Last week I was privy to some tweets about a mom who’d just delivered a new baby. People were congratulating her and sending her well wishes, so I followed some links to her site. The first link led me to a cute little Friday series she had running which consisted of guest posts by other new moms whose pregnancies and births she was following*. Each week, she asked a mom a series of canned questions about their experience, including whether or not they had a natural birth, and whether they thought she was crazy for wanting a natural birth.
There were around a dozen interviews with different mothers, and every single one of the moms supported her decision to have a natural birth. In fact, every single one of the moms said they had planned to go natural as well. However, out of all the moms, only ONE mentioned taking a 12-week intensive natural birth class (specifically The Bradley Method) and (you can see where I’m going with this) only that mom actually reported getting the birth she wanted.
Coincidence? I think not.
As the moms reported on the details of their births, each resembled the previous story. Each Mom wanted to try to go natural, but then X, Y, Z happened, and she got the epidural, or the cesarean, or both. Most seem perfectly okay with that because, according to them, it couldn’t have been helped. None of the moms really liked the idea of having a needle in their back (the epidural) or having major abdominal surgery (a cesarean) but when it came right down to it that’s what they all (except the Bradley Mom) ended up getting. And each one (besides the Bradley Mom) told the pregnant mother not to count too much on her birth plan because nobody really has control over what happens during their birth.
Respectfully, I beg to differ.
What happens during a woman’s birth is not all up to chance. Maybe some of it, but certainly not all of it. Despite their best intentions, what most women don’t know is that those interventions can be nearly impossible to avoid without having comprehensive birth education, along with just a little bit of luck. And by “comprehensive” I do NOT mean a 1-day class offered at the very hospital that will be pushing all the interventions on a mother. An 8-hour class cannot possibly explain the complexities of natural birth to women living in a culture with such a highly medicalized birth model. I don’t believe that women need to be taught how to birth, but I do think they need to be fully informed about any interventions they are looking to avoid, and learn techniques for coping with labor naturally. In these modern times, women fear birth because they haven’t grown up seeing their mothers/sisters/aunts giving birth, and they have no idea what a normal birth looks like. The fear of birth is very often a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The mothers who remain under-educated about birth will assume that it was Birth’s fault that their labor went awry. Unfortunately, in many cases (Yes, probably even yours) the birth didn’t have to unfold the way it did.
And yes – no matter what anybody tells you, your birth experience matters, even when you had a healthy baby.
The choices we make play a huge role in the birth process, and are often the culprit when we hear about “failure to progress,” or unbearable pain, or even a mom who pushes for hours without being able to get the baby out. Rarely do you ever hear a cesarean story that does not include something about an induction (which carry a high failure rate) or even augmentation (Pitocin, Cervadil, Cytotec in an attempt to “speed up” labor) or an epidural. Epidurals are often the gateway to labor complications because they can slow labor, and make the mother immobile, which can make pushing ineffective. Lots of cesareans happen because of a breech baby, even in Canada where, a year ago, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists called for doctors to stop automatically recommending c-sections for breech babies.
Things simply do not have to be like this.
Of course, rarely do those women ever think that any of the interventions in their birth were used without serious medical indication. As a mother who once believed my baby would have died without all those interventions, who now knows the TRUTH about what happened to me, I can honestly say that I know how hard it is to come to terms with being duped. I wasn’t stupid, and neither are you, it’s just terribly difficult to find the truth when our healthcare system relies so heavily on the billions of dollars a year that medicalized births bring in. Aside from the money, our physicians simply are not trained to attend normal, natural births. In Canada, many doctors are still telling women that breech cesarean is safer simply because they, themselves, are not trained to vaginally deliver breech babies. The necessary skills have almost completely evolved out of the community, and that is a terrifying thought. However, on that note, the SOGC is at least smart enough to have issued the recommendation that physicians re-learn the lost art of breech delivery. Now it’s time for American doctors to get that message.
Most of my friends would be surprised to learn that just a few short years ago, I was one of those women running around telling people that I had an “emergency” cesarean, and thanking “god” that hospitals existed because me and my baby “might have died” without them. Then, I began to learn.
Boy, did I learn.
I learned that, according to research by Henci Goer, my induction had a whopping “50-250% chance” of ending in that cesarean. I also realized that, according to Dr. Michael Brodman, Chief OB/GYN at New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital, many cesareans are called by the doctors at around 4 pm in the afternoon because the doc simply wants to go home. (Guess what time mine was called for.) I also saw my birth played out as a cartoon in “The Business of Being Born”** – which made me realize that what happened to me was SO common that my failed induction was FAR from unique. In fact, my birth story was scripted by the hospital, just as many are.
I learned that all the choices I made led to that cesarean. I learned that my body COULD push out a “big” baby, because just 22 months later, that is exactly what my body did. The same doctor who told me I couldn’t fit an 8 lb baby through my pelvis went on to catch my nearly 10 lb baby, which did fit through that same exact pelvis.
And I didn’t even get an apology.
Before I got this nice uterine scar, nobody explained to me that ending up with a cesarean wouldn’t just complicate that delivery, but it also would put every future pregnancy at risk for placental abnormalities, uterine rupture, and repeat cesarean deliveries, which, of course, carry their own risks. Before I walked in for my induction, the doctor didn’t tell me that I had a ridiculously high chance of leaving the hospital with a 6-inch uterine scar, rendering me unable to pick up my own baby for days, or even drive a car. He also never told me that breastfeeding would be made infinitely harder because my body wasn’t ready to have that baby.
And now, years into my life as a birth activist, I see both powerful anecdotal and scientific evidence proving that a more informed mother has a much greater chance at getting the birth she wants. Even when the baby, or her body, has other plans, the better her birth education, the better she feels about how her birth played out. Women who are more informed will often pick providers who will respect them, which also plays a major role in the way a mother feels about her birth.
It’s true that not every single women who takes an 8 to 12-week birth class will avoid the epidural or cesarean, but statistics show, her chances are drastically improved. Bradley reports that women who take their series deliver without any drugs 90% of the time*** (just ask this mom). This statistic alone is a very good reason to drag yourself to a birth class.
No one should sit back and settle for whatever type of birth they are handed. Be an active participant. Read every single chapter of those birth books, even the ones you think will never apply to you. Take a full 8 to 12-week birth education course. Question everything you are told. Write a birth plan that covers every possible scenario, and have a strong supportive birth team who will help make sure that your birth plan is followed to the letter whenever possible.
And hire a doula. Seriously, seriously, hire a doula.
No one can guarantee you the exact birth you want, but that’s no reason to stay uninformed. There is no harm whatsoever in taking 8-12 weeks of birth classes, and when the birth is over, you’ll likely be satisfied with every single penny you spent on them.
In my educated experience, there is very little about birth that happens by chance. Take charge of this event – it is one of the most life altering and monumental things you will ever have the privilege to experience.
And now, because I believe in the power of story-telling, tell us how taking a full childbirth education series did, or did not, affect your birth outcome.
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*I purposefully did not link to these stories because I don’t want to embarrass anyone. Suffice to say, they’re very, very common, and could be found just about anywhere.
**I would also like to mention that The Business of Being Born is on sale at Amazon right now for just $7.99 with free shipping. Seriously, this will be the best $8 you have ever spent. No matter what you think you know, please, please watch this movie.
***Updated to add that this statistic is self-reported by the Bradley Method, and includes vaginal births only.
Thank you. I often sight that education is key to getting that natural birth everyone says they want. Even though I think it is just the "cool" thing to say sometimes(I feel like we are a bunch of teenagers stuck in our 20's and 30's). I emailed the doula that ran our childbirth course when I was prenant w/my first; to thank her for teaching. Not for my first birth but my second. 34+4 my water broke. All bets were off after that, no second homebirth. 34+6 he was born w/only pit. (Labor would not start! let me tell you . . . ) If it hadn't been for her being a childbirth advocate I might have ended up w/a scar. My 2 midwives and SM became my doulas and because of all of them, I got the best birth possible out of a complicated situation. It is not up to chance, my first proves that; my second reinforces it. Natural birth pushed all the fluid out of his lungs and he breathed with NO issues. Then did what that pedi had never seen a baby of that gestation do, latch on and feed for over an HOUR. I didn't expect and couldn't have asked for more.
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