A New Birth of Freedom
Thank you, Abraham Lincoln, for providing the title for this post about birth. Of course, he wasn't actually talking about birth, but I am.
Four or five years ago, back in nursing school, my classmates of approximately 40, all women, and I were in a class about birth. We had a presenter come talk about natural births. And she asked the question, how many of you would consider NOT getting an epidural, would choose to have a natural birth.
I was the only one.
And we were only talking about considering a natural birth.
This totally blew my mind. A lot of my classmates really liked the obstetrics rotation. We love babies. But I might have been alone in disliking the clinicals. I thought the entire mother/baby rotation in the hospital was pretty...unnecessary. Most of the time, I'd be looking through a magazine, waiting for a mother to dilate or efface. The mother would be on her back in a hospital bed with a fetal monitor strapped to her abdomen, which limited movement, not even counting the limited movement that can come with lumbar epidurals. Some of the nurses would tell the mom in active labor, "Push! Push!" And I remember thinking, "WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? She's not sick, she doesn't need our help. She should feel when she has to push. We are just BACK-UP in case something goes wrong."
I also remember witnessing a non-emergent c-section of a young mother, who had been nervous about the birth. By the way, c-sections are the bloodiest procedure I have ever witnessed. As the doctor cut into the uterus, he commented on the large size of the baby's head, especially in relation to the mother's pelvis, and said "Maybe she made the right choice going for a c-section; I'm not sure this baby would have fit through." And I caught the underlying meaning: c-sections are rarely the right choice.
I am not saying I am against hospitals. I work in one, and I support the work done there. Nor do I inherently doubt doctors' skill or judgment. Nor am I against pain control. In fact, our floor manages a lot of surgical pain by epidural infusion. Good pain control really assists the healing process.
So when one of my nursing co-workers said that she would choose a home birth, I wanted to know why. She said that a documentary had changed her life.
It's called "The Business of Being Born"
I'd recommend that you watch it, but as you might expect, it is not exactly G-rated, so for those who might feel uncomfortable, I will give a sum-up.
At the time of the making of the film, the United States had one of the highest maternal mortality rates among industrialized countries. We also have one of the lowest rates of home births of industrialized countries. There might be a connection.
Here's what happens: a woman comes into a hospital in labor. But labor can be long, and so to hurry things up the women are given pitocin, which is a synthetic version of oxytocin (the hormone of bonding and birth), which causes stronger contractions, which can cause more pain, so an epidural gets started, which can slow contractions, and which limits a woman's ability to match her push to the uterine contractions because she can't feel them and so pushes are less effective, so forceps and vacuum-assisted deliveries and even c-sections can come into the picture. And pushing is much less effective anyway because the woman is on her back, instead of squatting and letting gravity assist.
So, what about home births? What about letting that majority of births which are low-risk take place on the mother's turf, where she's able to move around, eat, sit in a bath, and have more physical contact and comfort from her partner than just a hand grip?
What about giving the right to direct her child's birth back to the mother, where it has been or should have been since the beginning of mankind?
It's time for freedom, ladies.
The documentary comments that people spend more time researching cars and televisions than birthing options.
May I just say that life is ALWAYS more important than material.
I am not saying that everyone should have a home birth, because that would be awfully hypocritical in someone that just said she wants the power of choice given back to the mother.
I just want more people to consider it.
Four or five years ago, back in nursing school, my classmates of approximately 40, all women, and I were in a class about birth. We had a presenter come talk about natural births. And she asked the question, how many of you would consider NOT getting an epidural, would choose to have a natural birth.
I was the only one.
And we were only talking about considering a natural birth.
This totally blew my mind. A lot of my classmates really liked the obstetrics rotation. We love babies. But I might have been alone in disliking the clinicals. I thought the entire mother/baby rotation in the hospital was pretty...unnecessary. Most of the time, I'd be looking through a magazine, waiting for a mother to dilate or efface. The mother would be on her back in a hospital bed with a fetal monitor strapped to her abdomen, which limited movement, not even counting the limited movement that can come with lumbar epidurals. Some of the nurses would tell the mom in active labor, "Push! Push!" And I remember thinking, "WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? She's not sick, she doesn't need our help. She should feel when she has to push. We are just BACK-UP in case something goes wrong."
I also remember witnessing a non-emergent c-section of a young mother, who had been nervous about the birth. By the way, c-sections are the bloodiest procedure I have ever witnessed. As the doctor cut into the uterus, he commented on the large size of the baby's head, especially in relation to the mother's pelvis, and said "Maybe she made the right choice going for a c-section; I'm not sure this baby would have fit through." And I caught the underlying meaning: c-sections are rarely the right choice.
I am not saying I am against hospitals. I work in one, and I support the work done there. Nor do I inherently doubt doctors' skill or judgment. Nor am I against pain control. In fact, our floor manages a lot of surgical pain by epidural infusion. Good pain control really assists the healing process.
So when one of my nursing co-workers said that she would choose a home birth, I wanted to know why. She said that a documentary had changed her life.
It's called "The Business of Being Born"
I'd recommend that you watch it, but as you might expect, it is not exactly G-rated, so for those who might feel uncomfortable, I will give a sum-up.
At the time of the making of the film, the United States had one of the highest maternal mortality rates among industrialized countries. We also have one of the lowest rates of home births of industrialized countries. There might be a connection.
Here's what happens: a woman comes into a hospital in labor. But labor can be long, and so to hurry things up the women are given pitocin, which is a synthetic version of oxytocin (the hormone of bonding and birth), which causes stronger contractions, which can cause more pain, so an epidural gets started, which can slow contractions, and which limits a woman's ability to match her push to the uterine contractions because she can't feel them and so pushes are less effective, so forceps and vacuum-assisted deliveries and even c-sections can come into the picture. And pushing is much less effective anyway because the woman is on her back, instead of squatting and letting gravity assist.
So, what about home births? What about letting that majority of births which are low-risk take place on the mother's turf, where she's able to move around, eat, sit in a bath, and have more physical contact and comfort from her partner than just a hand grip?
What about giving the right to direct her child's birth back to the mother, where it has been or should have been since the beginning of mankind?
It's time for freedom, ladies.
The documentary comments that people spend more time researching cars and televisions than birthing options.
May I just say that life is ALWAYS more important than material.
I am not saying that everyone should have a home birth, because that would be awfully hypocritical in someone that just said she wants the power of choice given back to the mother.
I just want more people to consider it.
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