Natural Birth is Actually BETTER
I received a comment recently on the blog about a natural birth post. I don't want to single out this person individually so I won't quote it directly but the basic point she made was this:
"Natural birth might be a great choice for you, but it isn't for everybody. I was perfectly happy with my birth involving XYZ interventions, and so are lots of women. It is about choices."
I have to disagree. This isn't just about "choices." Natural birth is not just a great choice for women like me. It is almost always the best choice for the mother and baby.
Yes- I just said that. Natural birth is usually the best choice for mother and baby. And, I can prove it.
~Choices~
There is an interesting aspect to a lot of natural birth discussions these days. I notice many people wanting so much not to be judgmental that they talk about natural birth like it is all about the mother's choice. If mama feels like she needs an epidural, then that is her choice. If mama is fearful of labor for whatever reason, she has the choice to schedule an abdominal surgery. If she is tired of being pregnant, she can choose an induction. Basically it is up to her.
There is a lot of truth in this and I do think that women should be allowed to choose whatever they feel is best for them. Partly I think this because I don't want my choices taken away from me just because somebody disagrees or thinks that home birth or not vaccinating or whatever is unsafe. So, don't get me wrong, I am not advocating taking away a woman's right to choose how she births. I do however want to point out that there is much more to this topic than what is best for the mother or our ability to choose whatever we are comfy with.
At some point we need to recognize though that birth doesn't just involve the well being of the mother. There are TWO people involved. The other one is silent and is the BABY.
Is an epidural the best choice for the baby? Is a scheduled c-section the best choice for the baby? Is pitocin the best choice for the baby? Are we being honest with ourselves when we answer these questions, or are we just thinking about how the choice will make us feel?
~Our Choices Affect the Baby~
Let's first consider the choice for non-medical induction with pitocin. (Yes, this happens because mom is tired, uncomfortable, or just "done" with her pregnancy.)
Some possible side effects of pitocin administration:
"Because of maternal and fetal risks, oxytocin must be administered with caution . It has been reported to cause fetal bradycardia, neonatal retinal hemorrhage, and neonatal jaundice, in addition to maternal effects . Fetal deaths due to various causes have reportedly been associated with the parenteral use of oxytocics for induction or augmentation of labor . Excessive dosage or administration of oxytocin to hypersensitive patients may cause uterine hypertonicity with spasm and tetanic contraction or uterine rupture . Abruptio placentae, impaired uterine blood flow, amniotic fluid embolism, and fetal trauma including cardiac arrhythmias, intracranial hemorrhage, and asphyxia may occur as a result ."
-You can find more information from the package insert for pitocin here.-
Do you still think natural birth is all about the mother's "choice" and what she is comfortable with?
Let's consider one of the drugs common in epidural anaesthesia, Bupivacaine.
"Adverse reactions in the parturient, fetus, and neonate involve alterations of the central nervous system, peripheral vascular tone, and cardiac function. Maternal hypotension has resulted from regional anesthesia. Local anesthetics produce vasodilation by blocking sympathetic nerves. Elevating the patient’s legs and positioning her on her left side will help prevent decreases in blood pressure. The fetal heart rate also should be monitored continuously and electronic fetal monitoring is highly advisable. Epidural, caudal, or pudendal anesthesia may alter the forces of parturition through changes in uterine contractility or maternal expulsive efforts. Epidural anesthesia has been reported to prolong the second stage of labor by removing the parturient’s reflex urge to bear down or by interfering with motor function. The use of obstetrical anesthesia may increase the need for forceps assistance."
You can read more about this drug here.
You can read more about this drug here.
Still think natural birth is all about what is best for the mother? Do you still think this is just about what mama wants? Do you believe that an increase in forceps delivery has no negative implications for the newborn?
Let's take a look at some of the con's related to the elective c-section from a mainstream news source.
"Cons: 
Possible pre-term delivery if due date calculation is inaccurate Rare: Possible infant injury when the doctor makes the uterine incision Risk of damage to the mother's bowels and/or bladder Increased maternal blood loss and risk of needing a transfusion Risk of complications from anesthesia (pneumonia, allergic reactions, low blood pressure) Slightly higher mortality rate for the mother Twice the risk of infant mortality Higher risk of infection and blood clots for the mother"
You can read this article in full here.
Possible pre-term delivery if due date calculation is inaccurate Rare: Possible infant injury when the doctor makes the uterine incision Risk of damage to the mother's bowels and/or bladder Increased maternal blood loss and risk of needing a transfusion Risk of complications from anesthesia (pneumonia, allergic reactions, low blood pressure) Slightly higher mortality rate for the mother Twice the risk of infant mortality Higher risk of infection and blood clots for the mother"You can read this article in full here.
This article also mentions that more than half of the c-sections were done on an elective basis. You can read the study by the New England Journal of Medicine on their website, here. The idea that all cesareans are necessary is false.
~Educated Choices, Not Just Choices~
The access to natural birth is not just a feminist issue. It is not just a woman's issue. It is a human rights issue. Whatever we "want" is not necessarily best for our baby. In fact, it might not even be best for us.
I realize that this argument goes both ways. Sometimes a c-section is best for mom and baby even when mama desperately wants a beautiful home birth. That is life and that is just how it goes.
For my commenter who thinks that "natural birth might be great for me, but not everybody," well, I just think you are wrong. I truly believe that birth is intended to be a natural process. All common sense and logic tends to point in this direction. Most women throughout history have birthed without drugs and considering the current population of the earth, it looks like it was pretty safe.
I am frankly just plain tired of hearing people talk about all this like it is just choices and what is right for you. Natural birth really is better. It is safer. It is normal. It is how it should be. Drugs used unnecessarily cause problems for both the mother and baby. The drug manufacturers themselves will tell you this in their own package inserts. The negative effect of drugs on the baby is the same whether you "felt comfortable" with your choice or not.
(As with anything, there are of course, exceptions.)
~Educated Choices, Not Just Choices~
The access to natural birth is not just a feminist issue. It is not just a woman's issue. It is a human rights issue. Whatever we "want" is not necessarily best for our baby. In fact, it might not even be best for us.
I realize that this argument goes both ways. Sometimes a c-section is best for mom and baby even when mama desperately wants a beautiful home birth. That is life and that is just how it goes.
For my commenter who thinks that "natural birth might be great for me, but not everybody," well, I just think you are wrong. I truly believe that birth is intended to be a natural process. All common sense and logic tends to point in this direction. Most women throughout history have birthed without drugs and considering the current population of the earth, it looks like it was pretty safe.
I am frankly just plain tired of hearing people talk about all this like it is just choices and what is right for you. Natural birth really is better. It is safer. It is normal. It is how it should be. Drugs used unnecessarily cause problems for both the mother and baby. The drug manufacturers themselves will tell you this in their own package inserts. The negative effect of drugs on the baby is the same whether you "felt comfortable" with your choice or not.
(As with anything, there are of course, exceptions.)
Comments
It's like the whole breastfeeding thing. I'm all for women's right to choose, but you can't try to say that formula is superior. it's not.
Nicola- I would say to them that it is my opinion that higher fetal (and maternal) death rates in an earlier era had more to do with nutrition (I believe that good nutrition can prevent many pregnancy and birth related problems) sanitation (we are able to have a much more sanitary experince now in the hospital since doctors started washing their hands after they touched dead folks and stopped spreading childbed fever)and the advent of some of the anti-hemmorage drugs (of which pitocin is of course one of). I also think that often women were attended by untrained midwives (which isn't a bad thing per se) but they may or may not have had any experience with CPR or various minor things that could go wrong but which today could be well handled even at home.
My angle to this issue: there is a norm of how human animals give birth and any interference with that norm is a deviation ergo: not as good as the norm. You cannot improve on the norm. There is only normal and non-normal and non-normal is a sub standard to the norm.
Agreed, too, that higher maternal/fetal mortality was about bad hygiene, bad nutrition, inability to manage hemorrhage and lack of basic lifesaving skills, coupled with obstetric interferences to the process (lying on beds, drugging, etc).
I'd be willing to bet that maternal/neonatal mortality was much lower before industrialization, especially outside of major city centres. Come industrialization and you have hordes of folks living in cities in squalor, giving birth in horrific medical facilities and the invention of obstetrics and their beginning to take over the normal cases as well as the outliers.
You can choose anything, but the act of choosing doesn't make it healthier.
I believe in a woman's right to choose what is right for her. No matter what.
It's probably hard for you to see this, but you don't actually know what is best for other people. And santimonious, judgmental, preaching does nothing but alienate your audience.
But hey, as long as you get to spout off you're happy, right?
You should read A Midwife's Tail by Ulrich which is a study of the diaries ifs midwife in the late1700s,and see her story as a window of how it was pre-industrialisation of childbirth. It's a fascinating book though a lot of it was lost on me as a non-American.
Perhaps you could take thus article further to exploring how ultrasound examination doesn't improve outcomes either. Love your work!!!!
The point also goes further to illustrate how not only the mothers comfort of desires must be considered when choosing elective interventions. As you know the same is also true when a mom wants deny or refuse potentially life saving intervention. These choices must made with full information o pros and cons as well as the full autonomy of the mom without coercion derision or infantalizing the woman's choices.
So andygirl I have just one question after you re-read this article whom do you think is being sanctimonious and perhaps a lot defensive? Hmmm??
I too am tired of walking on egg shells, and it is a very tricky edge. Good for you for taking it on! May I kiss your feet.
The only thing I would add is the fact that as modern women, through no fault of our own, we are in the peculiar position of having been deeply imprinted by birth fear. Not just from movies and doctors pressure, but also from the way we ourselves were born, the way our mothers and their mothers were born.
Women who choose interventions are, in a way, victims of the system they are seeking out... and perhaps the ones most marked by it.
"... For the first time in history of humanity most women have babies without releasing a flow of hormones of love... the future of our civilization is at stake." - Michel Odent, The Farmer and the Obstetrician
If we are to accept the evidence that the way we are born imprints us for our entire lives then we must also accept that modern women are host to a lineage and legacy of pain and fear written on our wombs, our throats, our breath, breasts, and being.
Healing cultural trauma is an enormous task. In a very real way we cannot move forward alone. In fact, even though it may seem that some of us are "ahead" in the race, the truth is we rise and fall together. We are forging a path for the sisterhood of women.
We must speak the truth about birth, and hold space for all women at the same time.
Tnank you for an inspiring and compassionate act of courage. I will take heart and strength from it... and speak-up.
~Krista
Natural birth isn't about getting a gold star or bragging rights - it is about the health and safety of both mother and her baby. I wish people understand that more. I am praying for a day when natural birth is the norm in America, not the exception!
We'll see a lot less trauma to mother (emotionally like PPD or physically like vaginal tearing) and we'll see much less trauma to baby (less premature infants in the NICU due to unnecessary induction or unnecessary cesarean). We will also see less DEATHS and that is the one I cannot stress enough.
Of course I understand when a cesarean and induction are necessary and thank God for the technology and knowledge for those situations. I think we all get that and I know you get that Mama Birth. Thank you for speaking up about "the other side", the minority.
I feel much the same about breastfeeding and even read a great quote about it today:
While breastfeeding may not seem the right choice for every parent, it is the best choice for every baby.
~ Amy Spangler
Yes, we should all have options / choices available to us, but the truth is: some choices really are better than others!
Ugh, that disgusts me!
It seems strange to be so militantly against the role of medicine in what you are so concerned with calling natural. Natural, on it's own, doesn't make a thing good - not all intervention in natural things is bad, consequently. You can say that the epidural has risks, fine. Do you have percentages? Lots of things have risks that are minimal and outweighed by the positives. I'd say that if an epidural
allows a woman to walk away from the birth with a positive attitude, it is a very good thing!
If you think this is a moral issue, make that clear. If it's not a moral issue, then it really just comes down to the individual. In which case, we get it, you prefer natural births.
And really, do you want to use the term "human right" for this issue? It already holds so little weight in the abortion discussion. Don't do it more damage by applying it to the right to have natural birth.
Let's hope I can do it again when the time comes!!
I definitely agree with you, and I wish I had the guts to say this to my friends/family who balk at natural childbirth and/or homebirth. I'm getting more people who support me than don't, but still... it's frustrating to explain to those who are against our choices (especially, since it's our first).
Thank you so much for an article that is well-written, well-thought out, AND has the facts. :-)
50% of the population has an IQ below 100 and I commend you on your courage to be one of that 50% and step forward with such an astonishingly uneducated and selfish point of view. To be so blatantly wrong and yet share your misguided opinions as fact illustrates that what you lack in intelligence you make up for in conviction.
I hope that you beat the genetic odds and breed a child with enough intelligence to survive, and thrive, despite their mother's feeble mental state. I'm concerned, however, that your offspring will languish. If you don't believe in advances in medicine you probably also don't believe in other advances, such as electricity, computers, the fact that the earth is round, etc. Odds are your child, if they survive despite your negligence, will end up an outcast and a reject. On the plus side, SOMEONE'S got to pump gas into my Mercedes.
would you like to contribute some of your amazing intelligence to this discussion rather than just insults which honestly aren't even that witty? perhaps your might offer an argument, some "evidence," or even a thought-out perspective?
otherwise, it's you who looks unintelligent and just plain MEAN!
I must decline. Being the most intelligent person in a room does nothing to contribute to my personal development.
I also refuse trying to get your buy-in to my opinion as my opinion is simply my own. I would expect my opinion, as I stated previously, to stink to everyone but myself.
What kind "evidence" do you seek? And why did you place the word "evidence" in quotation marks?
The only hard fact I offered is that 50% of all people have an IQ below 100. This is, in fact, the very nature of the intelligence quotient.
As to looking "mean?" I'm OK with that. I have no tolerance for those that would force their dogma on others and instruct them how to live, what is best, or what to do or not do. I'll go beyond "mean" and say that I'm an absolute jerk.
It's ok if people need or choose interventions and I believe people come to birth from all kinds of places and sometimes people do need medical support for actual medical reasons, or maybe because they are afraid. Maybe they have the fear perpetuated in this country by the media and by other women (birth horror stories). But the fact is that most women who choose intervention/drugs aren't really giving fully informed consent. They don't know these things. And no one in the hospital is giving them all the facts. And unless it's a comprehensive class like Bradley, they aren't getting the truth from childbirth education either.
Keep teaching, keep talking, keep supporting mothers no matter what, so we can all heal. It's the only way.
To Andygirl- the point of the blog is education- to some degree- but it is a personal blog where I can talk about things openly in a way that is comfortable for me, through writing. I love birth. I respect it. I find joy in it and I deeply desire that other women find this joy also. I enjoy writing and getting feedback and the forum that this amazing thing provides me. It is also however a place for me to express my thoughts and indeed FRUSTRATIONS with the way things are in obstetrics today. I never single out or even think of an individual when I write, so please don't take anything personally. It isn't meant that way. I am allowed to be frustrated and have opinions and even, yes, express them, in ways that others might find offensive. I find the state of obstetrics currently quite offensive, damaging and even detrimental to women and children. I see where you are coming from. I have expressed the same sentiments to other friends and bloggers and natural birth advocates (love the message but not your presentation) so I GET where your critique is coming from. But I am human. And I get ticked and this is a safe place for me to express that. People can take it or leave it. I am not making anybody read it.
I think the tone of this particular post is a departure from how I usually present things, but I don't think it was out of line.
Thanks for reading! And thanks for all the responses-
natural birth
And just to anyone who doesnt know - you CAN have a natural childbirth in a hospital. I was reasonable enough to realize that if something went wrong, there was medical intervention available and I wanted that. Doctors were there to help if needed. That was also the best choice for me and my daughter. Yes, I had to tell the nurses not to ask me if I wanted an epidural and I had to fight to refuse the pitocin... BUT it can be done :)
I think its about making informed decisions. I'm 3 months pregnant and honestly nervous as hell about child birth so I'm enjoying getting some straight up facts about my options.
I also love that this writer is speaking on behalf of the precious babies, after all, that's the whole point of going through all of this. :)
I am asuming that you read about all that and dont feed your child anything buy freshly prepared organic fruits, vegetables, meat etc.
I am sure you aren't being a horrible mother and feeding your kid things that are bad for them...
After all, someone like you who puts her child's needs first all that time and is not afraid to judge other women, cant be using processed food just because it is convenient for you some of the time. Coz that would make you a hypocrite.
Check if your perfect before you question the choices of others
Yet this is my first preg. And I plan to birth natural. Mostly for many reasons stated in this article. I love the article, and the fact the the author doesn't hold back truth, or fail to provide the truth with facts. Now, IMO, all of you very defensive women on here, trying turn your nose up, is defensive for your own reasons. Its because you are truly trying to justify the fact that you willingly agreed to be caught by the myth of interventions. Dont sit up here and accuse her of judging, she is IMFORMING. Why are you even here ifyou dont support natural births, or her methods of it...last iI checked, it was HER BLOG! You are just a reader like the rest of us, so shut up and either support it, or dont. Smh. Stop being so mean to her!