Dear Natural Birth Advocates... (A letter from a regular person.)
Dear Natural Birth Advocates,
It's me. A regular person. I wear a bra, I drive a Toyota, and I get my hair highlighted. I have on occasion, even voted Republican.
I am pregnant and I have been looking into natural birth. I really want the best possible birth for my baby and it just doesn't make sense to have unnecessary drugs in the equation. So I have been researching and stumbled upon you- the natural birth community.
I have to admit...
You frighten me a little.
People are talking about skipping the epidural (which makes sense to me) but acting like to do that you also have to:
-eat your placenta (YUCK!)
-skip vaccinations (WHAT?!)
-birth at home (!!!!!!)
-breastfeed topless and for years and years on end (I don't want people to see my nipple! Is that so wrong?! And two year olds look HUGE!)
-stop wearing deodorant and shaving my armpits (I am not ashamed to admit that I LIKE having smooth legs.)
-cloth diaper (I remember my mom doing it, and seriously...WHY would you use cloth if you had another option? No toilet swishing for me!)
In fact, somebody on an online forum told me yesterday that men who are circumcised don't really enjoy sex and can't satisfy their partners. That is just plain insulting to me and my circumcised husband.
So, while I really want a natural birth, I am a little freaked out by the intensity and the depth of weirdness that appears to be required to have one.
Can't regular women skip the epidural without all the other stuff? It makes me uncomfortable and I feel like I will never be accepted into your community unless I become a different person. A smelly person who eats their own organs...
A message from the masses-
EVERY WOMAN WANTS THE HEALTHIEST BIRTH AVAILABLE FOR THEMSELVES AND ESPECIALLY THEIR BABY. We want that as much as you. But when you act like all my other life choices are toxic or fear based, or simply a result of lack of education, it is a tad rude.
I want birth choices and I don't want to be scared off by what you have to admit, are VERY different life choices. I want to learn without being insulted and I want access to information that doesn't offend or scare my husband.
Sincerely,
A regular pregnant woman
PS
I know lots of people who have stopped even considering natural birth because you freaked them out.
~~~
(Maybe this wasn't clear. (I thought it was obvious.) This isn't a real letter from a real person. This is me, Mama Birth, pointing out that the natural birth community does things that totally backfire on us and really freak people out and send them asking for c-sections. If you don't think it is funny, then don't laugh. But if you think people will listen to you when you tell them that they are stupid for going natural and then vaccinating, then you are blind.)
Comments
I wish you a peaceful, joyful, supported, amazing and life-changing birth. I hope that you will still consider keeping your son intact even though someone might have said something negative about sex with circumcised men. DrMomma.org is a great place to look for gentle information and The Intact Network has chapters all over that can compassionately help you make an informed decision.
<3
Happy Motherhood!
I thought much the same about cloth diapers and home birth but I still had an awesome natural hospital birth with my second child. Now I birth at home and cloth diaper! :)
But yeah, sometimes I feel like I don't fit in with the natural birth advocates because we do vaccinate starting at 2 years (and selectively) and I drink Diet Coke sometimes and eat a lot of chocolate. Then on the other hand I don't fit in with the mainstream moms because I cloth diaper, don't vaccinate until 2, breastfeed without a cover, and wash my hair with baking soda, and whenever one of my friends is complaining about a sick child or a headache I say "I have an essential oil for that!"
I am a natural birther. I drive a massive diesel guzzling over-sized truck. I probably the least 'granola' person out there. I highlight my hair and have an occasional love-affair for fake nails & tanning beds :-)
I did give birth at home, I also had my 1st child in the hospital w/ drugs because I was not fully educated then. My home births trump the hospital by 1000x. I was in control which is a big deal while giving birth. And in a safe familiar environment.
I did not eat my placenta, however my mid-wife offered to bury it in my yard, and that still puzzles me to this day.
I can see how the extreme side can be uninviting to some. But I thank goodness everyday for the women/men that believe in the natural birth process so passionately so, that they make sure an effort to pass on education to those that want to learn more.
I wear all my babies (before it was cool & on pinterest) and nurse all my little ones till age one. I am happy you wrote the letter, and I have many friends that refer to me as 'crazy' for have muti homebirths. Thats fine with me too.
For me I relied heavily on blogs and sites like this one to learn about how to make the best choice for myself & baby.
My advice it to take what you want and be yourself. The advocates (in their hearts) don't want to freak you out, rather they have beneficial info & want to share it. You are the ultimate designer of your birth. I wish you the best.
PS - my hospital birth I had a Douala and ended up taking all sorts of meds and was unable to be intimate for up to 6 months after due to my episiotomy (yuck). With my 2 homebirths I was up and walking my older kids to school the next day with my new baby & felt great.
I don't want to EAT my placenta, I can't stomach the thought.... but I am going to have it encapsulated because I really could benefit from all the nutrients and energy it gives you. To those women who manage to eat their placenta raw, more power to them... I just can't do it!
I understand skipping vaccinations, though my son is vaccinated. I don't want my next child vaccinated now that I've done so much research on it. I guess I have a problem with a bunch of people that GOT vaccinated catching something they were vaccinated for. I would likely do selective vaccinations (i.e. Polio, but not chickenpox), but a lot of them are really ineffective. That's still very much a personal preference, of course, but not all natural birth advocates don't vaccinate.
I'd LOVE to do a homebirth, but quite honestly? I'm scared to. I'm one of those people always afraid something will go wrong. What's more, I am group B strep positive (just like last time), so I need those antibiotics before birth. Not messing with that at home. Besides, last time my child came a month early... which wouldn't really make homebirth a safe option for me.
I was all about nursing my son as long as I could... but topless? Meh, I'll pass on that! Maybe those first 2 weeks at home when my nipples hurt like hell from the new pressure applied to them, but not in public! I almost made it to 2, but my supply dried up. After your child starts eating solids, they don't really nurse often... many times, nursing at 2 or beyond is really just when they wake up, just when they go to bed, just when they go down for a nap, or a combination of those times. My toddler never asked for milk unless it involved sleep after about 14 months. :)
I am NOT going to stop shaving my armpits! In fact, my husband started shaving his armpits! The hair follicles retain odor, so you have a much better chance of not stinking without the hair. I went deodorant-less for a while, but only because I couldn't find one that I liked that didn't have the parabens (cancer-causing agents) in them. I finally found one that actually WORKED (surprisingly, Arbonne), so now I still shave AND wear deodorant.... but I still am a natural birth advocate!
I cannot say that a circumcised male doesn't enjoy sex, but I *CAN* say that is a needless (and surprisingly risky) surgery that is purely cosmetic for 99.9% of the cases. That is one thing I wish I knew more about before having my child.
While I realize that some people come off as overbearing on issues, please do try to keep an open mind to some things... like when people get all excited about cloth diapers, maybe there's a reason to it. They are a lot cooler (and cuter!) than they used to be, and don't require pins to close them up! Or placenta consumption (be it eating raw *shudder* or encapsulation)... have you looked into the benefits of it and why those women mention it? It can kick post partum depression. It provides energy. It provides nutrients. This is why mammals eat their placenta after birthing their young... they need that energy and those nutrients back! Of course, no amount of facts will ever convince me to eat it raw (or whole, or anything like that), but I'll do the encapsulation so that I can get the benefits without the visual grossness. :)
Let others make up their own minds about their birthing decisions. Just don't condem them if they choose an epidural.
Written by a concerned woman that wears deodrant.
Sincerely, a deodorant wearing two time section mama
We need to be supporting each other in this journey we are on as women and families. Where is the village - the sisterhood - to help one another through pregnancy, birth and parenting? As a mama trying to navigate rough waters of motherhood, a village of support is something I'm desperately searching for on a daily basis. Messages like these remind me that women are often very brutal towards each other and my efforts in finding comfort may be futile.
Another true story- I teach birth classes. The students are regular, awesome, people from a variety of backgrounds who just want what is best for their baby. Then they try to research this stuff and they get so much hostility and crazy from the natural birth community that it scares them. It is sad- but I have actually had students tell me that they started to research circumcision, but they ran into intactivist stuff and were SO turned off by the brutality (of those people who want to save the foreskins of the world) that they assumed EVERYTHING THEY SAID WAS A LIE and dismissed it and were thus seriously considering circumcision.
I am out there, on the front lines working with people. And I can tell you in all honesty that much of what we do sounds so weird (or is presented in such a judgmental way) that it scares people off and they don't take us seriously.
And I am simply TIRED of it. It is time for some good, hard, and painful self-reflection on the part of natural birth communities. We need to re-assess our message, re-assess our audience, and realize that what we are doing ISN'T WORKING. The c-section rate is climbing, hardly anybody births at home, the information is out there and FREE but nobody is interested in our message.
Case in point- MANY people (crunchy folks) read this and took it seriously and then took many minutes out of their day to MOCK AND BE MEAN to this mythical letter writer.
Yep- we need to re-assess.
You can say I should be nicer about it- but you never read my nice posts about it, did you? Nope. Nobody else did either.
When I was pregnant with my daughter, I knew I wanted an epidural-free birth. Unfortunately, I was not as educated then as I am now, and I ended up with an induction and an epidural. I knew when I was pregnant that I did not want to cloth diaper in the slightest. When a friend asked at my baby shower if I was going to cloth diaper, I told her "hell no!" My daughter will be a year old in 2 weeks, and we've been cloth diapering for almost 6 months now. I knew when I was pregnant that I wanted to wear my daughter. She was 4 months old before I learned about ergonomic carriers that wouldn't kill my back (which has lingering issues after that unwanted epidural).
I shave and would wax every hair on my body (minus my eyebrows and head, of course)if I had the money to keep up with it. I wear mainstream deodorant (I tried every natural brand and home remedy that I could find, but nothing worked to keep me stink-free). I drink coffee (A LOT). I don't eat organic. I eat fast food far more often than I should. I still indulge in diet sodas on occasion.
I also cloth diaper (as aforementioned) full time. I use a reusable menstrual cup. I use essential oils instead of most mainstream remedies. I upcycle, recycle, and thrift a lot of my family's belongings. I am kind of obsessed with babywearing. I breastfeed without a cover. I plan on allowing my daughter to self-wean. I fully intend on encapsulating my placenta after my next pregnancy. I am delaying vaccines for my daughter. If I could find a way to get my insurance to pay for a portion of it, I would have a home birth.
I feel like I fall somewhere in the middle of the "extremes" portrayed in this post. I usually feel like I've found a balance of "crunchy" and "mainstream" that works for me and my family. When I read things like this, however, I feel attacked from several angles. The truth is that we do the best with what we have and what we know. I enjoy hearing how other people find their balance, and I know that my choices may be extreme to some.
I can't help but feel that posts like this (and the ensuing comments) are not going to do anything to end the "Mommy Wars" that are raging.
I do hope that you'll continue the fight on the front lines and do what is best for you as an advocate. You, along with many other advocates, are a part of the big movement to educate and inform (not scare or intimidate).
I wanted you to know that as a woman and a mother (as well as a new follower), this post hurt a bit. Persevering through education and compassion is hard. My toddler teaches me that every day. If it's numbers you want, then write what you need to get them, but I hope you'll continue writing from your heart.
It's that simple.
Your empowering birth choice may be a planned c, an epidural, an orgasmic birth, a freebirth, a water birth, a planned induction, or whatever. It's about what works for you and your family. It's about choosing the birth experience that's right for you. To me, revolutionary mothering has nothing to do with whether you vaccinate, cloth diaper, babywear, co-sleep or breastfeed, revolutionary mothering is choice. It's women making choices about their bodies and their babies, choices that feel right for them.
We can't empower other Mama's by essentially calling them idiots. We need to stop with the whole "Your epidural is tantamount to child abuse! You fed your kid a non organic pear! You chose bottle feeding! You must not love your baby as much as I do! This invalidates women as mothers, it invalidates their choice and their power. It's just as damaging to an expecting or new Mama as "You can't birth vaginally! Your birth choices don't matter! Lie on your back!
We can and should say; "Hey, I've got this really good information about epidurals/pitocin/breastfeeding, you might want to read it!" In sum, new Mama's are fragile beings coming into their immense power. We must nourish their power by validating their choices, even if we do not endorse them for ourselves. This is how we change the birth narrative for our daughters, and ourselves.
Elizabeth
I think I never wanted to identify with the NCB movement because it does come across as so... militant. And Judgey. I made those choices for myself, and I encourage people to learn and make their own choices. It's not my business what another family chooses, because honestly, most of those choices don't make anyone a bad person. It seems like in the past NCB was just about that - natural, unmedicated birth, in whatever setting, INCLUDING hospital. Now, somehow birth involves all this other parenting?! We need to get back to focusing on making sure that women actually have access to birth choices, and the support to have the birth they want, in whatever setting, with whatever provider.
Evidence is not 100% conclusive. Studies are not infallible, nor are they always in agreement. Every good choice still carries with it a set of risks and disadvantages. All we can do is look at the research that's out there, weigh the risks and benefits, and make the best choice we can based on our individual circumstances. And respect that other women's individual circumstances are different and will sometimes lead them to different but still valid choices.
When we, instead, act like having a natural childbirth must automatically require membership in the Granola of the Month Club, we alienate people who might otherwise support us, we feed into the Are-You-Mom-Enough? wars, and just generally show ourselves to be no less tolerant of individual needs than a c-section happy OB with a golf game to get to.
So thank you, MamaBirth, for having the courage to say what needs to be said and for having the wit to say it an an entertaining way.
-- A natural childbirthing, uncovered breastfeeding, mostly vaccinating, public schooling, disposable diapering, non-circumcising, babywearing, and otherwise moderately crunchy mom
So the short, re-written version is this - BRAVO!
Natural birthers calm down. Be respectful and be present, not pushy. (This coming from a natural birther.) Friends will come to you when they know you're a safe place to come to for advice.
I think more people need to exercise their rights, and use their voice if they think something is important enough to do so.
Was the best and most honest thing you wrote in this post...can't be leave it at that and NOT tear each other down...whatever you believe/however you live/wherever you choose to birth is YOUR choice but you know what WE are all women/mothers/sisters/caretakers let's focus on what HOLDS us together and NOT what separates us because those are the tiny things. And this world need a WHOLE LOT OF LOVE right now!!!