Birth. Everyone has their opinion of birth. Danger. Fear. Pain. Drugs. Those are the feelings many people get when they think about it. How about empowerment? Love? Amazing? Wonderful? Hard work?
What about the baby's perspective? Labor and birth takes two people working together... the mom and the baby. Together they can work in harmony, the baby sending signals to the mom for labor to begin, mom's contractions easing baby out, baby moving into the right positions to navigate the route, mom changing positions to better facilitate baby's progress.
Now let's give mom an epidural. Who does the work now? Not mom... sure she's still contracting, but the contractions are less effective, and mom can't move around to help baby get in the right positions. It all falls on the baby. How would you feel if you're supposed to do a strenous job with a partner, and the partner flops down and relaxes, leaving all the work to you?
Now that baby can't maneuver as well and is getting stressed out, let's screw a little electrode into his scalp so we can get his heartbeat better. Ow! Oh look, he can't quite get into the right position with mom unable to move... let's get out the vacuum extractor and pull him out. Imagine, you're in the dark, someone attaches a suction cup to your head (that hurts from the electrode) and starts pulling you out by your head. How would you feel?
When you emerge, you are greeted by loud noises, it's cold, your cord is cut, depriving you of a good portion of your blood supply. You're taken to a flat hard surface under glaring lights while you are poked and prodded. Now how do you feel? Sounds kind of like the descriptions people tell about being abducted by aliens, doesn't it? Think how a baby feels being plucked out of the womb during a cesarean!
How scared do you think this baby is? Does anyone talk to the baby, telling him that they are sorry... his journey must have been difficult and scary, but that he'll be okay now? No, instead he gets goop put in his eyes so he can't see clearly, and he gets painful injections of diseases he wouldn't even be at risk to catch until he is much older. His little body is now under attack by the ingredients of the vaccinations, his eyes are unfocused and it is too bright, and he gets precious little comfort. Now how would you feel?
It is a sad fact that the baby's experience of birth is not taken into consideration. Babies are born feeling, seeing, hearing. They are impacted emotionally and psychologically in ways that may affect them their entire lives.
Granted, sometimes birth is violent. But no one addresses these experiences with the baby. No one acknowledges what he or she went through. No one reassures them that the worst is over. What a way for our lives to begin.
Tags: Childbirth Birth Homebirth Baby Parenting Midwife
