I heard this debate on the public radio last week which really made me mad! It was about alternatives to a highly medicalized childbirth, which I’m all for. But what I hated is how each of the panelists shared the same point of view: that having a positive birth experience in a hospital was nearly impossible.
If you want to give birth at home in a pool with a midwife, go ahead. One solution cannot always fit all, and I know some people have had many horrendous hospital experiences. But have we gone all around, is giving birth with a doctor present the new enemy?
I think the way women gave birth in hospitals in generations past was a bit ridiculous and against nature. The shaved pubes, the enemas, the unnecessary hyper-sanitization, the patronizing attitude towards the mother, the father waiting in another room, and especially, the keeping the babies apart from their mother, largely preventing breastfeeding, early bonding, and the establishment of the new family routine… But can you name one place where it’s still happening this way? In my experience and the one from women around me, tremendous work has been done to bridge the medical setting with good common sense as well as the preservation of the natural aspect...
I was incredibly afraid of childbirth, and I had been for years and years. It totally freaked me out. I am not physically strong, I have little endurance, and my threshold to pain is really low. I am also too emotional and will stress out and panic easily, against my own good will. I basically thought I wouldn’t survive the experience, much less keep positive memories of it. Today I think differently, but back then if I could have chosen to have an elective C-section under an amnesia-inducing anesthesia, I would have done it. There was no doubt in my mind that I would have an epidural, and although I was willing to give breastfeeding a try, I wasn’t much convinced.
And people, I had the greatest childbirth experience you can imagine –not to say that it was easy breezy, because of course it was not. But it was much, much less worse than I expected. And the hospital, the staff, and their whole philosophy was immensely humane and wonderful. Miles and miles away from all these horror stories you keep hearing of bullish, incompetent, and rude staff treating you like heads of cattle. They were attentive, relaxed, supportive and nice. They listened to us and let us take control. I gave birth in my own room, with all the people and equipment moving around to accommodate me, not the other way around. Medical interventions were kept at a minimum level, although I felt reassured to know that professionals were also ready to intervene at any moment.
My labor was not that difficult or long (about three bad hours and although it was certainly unpleasant, I don’t think it was the worst pain I’ve been into and the surprising thing for me was that in between contractions, I was back to my old self, pain-free and joking), but pushing was the toughie. When I asked for my epidural, I was fully dilated and it was time to push. They would have given it to me anyway, but at this point I knew it would likely slow things down and I figured we would be done in 20 minutes time, right? Mhh, not so. It took two and a half hours during which I really wanted to give up all the time and tell them to just come and grab LP out of me! The doctor would come once in a while for a few minutes, but mostly, it was just me, M and this wonderful nurse I will remember all my life. She was great, but she wasn’t letting me get away with my whining, knowing perfectly well how to encourage me but also making it clear that she wasn’t there to give me sympathy, that I needed to get myself together and get this baby out. Would women bashing hospital births have considered this rude? I hope not, because it was the perfect attitude to shake me out of this weird daze and finish this marathon. What do these women want, to be told that they don’t have to work hard? Are midwives only supposed to say that “you’re doing great!” –which that nurse did all the time too, by the way-, even if you’re not?
And the after was the best part. I was so proud of myself, having done a great job even without any medication! LP was put on my chest, all sticky and disgusting, in under one minute. He stayed there until we made him nurse, about 40 minutes later. We didn’t even wash him until the night came, and surprisingly, the goop was gone. Round the clock while at the hospital, we had support for nursing and monitoring of both him and me, but other than that everything was super chill and minimally intrusive.
It’s a given that women giving birth are not sick (one of the major points made by natural birth extremists), but even though the act is a highly natural one, it’s also one where many things can go wrong at each instant for both mother and child, even if you had a completely low-risk pregnancy. Hospital births have at least one indisputable merit: they have massively decreased the mortality rate. Even though everything went well for me, I still lost a lot of blood and quickly became dangerously anemic, and I’m so glad I was already where I could be hooked up on an IV and closely monitored, because in some cases, this could spell really bad news. The last thing I would have wanted was to being rushed to the ER at this point and maybe end up there too late.
Handle your birth the way you want, but don’t diss as a whole what is still the majority option (and the safest one in my opinion)! I hated hearing these women because it can only lead to more stress and fear in women about to give birth, making them doubt their choices and approach their experience negatively. Women are not lazy because they want epidurals (so I didn’t get one, but maybe I would if I ever do this again), and certainly not going against their nature because they want a hospital setting. It’s up to every woman to get informed, choose a hospital where the philosophy closely matches hers (I personally wouldn’t have wanted a university hospital with tons of intern checking me up), and to be assertive about what she wants.
And as an additional note to these women (not specifically home birthers because even though this choice is not mine I can respect it, but rather extremists who are there to take down every women who don’t share their point of view), you’re doing nothing for your own credibility when adding that whole orgasmic birth aspect to the mix. I’m no prude but to me this is totally the equivalent of those completely wacky people who sauteed and ate the placenta back in the day. I’m the first to agree that childbirth should not have to be so scary and tense, but come on. I don’t know about you, but climaxing is incredibly dependent on context, and relies at least as much on your brain than on your body. And as hard as I try, I simply can’t reconcile the two in this situation.
