As if U.S. women and babies are not subject to enough medical interventions during labor and delivery (take our national one-in-three c-section rate, for example), Barnev, Inc. brings us the BirthTrack System.

Here’s the product to show us exactly who is in the driver’s seat when it comes to your labor. And it’s not you, mamas. It’s not your babies, either.

No, indeed. Use the BirthTrack System during your labor, and you’ll have two monitors affixed to your cervix and a third fastened directly to your baby’s scalp. You’ll spend your labor lying in bed on your back while your health care providers watch the monitor to assess how much your cervix has dilated and how far your baby’s head has descended.

You may think that labor progresses best when you’re able to stay on your feet, move around, and let gravity help the baby descend in the birth canal. According to the prevailing wisdom and current research, you’d be right. (See articles by Di Franco et al, Romano et al, Shilling et al, Roberts and Hanson, and—perhaps my favorite—“No Routine Interventions” by Lothian et al, or do your own PubMed search.)

But don’t worry! That’s just what the BirthTrack System is designed to address: “non-progressive labor.” This system will make it even easier for your doctor to decide that it is time for him to administer the next medical intervention. Especially since, with you on your back, the progress of your labor is likely to be slower. Just relax and go along with it, honey. Feel good that, according to Barnev’s site, “earlier management is likely to result in earlier recognition of a need for CS.”

And hey, at least your partner can now “be an active participant in the labor process,” too! How? By “follow[ing] the progress of the partogram on the screen next to your bed.” Isn’t that reassuring? I’m not sure how the partners who have held, rubbed, swayed with, massaged, encouraged, and otherwise supported their partners during labor might think this compares. Let’s hope they think it is a bum situation.

Now, I am not a doctor or even a nurse. I have given birth three times, and I have had three very different birthing experiences. I do suppose that the BirthTrack System might be helpful in rare cases during at-risk deliveries that need more monitoring.

However, the people of Barnev are not suggesting their device be used just during at-risk labors. No, they’re recommending it for all mothers-to-be and physicians, during all labors. So that you can avoid the “usual procedure [sic] vaginal examinations” that “are performed numerous times during labor,” they want you to agree to submit to being hooked up to their invasive monitoring system. Does that make any sense to you?

Here’s something else that might give you pause: Barnev’s Medical Advisory Board is, as of this writing, unnamed on its web site. It’s four-member Board of Directors includes just one physician, Dr. Dalia Megiddo, and her focus is reported to be “life science investments.” One can imagine that it didn’t take long for Israel-based Dr. Megiddo and her Israeli and German colleagues to conclude that yet another device for labor intervention could be a hot commodity in the U.S. market.

A parting thought
Doesn’t this image of a woman connected to the BirthTrack System look just a bit like this image of a woman in a reproductive farm from Battlestar Galactica?