Birth

I know I've posted about this before, but I have more to say. ;)  

It saddens me how little confidence women have in their bodies, that are made to give birth, and themselves to birth a child. It is especially disturbing how Christian women who rail against 'science' when it attacks creation blindly follow the dictates of the 'scientist' obstetrician.                                        

A woman's body has an amazing capacity to carry and grow and birth and then sustain that new life. God made her that way. Sure, sometimes things don't go perfectly; but those times are much more rare than the doctors would have a pregnant woman believe. Birth is not 'an accident waiting to happen' it is a normal biological function and a woman's body knows how to do it.   

 

 

I have heard so many women say how they wouldn't even try to birth without drugs, usually the epidural. They would not say that if they truly understood the mechanism of birth. All that intense sensation has a purpose. The hormones and chemicals released by a mother in labor signal the baby to release sympathetic hormones and chemicals that get baby ready to breathe and eat and survive. Those things don't happen if a woman is induced or drugged.                                                                                  

I don't want to sound like a self-righteous birth snob, but I know that's how this is going to sound. Oh well.

I have birthed 8 babies. Yes 8. Two inductions, two posterior (one of those an induction), three homebirths, five with no drugs at all. With my induced posterior I didn't have any pain meds. That was a monster of a labor! I am not a masochist. I am really quite a wimp. I don't have easy labor, as someone once suggested. And no, the babies don't just fall out after having so many. I have labors that last days, weeks even. And even my transition phase is a bit of a marathon.

I know from all of that experience is that a woman's body needs time and rest and to be left alone to birth. Labor, contrary to what the books will tell you, can start and then stop and then pick up again right where it left off. That 'stop' is a necessary rest that mama needs to get the hard work of labor done.

The most striking example of that from my personal experience was with babe #3. I woke to contractions at about 1 am. They slowly got stronger and closer. I went and ate breakfast and lunch, did some walking. Then about 12 pm the contractions slowed down to about every 30 to 45 minutes and during that time I got some much needed sleep. When I got up at about 3:30pm the contractions picked up again at about every 4 min. It was still 6 hours before that baby made her appearance. If I had been in the hospital and the contractions had slowed that way they would have wanted to give me pitocin. My body would have been shoved into overdrive and I would have been exhausted and probably sectioned for 'failure to progress'. So praise God I stayed home as long as I did.

Women, we must change the way birth is viewed. We must stop telling 'horror' stories. We must objectively consider what happened to us in labor and birth and be honest with ourselves and others. So, stop justifying the interventions that were unnecessary. If the OB induced you with no clear medical reason (and no, a 'big' baby doesn't count as a good reason, nor is being 40 weeks or even having 'low fluid') it was wrong. If the OB broke your water without a good reason, that was also wrong. If you were sectioned for 'failure to progress' and were stuck in a bed with an epidural that was most likely unnecessary. If you were sectioned because of a breech most likely that was wrong too. If you were sectioned after a previous c-section and no other reason it was unnecessary. If you were forbidden to eat or drink they were torturing you. Okay, so that last one is slightly hyperbolic, but you get the idea.

THINK ladies! PLEASE! For the sake of yourselves, your babies, your friends, your sisters, and your daughters. Let us stop the fear-mongering in birth.