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In this day and age of managed obstetrics and epidural
epidemics, the idea of a natural childbirth is seen as a bit crazy. Why go through all that pain and trouble when
you can sign up for your induction, epidural, or c-section and have your doctor take care of it all? I hope to
show you that the decision to have a natural childbirth is of utmost importance. I am going to address the issue
from many viewpoints. Since every woman is different, not all will find that a particular take on the issue applies
to them. You may read something and say, "Well, that's all fine and dandy, but I could
never do that." I believe that each of you could come to the same decision through your own unique paths and
not all arguments are going to appeal to everyone. Take from this what appeals to you and leave the rest. So read
on and see if I can't convince you in the end to see natural childbirth as your highest priority, rather than a
farfetched ideal or even a crazy impossibility.
Natural Childbirth? It's only logical!
The process by which a woman births
her child is a complex, yet elegant one. Whether your beliefs hold that we were created, have evolved, or even
created in one form and evolved to the present form, the end result is the same. Birth is awesome in its design.
Every contingency is anticipated and has a natural solution built in. However, as amazing as this design is, it
is not infallible. The greatest human accomplishment, civilization, has caused the downfall of our most basic function,
birth.
When we created our first civilization we removed survival as our highest need. This, in turn, distanced us from
our basic instincts, including the ones we should tap into during birth. Civilization may have given us bigger
brains, but it is the old brain, the one that served us well enough before the neocortex grew to its present size,
that was, and still is, in charge of birth. It has been shown that anything that stimulates our neocortex, like
bright light or talking, interferes with the process of birth because it overrides the work of our primal brain.
Fortunately, most of the time, despite all our efforts to ignore the work of the primal brain, birth still happens,
not optimally mind you, but it happens. Survival and procreation are still the highest priorities for the animal
that we are, no matter how much we'd like to think we have moved on to bigger and better pursuits.
So, the human race continues, new life is created and brought forth, but at what cost do we ignore our built-in
blueprints for optimal birth? Do we have an obligation to honor this innate knowledge within us? And what do we,
as women birthing our children, miss out on if we blindly follow, not the inner guidance, but the one created by
man? The answers to these three questions are profound and women today need to know them. I believe that labor
and birth, as we know it in our western civilization, is a far cry from what nature intended for us. As shocking
as this may sound, I propose that birth should not hurt so very much and should not take so very long.
I completely understand the reaction to this: "But, everyone knows that labor is painful and usually takes
10-14 hours for a first time mother!" Yes, this statement is true to the way we know birth today, but it is
not reflective of the way birth could be, if we left it up to our primal brains. Just think, the cliché
of the tribal woman, working in her field, stopping for a few moments to birth her baby, and returning to work
with the baby strapped to her body, may not be so far fetched after all. I believe it is not too late for us civilized
ladies to return to our birthing roots and gain the benefit of less painful, if even, and shorter labors.
So, now what? If we can work towards trust in the built-in guides for birth, through an understanding of the process
and a carefully chosen environment in which to birth, chances are our labors will not be so long or so painful
that we would even entertain the idea of drugs to help us through the labor. When a woman is aware that certain
things, like cervical checks for dilation, could affect her labor negatively because it goes against the natural
process, she can avoid them and help to ensure an easier labor. When a woman is truly informed of the risks to
medicalizing her birth, not just with pain relieving drugs, she is better able to accept a bearable level of pain
to ensure the safety of her unborn and newly born child, even if she is not normally one to deal well with pain.
When a woman is in the right birthing environment for her, be that home, hospital or birthing center, surrounded
by loving supporters who really know how to help her, she is more likely to birth the way nature intended and will
not require any of the man-made technology so ubiquitous in maternity care today.
The Pain, The Pain!
"I thought I was going to die!"
"It was the worst pain I have ever felt."
"Sure it hurt, but I could handle it. Nothing unbearable."
"I really wouldn't call it pain, more like an unbelievably intense sensation."
"It was more like hard work than pain."
"Painful? I'm embarrassed to say it actually felt good."
" Don't tell anyone, but I think I had an orgasm at the moment of birth."
These statements about the sensations of labor and birth show the wide range of experience that awaits each and
every pregnant woman. Since no two births are the same, you never know what you are going to get. However, I firmly
believe that you can control the way you handle what life throws your way and that there is a lot you can do, both
before and during labor, to bring your level of pain down below the unbearable.
The single biggest factor contributing to pain in childbirth is the degree of prior preparation. This includes
everything from finding and alleviating all fears of labor, birth, and motherhood, developing a positive vision
for the birth experience, creating an environment conducive to optimal birth for you and maintaining excellent
diet, exercise and relaxation practices during pregnancy. You have to keep in mind that not every woman is going
to have to do a whole lot to achieve reduced pain in birth and some are going to have to do very much, indeed.
It all depends are where you started and how far you need to go.
And then there are all the techniques for dealing with, or even eliminating, pain during labor. I could give you
a huge list of what has worked for certain women, but since each of us is different in so many ways, you need to
think about what might be best for you. What do you do to relax? How have you dealt with painful experiences in
the past? Most importantly, how in touch are you with your intuition and how likely is your chosen birth place
conducive to you staying in touch with your intuition during labor? Your body will be trying to tell you, if you
listen, what to do to make it better, both in reducing pain and facilitating the birth process. Do you know how
to listen and will you be able to follow? Even if your body says " Scream like a banshee and it will
feel good"?
You must go into labor prepared for anything or you may find yourself caught off guard. If you realize the possibility
of pain and know how to deal with it, you are much better off than if you focus only on that epidural. Many who
plan for the drugs can't get them, birth too fast to allow for an epidural, or the drugs don't work like they expected
them too. These situations lead to feelings of being out of control, which can magnify the pain dramatically.
Risk Assessment 101
There are those of you who see things in a very practical light. You want to know what the benefits and risks of
each choice are and then apply that knowledge to your particular birthing experience in order to decide what type
of birth to have. I believe that no matter how you look at the facts, for 95 (or higher) percent of all births,
the benefits of natural birth outweigh the benefits of medicated birth. And by far any risks of natural birth pale
in comparison to medicated risks. There are rare cases where using all the medical world has to offer is the best
choice, c-sections being one of them. There is also a gray area where the course of events in a labor have led
to a place where the mother cannot continue without help, for her sake and/or the baby's. Maternal exhaustion and
fetal distress come to mind as two examples. But for the vast majority, if you were to assess risks of medicated
birth vs. going "au natural" the decision weighs heavily in favor of leaving the drugs out of it. This
is mostly because a normally progressing natural birth carries no inherent risks. Some may argue with that statement
by getting picky with the definition of normal birth. Even if you start with a small risk for a particular natural
birth, any and all interventions, especially medications, only add to the risk. It is only when you are faced with
a deviation from normal, like a cervix that won't dilate beyond a certain point no matter what is tried, and the
mother is totally exhausted, that the benefits of the judicious use of medication might outweigh the risks. Usually,
situations like this occur due to tension in the mother caused by unresolved fears, conscious or not, and can be
prevented with prior preparation. The epidural allows her to relax and complete dilation, but if she had resolved
fears that could lead to this level of tension in the pelvic region before birth, the drugs would not be needed.
In order to do a risk assessment ,you have to do the research for yourself because you will not, most likely, get
the full story from any doctor. Women about to receive
their epidural are given a form to sign
that lists the risks of that procedure. However, not too many of them actually read it. They either go with what
the nice doctor says (oh, perfectly safe, my dear) or are in too much pain to care. If given a chance to read what
the form says far in advance of labor, and research it further, I can't imagine many women would choose a medicalized
birth as their first choice. Perhaps fear of the pain explains these women who tell their doctors they want the
epidural in the hospital parking lot. Again, these fears can be dealt with in advance. Or maybe they have adopted
a wait and see attitude about the use of medication. They want a natural birth, but don't do much to actually prepare
for one. This is where luck plays a role in how the birth goes, both in how likely she is to desire the drugs during
labor, and how likely there are complications due to those drugs. "Getting lucky" is not the strategy
for the practical minded woman and she would do well to do her homework far in advance of her birth.
Deep Thoughts
But, what if after all this preparation,
you still have pain, even a lot of pain? That is not automatically a reason to go for the drugs. Perhaps the pain
is there for a reason, on some deeper level, and is important for your growth, spiritual or otherwise. Perhaps
the unborn child within you knows that in order for you to overcome bonding issues with your own mother, you need
this birth to be a very challenging one so that you are hormonally ready at birth to bond like crazy with your baby. Or you lack confidence in the image of yourself as a mother and need to successfully
embrace a painful birth to make you see that you are ready for the challenges ahead mothering this child. There
are so many possible scenarios that it would be a shame to assume that the pain you are experiencing has no positive
affects. If you can see every event as having a purpose and a deeper meaning, pain can be embraced and even transcended.
Birth is seen as a very spiritual event by many, with the door to the otherside swinging open to let the new soul
in, much like in death when the soul takes leave of this world. It is no wonder that fear is such a big part of
our culture's ideas about birth. We fear death. Birth reminds us of death and we fear our own death or the death
of our baby. If we were able to let go of the fear of death, we could embrace birth, and life, more fully. The
lack of fear allows us to be filled with only love and faith, able to transcend any pain involved. Or more likely,
transform birth pain into powerful sensations of bliss, such as the welcoming of a new life was meant to have. |
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