women, not rushed doctors.

Read books like Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering, or Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth.

Create a birth plan. Include skin-to-skin contact. Delayed cord cutting. No forced injections.

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16. COMMON HOSPITAL MYTHS DEBUNKED

Cord around the neck kills the baby: False. 30% of babies have it. It almost never causes harm.

Big baby means C-section: False. Many women birth 4kg+ babies naturally.

You’re too old to birth naturally: False. Age is not a disease. Lifestyle is.

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17. A PEACEFUL ALTERNATIVE: THE VILLAGE BIRTH

A hut. A warm fire. Trusted women. Midwife with experienced hands.

The mother walks. Sings. Eats coconut. The baby is born in rhythm. The placenta honored. The family weeps in joy.

No fear. No machines. Just life.

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18. CHECKLIST: HOW TO ESCAPE THE BIRTH TRAP

10 Red Flags in Hospital Birth Plans:

1. Doctor insists on scans every month

2. Hospital has 70%+ C-section rate

3. No clear policy on natural birth

4. Immediate cord cutting

5. No rooming-in policy

6. Baby formula given without consent

7. Routine episiotomy

8. No birth position options

9. No family allowed inside

10. Mandatory inductions by 40 weeks

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CONCLUSION

Hospitals are brilliant at treating illness. But pregnancy is not illness.

Pregnancy is love made flesh. A quiet biological revolution. A return to life.

Sending a healthy woman into a machine-run industry for a natural process is like putting a seed into a concrete mixer.

It won't grow. It will break.

Let us remember:

Your womb is the safest place on earth. Until someone convinces you it’s not.

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HEALING DIALOGUE: “The Womb Remembers Everything”

(A three-generation journey back to trust, instinct, and natural birth)

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CHARACTERS:

Ajji – 84-year-old retired village midwife, calm, sharp, observant

Savita – 52-year-old daughter of Ajji, city-born, underwent a C-section, lifelong hormonal issues

Lakshmi – 24-year-old granddaughter, newly pregnant, curious but confused

Madhukar – The Hermit, host and listener

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Scene:

They sit cross-legged outside Madhukar’s earthen hut. Birds chirp. Smoke from boiling ragi gruel wafts in the air. The neem tree throws shade.

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Lakshmi:

Madhukar… I’m carrying now. It’s my first. I came because I feel torn between everything my ajji says… and everything the hospital says.

Ajji (smiling softly):

She doesn’t say she’s pregnant. She says “I’m carrying.” That’s already a good start.

Madhukar:

Tell me, Ajji. How many births have your hands received?

Ajji:

Three hundred and sixty-eight. Some in the fields. Some in kitchens. A few under mango trees. And not one under a hospital light.

Savita (ashamed):

But I didn’t believe her. I thought she was outdated. I chose the "best" hospital in the city.

Lakshmi:

She told me they tied you down. You weren’t even allowed to squat?

Savita:

Not once. They made me lie like a dead animal. I was screaming, but they only increased the drips. My baby was pulled out of me like I was a fruit from a tree. I never even saw her till hours later.

Madhukar:

Did your body recover?

Savita:

Never. I’ve had back pain for 25 years. Urine leakage. Constipation. Hormonal pills. Thyroid. I haven’t walked barefoot since that day.

Ajji:

That’s what the hospital takes from you. Not just the child. But the rhythm of your body. The confidence. The softness.

Lakshmi:

But Ajji, the hospital says, “Don’t risk it.” They say I’m too young, or the baby might get stuck, or… or cord around the neck.

Ajji (gently slapping her own thigh):

Cord around the neck! Half my deliveries had it. The baby is moving. The cord dances. That’s normal. You know what’s abnormal? Cutting the womb before it speaks.

Madhukar:

The cord is the first toy. Not the first threat.

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[A SILENCE falls. Lakshmi stares at her belly.]

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Lakshmi:

I don’t know whom to trust. They wear coats. Carry machines. They say if I don’t take iron and calcium tablets, the baby will be weak.

Ajji:

Do you know what we gave women? Roasted sesame. Ragi. Dry coconut. Jaggery. Drumstick leaves. Nothing came from a factory. But strength came from within.

Savita (whispers):

I used to laugh at that. Now, even a cold scares me.

Madhukar:

That’s because you don’t live in your body anymore. You live in the fear they sold you.

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[Ajji leans forward, touches Lakshmi’s knee.]

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Ajji:

My dear girl, you are the third generation. You have a chance. Don’t carry my daughter’s pain into your own womb.

Lakshmi (teary):

I want to believe you, Ajji. But what if something goes wrong?

Madhukar:

Wrong is always possible. Even in the most sterile hospital.

But in a place of love and patience, the chances of wrong become very small.

Savita:

We never waited in the hospital. They induced me the minute I crossed the due date.

Ajji:

Your womb is not a machine. It doesn’t work by a clock. It works by ripeness.

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[Lakshmi stands up, begins pacing.]

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Lakshmi:

I feel like the whole city is screaming at me to be safe. To choose science. But I see Ajji’s eyes — and they are not afraid.

Madhukar:

Because she didn’t just see births. She saw women become tigers.

But hospitals don’t want tigers. They want patients.

Ajji:

I want you to be a wild, roaring, laughing woman, not a stitched-up, sedated, silenced girl.

Savita (tearing up):

I silenced my own body. I thought I was being modern. But I became a machine.

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[They sit in silence again. Neem leaves rustle above.]

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Lakshmi:

What should I do, then?

Can I give birth like Ajji helped others do?

Ajji:

Of course. Let’s start walking. Squatting. Massaging.

We’ll eat fenugreek. We’ll talk to your belly. We’ll make songs.

We’ll prepare a soft floor, warm fire, water pot, oil lamp.

We’ll invite the child, not extract it.

Savita:

Can I join you? Maybe I can undo what I lost… by helping her birth the way I was meant to.

Madhukar (smiling):

That’s the real healing. Not tablets. But three generations holding hands — and remembering.

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FINAL LINES

Ajji (with a playful chuckle):

This time, the womb will not cry. It will sing.

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“THE WOMB THAT FORGOT HOW TO ROAR”

(three women, one cut, and a thousand memories)

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the grandmother

was not a woman.

she was a river with hands.

blood never scared her.

bones never made her flinch.

she’d wipe her saree on the doorpost,

kneel between thighs,

and whisper:

“breathe. your body knows.”

she caught three hundred babies

before she dropped her first tooth.

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but her daughter

grew up with walls,

with science charts,

with fear injected between her legs

disguised as “progress.”

and when it was time

to push like a lioness,

they put her

flat on a steel table,

tied her wrists

with drips and rules,

and sliced her open

like a fruit that ripened too late.

they took her child

before she could feel its warmth.

they called it safe.

she called it empty.

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and the years rolled by

with pills for the bones

that never healed,

diapers for a bladder

that leaked with every cough,

and shame for a womb

that they called weak

but was simply

not listened to.

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her own mother watched

as science buried the instinct

beneath fluorescent lights

and discharge papers.

she didn’t speak.

because some cuts

go deeper than the skin.

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then came the granddaughter.

round belly,

round eyes,

round head full of questions:

“ajji, they say

if I don’t take the calcium tablets,

the baby’s bones will break.”

“ajji, they say

if I wait too long,

the baby will die.”

“ajji, they say

if I don’t obey,

I’m being reckless.”

and the grandmother

did not shout.

she only said:

“they said the same to your mother.

look where it got her.”

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the girl sat between them,

three wombs

in one room.

one full.

one hollow.

one remembering.

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they made tea with dry ginger

and sprinkled fenugreek like prayers.

they massaged her ankles

and sang forgotten songs

to the belly.

and the granddaughter

began to feel

what her mother

was never allowed to.

that the womb is not a place of fear,

but a drum of thunder.

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in the distance,

the hospital still loomed,

a temple of steel and panic,

where men with degrees

and women with gloves

still stole births

from bodies

that just needed time.

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but here,

under the neem tree,

three women

rewrote the script.

not with ink.

but with oil, sweat, song, and silence.

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when the birth came,

there was no screaming.

just a roar.

not of pain.

but of return.

and the grandmother laughed

like she was born again.

and the mother wept

like a prayer had been answered.

and the baby

opened its eyes

to the faces of women

who had once forgotten

but now remembered.

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the womb

was never meant to be cut.

only held.

only sung to.

only believed.

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