36 Obvious Reasons You Are Capable of Natural Birth
We hear so much negativity about birth these days that it sometimes gets lost in the shuffle that women are divinely designed to birth babies. This is a miracle, but it is also so totally normal and a simple bodily function. Here are a few reminders (yes, many of them obvious) of the truth that we have forgotten about our bodies.
1. You are a woman
2. Your mother was a woman and she gave birth to you.
3. As was your grandmother and all of their mothers before them.
4. Women have literally for 1000's of years been doing this and surviving. The proof is that we are all HERE.
5. Medical doctors stepped into birth only about 100 years ago, and yet people were breeding successfully all that time before.
6. You have a vagina.
7. You got pregnant.
8. You are gestating beautifully.
9. All the discomforts and aches and pains, though possibly annoying, prove that your body is DOING its job.
10. You have breasts.
11. Those breasts exist in large part for one reason: to feed your offspring.
12. Your monthly cycle.
13. Many natural urges exist in part to bring about this child.
14. Your growing abdomen.
15. Your extra weight gain.
16. Your full breasts.
17. Your food cravings.
18. Your pre-labor or Braxton-Hicks contractions show that your body is preparing to birth.
19. Stretch marks indicate growth and fertility.
20. The epidural= new invention.
21. The episiotomy= also, new (and unnecessary).
22. The c-section= again new, and yet, women most often survived birth during all those years.
23. Your bones and ligaments are moving and softening to open for the baby.
24. You have hips.
25. You have a pelvis, and it is very different than that of a man.
26. Your pelvis, though bony is movable.
27. Have a big butt? Embrace it- it is a sign of your fertility.
28. Small butt? That's OK too- you will just fit in your skinny jeans faster. Your pelvis still moves.
29. Your ancestors for 1000's of years gave birth with no medical intervention, and they must have survived, because, here you are! (I know, a repeat- it is important!)
30. Birth is the natural end and climax of the act of making love.
31. Worried about birth pain? Don't be. Contractions are natures way of letting you know that your baby is coming. Without this warning system, we could drop our babies ANYWHERE, safe or not. The birth process is necessary preparation for a safe arrival.
32. Your baby moves- he or she is preparing you to love them.
33. Your babies movement also shows how good you are (without even trying I might add) at feeding and growing a baby.
34. All prenatal tests are new inventions. Your ancestors also gave birth without these.
35. Even 50 years ago the c-section rate was around 4%. This "need" for constant surgery is a new occurrence.
36. Worried about motherhood? The birth process and all its stages are also helping prepare you to mother with confidence. The lessons you learn in labor (faith, excitement, hard work, pain, joy, giving up, euphoria) will all be repeated over and over as you raise your children. It is natures preparation for mothering.
Comments
One of the things that is often said that scares a lot of women (myself included!) is "Yes women have been given birth for 1000's of years but think about how many of them and their babies DIED from it..."
I mean come on, that's pretty scary for anyone. Not hard to think "OMG..what if that person who would have died 100 years ago, and before modern medicine, was ME or MY baby?"
Yet logically, as you pointed out, women have been giving birth successfully literally since the start of time. A third of all births in my country are C/S...100 years ago did a third of woman die from childbirth? Did a third of their babies die from childbirth? I don't know the exact numbers but surely, logically, we can assume they weren't that high.
On a personal note, I was told, by a well meaning family member after my first birth went terribly 'wrong' was "Gosh, if this had happened 100 years ago, you would have died". After some healing, I realised I would not have died. Because I wouldn't have been induced, had an epidural, episiotomy, or any of the other interventions that led to the accident happening.
Who knows? Maybe I would have been better off a hundred years ago ;-)
Thanks for your posts Mama Birth, I am finding them great in building my confidence up again in this natural, amazing birth process :-)
They tried to tell me that I couldn't give birth to a baby bigger than 6 lbs. after my C-section. I pretty much replicated my "100 years ago" birth at home and had an 8 lb. 4 oz. baby.
Mama Birth, I am LOVING your blog! When I ever get around to updating my blogroll (full of bloggers who never even write anymore, kinda like me), you're going on it!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not settle yourself upon not being able to have a midwife! It CAN be done for you! Diabetes and hypertension considered. I developed HELLP syndrome with two pregnancies, pre-eclampsia with all three. I thought there was no way I'd be able to have a natural pregnancy with a midwife since I now have chronic hypertension as well as the knowledge of a condition that increases my risks of blood clots. I was even told with my last pregnancy (a stillbirth) that if I were to get pregnant again, my life would be at increased risk of death.
But here I am, third trimester with my fourth baby, and I am transferring from an OB to a midwife! And doing GREAT! It IS possible!
I'm not saying complications won't arise, they very well could, but you can STILL have a midwife, you just have to look really, really hard! If that is what you want, it IS possible! It might be very very hard to find that midwife, but she's out there somewhere! Try looking for a naturopathic midwife, as they are more likely to take your care than a regular midwife, but there is no reason you CAN'T have this experience!
Good luck!
--Mama of six born at home
I was left feeling miserably unfit and broken. But I didn't let that make me believe that natural birth just didn't work for me for too terribly long. I learned everything I could about natural childbirth and pregnancy, and I read great empowering articles like this one.
Since, I have had two absolutely beautiful, natural births that left me exhilarated, energized and empowered to the task of caring for my family.
So, while I am sorry for your anger, I have to say thank you to mama birth for helping to get the word out that there IS another way, even if I was told and believed after my first that that other way wasn't for me. It turned out that way IS for me, my body and my children.
Rananne- I think you took the post totally different than it was meant. It was meant to hurt nor anywhere within it did it insult people who choose or can't have a natural birth. The ONLY point was to inspire strength in women's natural abilities.
How people birth by choice or force is none of my business and I don't have time to judge it.
Wishing you happiness.
i'm not anti natural birth, but when its all said and done, u dont get a trophy and gold star after natural birth.
And since you pointed out I didn't get a gold star for my all natural birth (vbac), perhaps you would be interested in what I DID get... I got to be the first one to meet my son instead of the last. The first one to hold that precious baby boy. I have pictures of me holding him within an hour of birth. My first born was 12 hours old before there was a single picture (he was 6 hours & his cries after waking up greeted by a nurse, for our first meeting). I now know what a newborn baby looks & smells like. I know that newborns don't have to scream & cry... they can lay there & look at you with love. I know that my body isn't broken like they said it was. I know what the first months of a child's life are like, how they change & grow, without the haze of pain meds making it foggy in my mind. I know what it's like to be able to bend down & pick up my newborn baby & go straight to playing rather than stopping to let the pain subside before moving any further. So before you start talking about 'gold stars' that we don't get, perhaps you should ask if the gold star is even what we are after!
When a local OB told one of my students, "You don't get a trophy for having a natural birth," I told my student to tell the doc, "Oh, yes, I do... a nice, pink, 7-10 pound, unmedicated, alert trophy in the shape of a baby!"
Thank you for pointing out that not everyone has to have a baby this way. I have been incredibly blessed by adoption and I'm sure the woman that chooses "no labor" is blessed by that. BUT... oh how I would love to experience a baby growing in my womb and exerience every single part of that baby being born! And, when that day comes, I do want to be the first one to lay eyes on that long awaited child!
natural birth
My first child was born with gastroschesis. Fifty years ago, he would have died. No change in diet, lifestyle or anything else would have changed that. It was the fact that I knew about his defect and was able to deliver with a pediatric surgical team scrubbed in and ready to intervene at his birth that saved him.
My fourth and fifth children were mono/di twins and had complications due to placenta sharing issues. Again, for 1000's of years this was a death sentence.
Basically, three of my five children would have died at or before birth in previous generations. And none of this can be blamed on the "cascade of interventions". Just my bad luck.
While childbirth is a natural and beautiful process, it is an oversimplification to demonize the medical community just because women have been giving birth since the begining of time.
I wish, though, it weren't so hard to have the best of both worlds. I have an incompetent cervix - 100 years ago, yes, my babies would have died, my cervix can't hold a baby up! I am very thankful to be able to have surgery to stitch my womb closed each time.
I'm also thankful for my excellent OB, who makes sure I labor exactly how I want to - no monitors, no food or water restrictions, I'm in charge. Our last two babies, I delivered myself and brought up to the breast - so incredible. Perfect, natural, glorious births - tears of joy from everyone!
It's great we have ways to help moms like me. It's wretched that the system doesn't try to preserve normality whenever intervention isn't needed - in the vast majority of pregnancies!- like my doc does. 1/3 of women do not need c-sections!
I saw a chiropractor, took birthing classes, did the exercises. But the hormones were so strong that I wasn't able to keep any food down until around 23 weeks. I lost 17lbs. (I wasn't lazy and sedentary. I was sick as a dog and sedentary. No matter which century I had been born to, I wouldn't have been working in the fields in my condition.)
Anyway, early in the pregnancy I began having dizzy spells and heart palpitations. I actually got up in the middle of the night and passed out and broke my foot. So talked to my midwives about it. There were four midwives in our practice. The first told me it was normal, I was dehydrated and needed to be more conscious of my water intake. I knew this was probably true since I threw up most of the water I drank. The next month I talked to the next midwife and was given the same "drink more water" advice. The third midwife recommended some herbs and water. The forth mid-wife said she thought I should see a cardiologist. Turns out I have a heart condition that only presents during pregnancy. My valves couldn't handle the pressure from the baby and all the extra blood.
The midwives met and told me that I even though I was now finally not sick, I had to keep my activity to a minimum and they would not do the birth at the birthing center. They would assist me however, at the hospital and I MUST have an epidural to keep my heart rate from raising too high. I had read so much, learned so much and had so much of an I CAN DO IT BECAUSE I AM A WOMAN attitude, that now I felt like an utter failure.
The day I went into labor I had ongoing complications. I went into convulsions before they ever administered one drop of medication to me. Even with the epidural the my heart started going crazy during the pushing, as a result the babies heart was going crazy. Then top it all off, the baby inhaled meconium and needed immediate treatment by the NICU. We would both be dead if we had stayed at the birthing center. After delivery my midwife told me that there were at least four life and death reasons that I needed to be at the hospital. At least 2 of which could not have been detected until labor had already progressed.
I am not alone I have 3 friends who went the all natural route and had to be rushed to hospital in order to stay alive. I am not less of a woman because I went to a hospital and took medicine. I am more of a woman, because I ensured the life of my daughter and I. The risks are there. The risks are very real. And all of the I AM WOMAN affirmations in the world wouldn't have been much consolation to my husband putting his wife and baby girl in the ground.
I have all the other things you listed. My first labour was very fast, I dilate like a crazy machine (0-10 in an hour). But none of that can fix what's wrong with me. I think it's something like 3% of the population that has the same problem. And sometimes it goes really well. My sister has the same thing and her first birth they didn't even know about it. Everything just went fine. Her second ended up in a blocked in position just like my second and that's how they found out. So yeah, my ancestors survived. My direct ancestors anyways. How many siblings were lost though? To give an idea - my great aunt also had the same problem. She lost FIVE. Five babies buried. One lone survivor to pass on the trait. Without modern medicine my two simply would not be here. My first would have been stillborn I'm sure. She was stuck and strangled. My second might have taken me out too. But my sister had one normal birth and so the gene passes on.
This is just all too simplistic for me. It doesn't make me feel better. It makes me sad because those things didn't mean anything for me. :(