Why aren’t all births conducted under general anesthesia in modern times?
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It is not only not necessary, it’s not helpful for the mother to be unconscious while delivering.
Because you need the mother alert to push, and they want to see the birth of their new child. An epidural provides pain relief while allowing full consciousness of mother.
Because there’s a risk whenever anesthesia is used. It isn’t magical sleepy juice. Mothers also need to be able to push for vaginal birth.
the baby can come out asleep from the anesthesia in a general and sometimes requires a breathing tube and ventilator for a few days for it to wear off. It’s a reasonable risk if the general is medically necessary but if it isn’t then it’s not worth it.
TL’DR: there’s a lot the body will do to prepare itself, if allowed to go through the process naturally. Modern practices are great for extreme cases, but make normal cases often worse and more expensive.
Because even though people are indoctrinated to think otherwise, the natural way is actually better, batting extreme cases. (US) doctors are encouraged to take actions that show they “did everything in their means” to make things go right in order to motivate lawsuits and such. In reality though, the body triggering the birth will release hormones that block pain receptors, make muscles crazy flexible, etc. If it is allowed to happen naturally. It’s like WAY easier (by comparison) to do it in the position the body wants, rather than the anatomically terrible position of lying on one’s back. The list goes on.
Because birth isn’t something that happens to you (unless you’re doing surgery, i.e. a C-section), it’s something the mother *does*. If she’s unconcious under general anesthesia, how’s that going to happen?
Despite what TV may tell you, and /u/Gh0st36 very nicely elaborates, birth is not normally a medical procedure and shouldn’t require any medical intervention barring unusual complications. This is part of why many parts of the world use midwives, not doctors/hospitals.
If pain is a concern, an epidural is far safer and still allows birth to happen normally.
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