Getting it off my chest ....

I am tired of hearing natural birth, homebirth, and midwivery advocates (when attacked for their beliefs) saying things like, "I never said a woman can't make her own choices." We are so afraid of taking away choice from another woman. And, yet, the medical machine is the manufacturing place of taking away choice from a woman - under the guise of choice. Narcotic drugs are disempowering -- no matter when they are used, but especially during a woman's process of giving birth. I challenge you to consider how we collaborate with the establishment to disempower women and to create a warrior society by being permissive about the use of drugs and control in birth.

"You've come a long way, baby" ... some of you will remember the old Virginia Slims commercials in the seventies that touched our needs to be our own person (when we were being sold the notion that we "could have it all" and "if it makes mama happy, baby is happy." Thirty year olds who spent ten hours a day in day care tell us otherwise now. ) We've also been sold that horribly wrong "bill of goods" that drugs are safe, our body can't birth without a man's help, and that labor and birth is not THE critically definining time for our mother-baby "personality" (relationship) because newborns don't feel or remember. Have you noticed you have a "personality" with each of your children? Any mother who birthed surgically and then vaginally can attest to this. We have been the proverbial frog in the ever increasing temperatures and we are boiling. Too many are disabled so as not to be able to hop out -- they didn't realize that the heat was disabling them. THAT is the nature of narcotic drug use, Sisters. (And, brothers born to women "under the influence.")

THIRTY YEARS later, with NO RESEARCH to show drugs are safe for the baby, I believe a woman does not have the basic "right" to choose to use drugs in labor and birth. Certainly, the medical profession does not have the right to promote drugs as safe and to denigrate the decades of research indicating the need for trauma healing after birth. We don't have to cajole women who "choose" (go along with) drugs nor do we have to defend our beliefs to the status quo - drug dealers (OB's). Someone has to demand that science and doctor's feet "be held to the fire" -- and do the right thing. Drugs are not safe for the birthing woman and baby. Let it be consumers -- WOMEN who will no longer be mislead and drugged during the most powerful experience her body can do -- conceive, build, and birth another human being. Doctors are misguided in their "scientific beliefs" about the safety of epidural. It's about control, not choice.

The growing cultural language in birth is about “maternal choice” and “maternal satisfaction” in the medical propagation of drugs as safe, and interventions as lifesaving without consequence to her to her baby. Most of this is done under the guise of “pain relief” for the mother without regard to the baby. How did it come to be that the woman’s rights supercede those of her baby’s? Even when life saving and necessary, drugs and interventions leave a life long impact and physical, emotional, and psychological consequences. We don't do ourselves or our society any favors by denying this.

Please don’t yell at me, but I wonder if the cultural evolution from women having the right over their bodies and to choose to end or keep a pregnancy has lead us to a woman having the right to drugs for pain relief without regard for the effect on the baby. Without getting into a debate about abortion, all I am saying is, once she makes the choice to carry the baby and give birth does she not forego some of her "rights"? Does she still have the right to do and consume whatever she wants during pregnancy? No, society exerts some “control” via “science” and “nutrition” about what is expected to create a healthy baby. Why not during labor and birth as well? And, when she does not forego some of her needs (i.e., alcohol and nicotine) does she not set herself up for a lifetime of mother's guilt? A woman can not lie to deepest inner self and her body. Mother's guilt is real and all the social and pscyho babble we can find doesn't change the inner truth.

A woman can justify in her head the use of narcotics and being told it was safe, but her body and inner knowing will scream the truth throughout her lifetime. Drugs used in obstetrics, narcotics, are not shown to be safe for the birthing baby before using. Narcotics are known to affect every aspect of the user’s life and are a “controlled substance.” Why is it “fine” for a woman to have the right to choose narcotics (and interventions) that are dangerous for no other reason than for her own convenience and needs? Pain relief? There are healthy alternatives to pain relief. She gives up alcohol for ten months, doesn't she? Women also have ability to birth without drugs. And, why is it “fine” for obstetricians to support and allow drug use in birth, even whilst they will bear the financial responsibility for “bad outcomes” often associated with interventionist births (induction and epidural anesthesia)?

Lest you think I am too harsh, I am profoundly concerned for the women and babies who must live their most significant relationship impaired and harmed. They will live life with their core needs disrupted, disresprected, and wounded. I did so for decades -- tried to muddle through mothering and parenting "the best I could" and even doing "attachment parenting" before it had a name. Yeah, I had a good relationship with my baby and still do -- so for twenty-five years I went along with, if not defended medicalized birth. My oldest was twenty-five when I set upon the course of healing my deepest woundings -- my birth and theirs, drugs, interventions, violations, disempowerment, disregard of my self and body as a birthing woman. This was the root. I came to acknowledge that the deepest woundings from our birth experience were the "issues" in our relationship. We were trauma bonded. We were both "impaired" by drugs and interruptions and demands of others. As a woman I had been deeply violated in my most vulnerable time. WHY!?! to serve our doctor and hospital needs. That's BS. Without the understanding of society for this wounding it goes unrecognized and unhealed in the majority of women and their babies. I will no longer be silent about it. We have the technology and know how to heal us heal our past experience and to participate in changing it for women. Women have the "right" to be treated fairly, gently, and responsibly by those who care for her in birth.

For women and babies who must utilize drugs and interventions the field of pre and perinatal psychology shows us how to MEDIATE the EFFECTS, how to be conscious and mindful, and how to engage the baby. And, SO IMPORTANTLY, we know that in the first hours, days, and weeks of life we can heal the effects of the drugs and interventions. What's so hard or unscientific about that? How could one not see the value in supporting the newborn after birth?

Why am on a tear today? I was nearly harrassed to take drugs during my third child's birth. I finally gave in to a "little Demerol" at the end. That baby is now in Iraq. He and I have talked about the effects of this on him on the Five Stages of Birth on the baby's brain (Emerson and Castellino) --- zoning out at the ending/finishing part of a project. I am lamenting this today --- as I see three young soldiers were blown up today in Iraq. I pray that what I have come to learn in birth trauma healing -- and wrote about in response to a post yesterday -- that when we acknowledge our baby's experience we support him or her to heal, to transcend it.