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by ryandrake 1034 days ago
People have so many weird superstitions around childbirth. I guess if there's no harm, the doctors should be willing to accommodate. When you bring your car in for service, you'd never tell the mechanic "I ask that you only use Snap-On wrenches, only work on one part at a time, and NO AIR TOOLS!" But, when it comes to medicine, they have a list of requests about how the doctor should do his work. "You be you" I guess.
2 comments

OTOH, childbirth is a somewhat special case because it's effectively a prolonged surgery process, and standard practice 'till recently effectively denied personhood to the mother. Now we can have differing opinion on the degree this process should be streamlined and optimized for convenience of healthcare practitioners, but if the hospital does ask the patient for their preferences wrt. procedures and standars of care (and/or is required by law to do so), then it's just wrong (and possibly illegal) to then completely ignore those preferences.

This is yet another case where staff is optimizing short-term efficiency by burning long-term trust in healthcare system of entire generations.

you'd never tell the mechanic, "...and NO AIR TOOLS!"

Oh, yes, I most certainly would. This is a great example of the tools being there for the convenience of the practitioner, not for your convenience or comfort (I'm sure the reader can draw parallels to child birth on their own).

When you, the mechanic, put the wheels back on you will use a torque wrench and torque the nuts to the proper values. Just I like I used to do 30 years ago when I was a mechanic. Because no one should find out at the side of the road that the air gun torques those puppies to 146ft/lbs, and you're not getting them off with that weenie little wrench that came with the car.

If your mechanic doesn't at minimum use a torque-limiting extension when putting lug nuts on you need a new mechanic. Even Walmart uses torque wrenches for that. Source: am a torque-wrench-using non-automotive mechanic, used to work in Walmarts shop.