The article my friend sent me the other day has had me contemplating my own thoughts on birth again (this subject has been a passion of mine for a number of years), and I wanted to add to what I posted the other day.
The thing is, it's not just a matter of overhauling maternity care in the USA. It's got to start with changing people's - and especially women's - attitudes and feelings about birth. In western culture, birth is something that people fear. It's become, in people's minds, this dangerous process, a catastrophe waiting to happen. And the pain of giving birth - it's something that the majority of women seem to be terrified of. (And I feel that I am justified in making a judgment here since I was one of those women at one time.) Women are all too willing to hand over responsibility for their birth experiences to medical professionals, who in turn are all too willing to feed women's fears by propagating the notion that birth is inherently dangerous. How sad that so many women embrace the opportunity to disconnect from the process rather than allowing themselves to experience the primal force that has the power to change them forever.
So it has to start with changing people's attitudes about birth, because no matter how many midwives there are, no matter how many out-of-hospital birthing centers, no matter how willing insurance companies might become to pay for out-of-hospital births, the birthing market as it stands today is merely feeding a demand: the demand to have medical professionals handle the birthing process for women so that women can avoid as much of the fear and unpleasantness as possible.
One of my greatest hopes is that my daughters grow up aware of how amazing their bodies are, and feeling confident in the strength and power their bodies possess. I hope with all my heart that my daughters do not fear giving birth when it's their time, but embrace what their bodies were made to do.
*Sigh* All this birth talk has me feeling that old longing . . . .
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5 comments:
you're so right lisa! though i gave birth in a hospital, my care was by a midwife. (homebirth was not an option b/c of DH, lol, but he has since changed his mind). birth hereis all about the bottom line. i believe whole-heartedly that ob's want nothing more than to get it over with...they will find any excuse to cut you open. while laboring w/ sydney, she decided to turn OP, my midwife just kept encouraging me & sydney eventually turned back, but no less than three seconds after the ob's got word of her position, they had an OR ready. I couldn't believe it. The on-call OB that night is someone I'd like to never see again. lol.
and now, i've got the feeling haha. :)
ps. we have a bfp on our july board...(no, it's not me lol)
I too am in love with the whole process of giving birth. I think it is and was the most profound experience(s) of my life. I too delivered all three of my babies in a hospital but did so naturally without meds and with as little interference as possible. I was fortunate to have nurses who "understood" my wish for a natural labor and birth and who were actually kinda excited and happy to help me since so few women opt for this anymore. It's so sad. And yes, when I chat with my friends about my experience, I often hear how crazy I am for wanting the pain and not wanting meds. So it definately is a mindset that needs to be changed. I trusted in my body and had the confidence to do so and the rewards of the endorphins and the empowerment were so worth the hours of pain that I endured. I would do it over and over again....I don't think that feeling will ever go away....
You make a good point. Change has to start with the consumer, the moms. When I had my first I wanted all the "help" the hospital and OB were willing to give. I was afraid of the pain and put my trust in the drs and nurses. Long story short, my baby ended up in the hospital at 5 days due to bleeding on her brain from a vaccuum extraction. I blamed myself and vowed never to blindly trust anyone with my or my children's health and safety. I wish it hadn't taken that experience to change my thinking. What I don't get is why so many mothers aren't learning from their experiences. A lot of the mothers I talk to defend and justify all the interventions they endured even if the outcomes were less than desireable. Of course, I live in an area that is way behind the times where breastfeeding and childbirth are concerned. Thank-you for helping bring attention to this issue.
One more thing. I understand your fears for your daughters. My grandmother's third son was brain damaged due to a hospital birth in 1958. Had he been born at home his life would have been totally different. The ironic thing is that my grandmother spent her teenage years living with her grandmother who was a midwife. She used to tell me stories about her aunts "coming home" to have their babies. Can you imagine a culture where women support each other like that? Thanks for letting me share :)
20/20 on Friday! Orgasmic birth :)
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Story?id=6120045&page=1
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