Natural vs Medical Interventions
I grew up, I think like a lot of girls, overhearing stories of labor and delivery from my mom, her friends and the media. I heard my mom say more then once “there’s no special place in heaven for women who give birth naturally”. I felt a general sense of judgement about the type of woman who would have a natural childbirth. They were hippies, crunchy granola types. Something must be wrong with them if they would reject pain relief.
I would say the general feelings I got from the stories of childbirth I heard were of fear, overwhelming pain, suffering and trauma. The cure to all of that though was the magical induction and epidural. I also heard great things about a c section. This is what civilized people did. Naturally when I got pregnant there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I was going to be welcoming all of the medical interventions insurance would cover. Who wouldn’t want to alleviate pain and suffering? I have talked to many friends who are wanting desperately to have children but the fear of childbirth is holding them back.
Fast forward a bit. I’ve been reading a few books (What to expect when you’re expecting, Cribsheet, Pregnancy Childbirth and the Newborn) and attending some birthing classes. The overall feeling I was left with was “gee it seems like when you do one medical intervention it sets off a potential cascade of others that could have lasting effects on baby and mom”. The first concern I had was about how the use of narcotics for pain relief can pass to the baby which can make the baby be born “sleepy” (who are we kidding the kid is born high!) which can then impact bonding, breastfeeding and Apgar scores. That sounds terrible.
I remember my friend telling me that I should find a provider who would let me labor in whatever position I wanted. Meaning, not only laying down on my back in bed because that didn’t let gravity help the baby. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me that there was any other way to labor then in bed on your back. That’s what all the movies showed. So when I learned that if you have an epidural you’re pretty much confined to bed and one of the side effects of that is it can slow down labor which they will then medically speed up with pitocin (the synthetic of oxytocin) which doesn’t have the same effect on your brain as oxytocin does so you don’t get all the lovey dovey feelings which again can affect bonding and possibly affect baby longer term because it doesn’t get the oxytocin lovey feelings either. That all sounds concerning now doesn’t it!?
I started to think that pain relief in childbirth is more complicated and potentially harmful then I was led to believe as a child.
Then I started learning about induction and c-section’s. Long story short, I don’t want to be induced and I don’t want a c-section. I think that everything a hospital offers for childbirth is necessary in some situations, but not in mine. At least not yet. I’ve had a low risk, no complication pregnancy. I’m healthy with no gestational diabetes, no group B strep, a healthy weight and I’ve stayed active during my entire pregnancy. I am a prime candidate for a natural birth.
A friend yesterday suggested I watch The Business of Being Born. My day did NOT go as planned (Xion popped his stitches out so I had to take him back to the vet for sedation and stitches) which meant I had some downtime I had not planned while taking care of pup. I decided to watch the suggested film. In addition to validating the concerns I had about pain relief and how it’s a slippery slope to more and more interventions; I felt pretty empowered by the stories I heard from woman who had reached their breaking point and given into the experience. I started to feel connected to the tribe of women who have pushed past their fear and regardless of if they ended up needing some medical intervention their intention was to attempt a natural birth. (As a side note about the movie, I was surprised and saddened to learn that the stereotype of natural birth being a hippy/uneducated thing to do was a curated message from the medical/insurance community to portray home births as the option you choose if you were poor and not white, along with the 60-70’s commune movement that was already challenging the status quo).
I am the girl who started this journey with significant medical intervention (which I’m very thankful for) and I’m hoping we end the pregnancy journey with as little intervention as possible. We will see what happens!
