Childbirth: Its not as bad as you think it is

[HomebirthersNY]

Childbirth is a life-changing rite of passage that turns women into mothers. It is an experience unique to every woman and one that can never be exactly duplicated  regardless of how many children a woman may have in her lifetime. Nothing even comes close to the act of giving birth. It is an experience unlike any other which is why, throughout history, childbirth has been viewed as a sacred event. In fact, many cultures view birth as a miracle and hold very few things in as high a regard as they do the act of giving birth.

Having said this, why is it that nowadays childbirth is painted in such a negative light? Why is it that other mothers are the ones perpetuating the negativity? Each and every day women everywhere are competing for a gold medal in 'Most Horrific Birth Experience'. Instead of sharing the positive and soul-touching aspects of giving birth, women are only focusing on the unpleasantries and magnifying them to the tenth power. Worse still, these exaggerated horror stories are aimed directly at first time mothers in an effort to scare them. Why? What is there to gain by misleading another woman about the single most unforgettable day of her entire life?

In a rough approximation, about 1 in 10 births will suffer a serious complication that may result in death. The remaining will be rather uneventful and most will be natural vaginal births. For the most part, a large percentage of all births will be picture perfect. Yet time and time again, women share their harroying ordeal of barely escaping the grip of death while in labor. They decribe the experience as scary, painful, hard, awful and compete to outdo each other in terms of who's birth was the absolute worst. They describe themselves as lucky to have made it through and chastise first time mothers attempting a natural birth. You'll see, is what they say, you'll be screaming for an epidural. It seems are though mothers are on a mission to create a self fulfilling prophecy of failure when it comes to natural birth. This is a sad state of affairs that we are in and I am here to try to set the record straight.

Childbirth is, and always should be, a positive experience. If what other mothers said was true about how horrible childbirth is, then single-child households would be unanimously prevalent worldwide. If it were really true that the act of giving birth was comparable to a near-death experience, then large families would cease to exist. After all, what sane-minded woman would want to almost die multiple times in her lifetime?

I think its about time that mothers everywhere come clean with the real truth about childbirth. It is past due time that we verbally express the beauty of giving birth, how it challenged us, and how we rose to that challenge in order to bring forth life. Don't get me wrong, childbirth is not easy (they don't call it labor for nothing). It takes work and time for the baby to move the crucial few inches down the birth canal and into the outside world. Created to bring forth life, a woman's body is capable of squeezing, relaxing, moving, stretching, contracting, expanding and ejecting a baby with nothing more than the proper support from those around her. Giving birth is natural, not impossible.

"We have a secret in our culture, and its not that childbirth is painful, its that women are strong"
- Laura Stavoe Harm

[adove01]

Aug. 13, 2008 at 8:58 PM

I would love to say that I was able to experience "natural" childbirth, but I wasn't. I ended up having 4 c-sections because my body wouldn't cooperate and go into labor even when induced. I tried regular vaginal birth being induced with my first one, I was on a pitocin(sp) drip for almost 24 hours and never got past 2 centimeters, and since I was 2 weeks overdue they decided to do a c-section.  With my second I decided to try a VBAC so we went in 2 weeks early hoping that it would work. Once again after almost 24 hours on the drip I got to an amazing 4 centimeters and we ended up with another c-section. The third I scheduled a c-section and it went fine. The last one I had a scheduled c-section again, but I ended up going into labor on my own 9 days before my date, but we knew it would end up being another c-section, because I still was't dialating. I am so excited for new moms that don't have to endure all that type of "labor".

[mostlymaydays]

Oct. 2, 2008 at 12:12 AM

I have a friend whose daughter actually thinks that babies are made in petri dishes and then just cut out of your belly when they're done (she was an in vitro baby, breech c-section.) My mother was a labor and delivery nurse for over 20 years and would tell me and my sister horror stories about how awful childbirth was (form of birth control for us, perhaps) even though  my mom had natural, unmedicated labors. Any pain we ever suffered in life, she'd say it wasn't worse than childbirth. There was no talk of unmedicated birth in our childbirth class, just info about epidurals and spinals, nubain and the like. And with my first, I proudly announced I wasn't  "too proud" to get that eipidural, even before the contractions started if I could. Well, life had different plans for me and that first guy was born without any meds because he was too quick. My second no meds because when I started to cave in and think about it, my midwife purposely stalled just a little and then that guy was born too, and my third was a fantastic waterbirth and I never, ever thought of medication. It is a horrible thing we as a society have done to our daughters, telling them that childbirth is something so ungodly painful that it should be avoided at all costs. I now understand that pain has a PURPOSE; it is bio-feedback to the body and gets you properly transitioned from one step to the next, at the right pace. USUALLY. I'm not so ignorant to understand that some births don't follow this model and need intervention. But I am also tired of the interventions that make things go wrong for so many people. My babies weren't homebirths, though I don't think that would have been out of the question for me. And it now actually seems stranger to me that we have made a medical circus out of birth. I remember thinking "Oh, God! What if I don't make it to the hospital on time?" and "What if the doctor doesn't make it to the hospital on time?!?!" and now I know exactly what would happen: the baby would be born anyway. With my first, I wish the doctor hadn't made it; I resent that the nurses made me wait to push, the whole time trying to hold a towel between my legs to ease the pressure of his head trying to birth, without the doctor's permission! And I didn't appreciate the episiotomy he cut, after introducing himself, so I could cut my pushing stage down from 15 minutes to 10. Thanks for that, doc. OK, I digress. But I promise with my whole being to always glow happily when I talk about childbirth and if my kids ask me about the pain, I'll tell them that sure, it did hurt, but it is supposed to and not to be afraid because you know in the end you'll have this sweet baby and there is no better feeling in the world than that one!