I am starting to pack now for the Trust Birth Conference. Besides the nervousness over flying (haven't done that in over 20 years!), I am really getting excited about it.
I saw The Business of Being Born yesterday. This is the movie about birth that Ricki Lake produced. Oh my. I knew all the statistics they had in the film, but hearing them out loud... it is a good film, but it was emotional and a little hard to watch. I'm glad I saw it... I can see it will get women thinking.
The impact that birth has on a woman's life is staggering. It can be either a positive impact or a negative impact. Why wouldn't we automatically choose the positive? Because our country has done a number on us. The medical establishment, television and those who have known nothing else have put such fear into us about birth. It goes to our very core.
And what about the baby? Labor affects more than just us. The baby is part of it all. S/he gets to experience our fear, whatever stress we have, the adrenaline, the drugs, and will have their own fears when they are forced out by pitocin-induced contractions and then yanked out by a surgeon. What an introduction to life! With all the stuff babies are exposed to in utero during a routine pregnancy (ultrasound, stress over test results, avoiding an amniocentesis needle, more ultrasound, pitocin, cervadil for induction, epidurals, electronic fetal monitoring, intrathecals, and more) it is no wonder we have a crisis on our hands with epidemic proportions of autism, developmentally disabled, and other special needs children. Wouldn't you want to turn yourself off after an onslaught like that? What would be your first thought about life if you were subjected to treatment like that without any say, any understanding of what was happening?
Sorry, I don't buy it. Yes, these things can be helpful in a VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE of cases. But routine for every single woman? I think not. I'll stick to my own truth. I've birthed 8 children and had 3 miscarriages. That is a total of 11 times I've experienced some form of pregnancy and birth. My body knows what to do, and I trust it to work with my baby to accomplish a birth. Not every birth is perfect. Mine certainly couldn't be classified that way every time. But my body knows inherently how to birth a baby. The baby inherently knows how to do his/her part to help be born. They're not just a passenger along for the ride... it is a collaborative effort.
I am teaching my daughters to trust the birth process as well. If we don't start somewhere, this will only get worse. Back at the turn of the last century, the medical profession began a campaign to systematically discredit and get rid of midwives. Midwives have slowly been making a comeback since the 1960s. We need them. Our future depends on them. Every single industrialized country in the world has a better maternal/infant outcome than we do, and 80% of their babies are born with midwives. We need to trust the birth process instead of trying to hurry it along. Midwives. Trust Birth. Hmmm. Sounds like a plan to me.
Tags: Childbirth Birth Homebirth Baby Parenting Midwife
