The dangers of today's no-faith birth mentality

I was speaking to a woman who wants to homebirth but is unsure that she could birth unmedicated. I mentioned that throughout history, women have birthed without pain medication. Today we do have better maternal death rates, but the decrease is most likely nothing to do with the availability of pain medication. I realized, also, that traditionally, centuries ago, women even as young as 12 were giving birth--without medication. If my great-great grandmother could do it (and she did) at the age of 12, why is it that so many women years older than that have such self-doubt?

We have been programmed to associate hospitals with birth, birth with danger. We have been trained to believe that hospitals are safety, that doctors are the protectors of our mortality. We have been taught to rely on them for advice not only about our health but about our lifestyle, even our approach to parenting our little ones. Rather than empowering women to trust their intuition, their bodies, their strength, we have crippled them by convincing them that they cannot handle the pain of birth without pain-numbing prescriptions.

At 19, I was a victim of this mentality. I knew women had given birth throughout the centuries, many of them dying in childbirth. Modern obstetrics, I thought, had to be the reason that we now have much better outcomes. I hadn't really thought about all of the other factors that must have contributed. I just knew that the hospital was where women go to give birth from what I'd seen in the world around me & on TV. That was just how it was done. An obedient patient, I reluctantly consented to every intervention. I put my faith into the hands of the CNM doing my prenatal care and the ob/gyn 'delivering' my child. (I find that to be such an odd term, considering the woman is the one doing all of the work.)

I thought they wanted what was best for me. I believed doctors were saviors, good-hearted folk who cared very little about politics, self-gain, or money. They had been to medical school, and I hadn't...so of course, I should listen to them. How could I possibly know better, especially not having ever birthed before? Their interventions both calmed my mind--and raised alarms. I felt like my baby was safe, but at the cost of my own dignity, self-respect, my trust in my body to birth naturally. I wasn't coached to believe in myself but in the doctors. It felt wrong--and it was.

This ignorance, this lack of self-confidence could have been very dangerous and often is. Epidural led to pitocin and amniotomy, which created such violent contractions that I felt I was going to die even with the pain-killing drugs pumping through my veins. Many infants go into fetal distress from the force of the compressions, and the result is a C-section. This was all due to the unwillingness of the doctors to empower me to birth naturally and their impatience. I wasn't laboring quickly enough for them--due to their administering of epidural! Therefore, they interfered even more with the birth, endangering my child.

This isn't the only scenario where impatience can be life-threatening.

It is common for women estimated to be carrying large babies, over 9lbs, to be schedule for C-section. We have already discussed on this blog how a woman's pelvis width is no indication of how much it will expand during labor and how positioning can prevent obstruction of labor.f labor. Ultrasound estimates of weight and due date are often very inaccurate, resulting in babies being born by C-section for no reason whatsoever. The mother has had a C-section where if the doctor would have allowed her to labor, she would have been able to birth vaginally, naturally, safely.

Often when a woman is carrying a breech or transverse babies, doctors schedule a C-section--without even attempting ECV! Most of these children will change positions in preparation for birth, not necessarily around the due date the doctors have calculated but around the due date the BABY decides. Simply allowing the mother to go into labor on her own and checking before encouraging pushing to see if the baby's position has changed would decrease her chances of C-section quite a bit, as well as give the baby a chance to rectify the situation before calling in the cavalary.

Unfortunately, doctors are loath to let a woman attempt vaginal delivery when C-section seems likely. They don't want women to recover from both if it's unnecessary. The problem with this is that C-section is always a possibility, especially with today's overly medicalized approach to birth. C-sections are more likely in high risk cases, for women with transverse or largie babies, etc., but they are a possibility for everyone. While one may not be high risk for cord prolapse, it can happen. Does this mean homebirth is unsafe? NO. There are steps one can take to decrease the risk of complications and to prevent the chances of needing a C-section should one arise. The point, however, is that there is no point whatsoever in denying a woman a chance to birth vaginally.

The timing of the average C-section is even more troubling. Most scheduled deliveries are set for 37-38 weeks. Why!? The answer is impatience, one of the traits of our society's negative mentality of childbirth. This is incredibly dangerous. Due dates are often off by 2 weeks, even a month. Why would we deliver a child at 37-38 weeks by a C-section scheduled weeks in advance? What would be the problem with waiting those three extra weeks, or even until 41 or 42 weeks gestation, to give a woman a chance to go into labor on her own and try to birth vaginally? If we are planning on delivering by C-section anyway, what would the timing matter so long as it is not after 42 weeks (the point most experts agree that remaining within the womb could become dangerous, though I disagree)? Would a few extra pounds on an infant make it harder to remove him from his mother's stomach? Oh, no! A little extra effort to lift a slightly heavier child, a little bit more waiting to form a more mature set of lungs!

It would not be dangerous, only inconvenient, yet it is incredibly dangerous to schedule a C-section for 37 weeks. Certainly there are times when continuing a pregnancy or attempting vaginal birth would be dangerous. A large or transverse baby, however, are not reasons to deliver early. Neither situations are life-threatening for anyone involved. Delivering them before the mother's due date means they are deprived of several weeks of gestation during which they could have been preparing themselves for the outside world by gaining weight and developing their lungs. It greatly increases the chances that they will be born prematurely, which means a whole world of difficult for them that they wouldn't have faced if doctors had only been patient. Premature birth is the number one cause of infant death, and while most premature babies are not born because of the actions of doctors, there are still many who are. That is deplorable.

With the rate of intervention and especially C-section being so high, is it any wonder that women have so little faith in their ability to handle the pain or to birth naturally? What's the point in getting yourself all revved up, lifting your hopes, if you might end up having a C-section anyway? Where can we get support if not from our attendants? We are social creatures who crave acceptance and encouragement, thrive on it, need it to reach our full potential (most of us, anyway). Chosing a birth attendant that believes in us, in our natural abilities, in the strength of our minds and bodies, can have a profound impact on our birthng outcome. It can make birth so much safer, because we are surrounded by faith, positive energy, and a reluctance to interfere with mother nature's beautiful design. Mother nature isn't perfect, but there is no reason to interfere when her plan is not threatening anyone's well-being.

So far, so many women have been victims of this mentality. Everyday women are coerced, manipulated, deceived into consenting to early C-sections and a variety of other interventions. They believe there is no safe alterative, and doctors do their best to keep them believing that. How much longer will we risk the lives of our children over impatience, convenience, self-gain, and other motivating factors that have little to do with the safety of the child? How many more women and babies will be victims before we finally give birth back to the mothers and their children? How long before we stop perpetuating this dangerous mentality before we start empowering women to just have faith. On that day, the safety of birth will inevitably increase several times over--regardless of location!

~ Heather Burke