The Medicalization of Birth

To change the experience of childbirth means to change women's relationship to fear and powerlessness, to our bodies, to our children; it has far-reaching psychic and political implications.

-- Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born, 1976





















Despite what many women have been conditioned to believe by the health care profession, birth is not a medical issue. Giving birth is a natural occurrence that the medical establishment has taken over to make money and disempower women. This makes me very angry.

Most people know a natural birth is better. Better for the mom's recovery, for the baby, for breastfeeding, for having your baby skin to skin ASAP after the birth (proven to lower blood pressure for both mom and baby and promote bonding), and the list goes on and on. And a midwife/doula birth is the best way to ensure having the natural birth you want. Midwifes have been helping women have natural births for millennia. They are the wise women and sages of the ages.

The story of my own labor and birth is not told how I originally envisioned it being told. I really wanted a natural birth and even labored at home till I was 8 cm before getting to the hospital.I instinctually knew that once I got there I could kiss good-bye all my best laid plans. Needless to say,I had a very unplanned C-section that I believe I did NOT need but because of hospital red tape was "forced" or at least bullied into having. I think this happens way too often in hospital settings and with doctors either because they are afraid of getting sued or because they don't get paid to sit around and watch you labor and sometimes just get tired of waiting. The hospital environment is in itself an unproductive place to advance your labor and give birth. Here are just some of the many reasons why:

1) Fetal Monitoring.
Hospitals demand that you put on a fetal monitor the minute that you get there; the problem with the fetal monitor is that if you're looking for something to be wrong you'll find it. They've done studies that prove that the rising rates of c-sections directly corresponds to the rising rates of fetal monitor usage. Fetal monitors hurt the way you labor, as they make it impossible for you to move around and squat - they force you instead to lay on your back. Which brings me to...

2)Lying on your back for most if not all of labor.
How can you use gravity to your advantage with birth if you are on your back?!! I mean come on, our bodies weren't meant to give birth laying on our backs - for ages women have been squatting, and there's a reason for that. It helps the baby move through the birth canal. A midwife allows you to give birth in any position you feel best, unlike doctors in a hospital setting who have been trained to deliver in only one position - the worst one for the woman.

3) The immediate and ubiquitous IV.
The minute you so much as sneeze in any hospital for any reason, they hook you up to an IV. I remember going to the emergency room for severe back pain and cramps that would later prove to be a bad UTI and the nurse giving me an immediate IV. I asked her why and what was wrong with me and she said they didn't know but regardless, I needed the IV. There are two major things wrong with an IV during labor and birth. One, the adrenaline of getting an IV slows your labor, as adrenaline stops the flow of oxytocin, which makes labor possible. And two, an IV even filled with just electrolytes and water to hydrate you is going to affect the baby's blood sugar level when they're born. Many hospitals will say after a baby's born, if they're over 8 lbs, that they need formula because their blood sugar can't handle just breast milk. Not only is that not true, but the blood sugar level dips because of the IV the mom received during labor.


4)Breastfeeding is affected negatively
Two of the La Leche principles that demonstrate the connection between hospital births or births with any drugs and breastfeeding problems are as follows:

a)Mother and baby need to be together early and often to establish a satisfying relationship and an adequate milk supply.

b)Alert and active participation by the mother in childbirth is a help in getting breastfeeding off to a good start.

How can these two things be allowed to happen within the hospital setting of tests, drugs, and doctor intervention. As my good friend Liz once wrote, "I think it's no coincidence that a lot of the scary birth stories that ended in horrible breastfeeding problems were births with lots of medical intervention. The birth stories that end with maternal satisfaction are the ones with little to no intervention." And hospitals can do nothing but intervene. Liz goes on to write, " OBGYN's are surgeons. And if there's one thing I've learned from watching SCRUBS it's that surgeons LLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVEEEEEE to perform surgery." Well said. You don't go to a hardware store for flowers. Why go to a surgeon for a natural, intervention-free birth!

For my next birth, I am planning a midwife VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section) at HOME. This is just my personal choice. For me, I see now that birth is NOT a medical issue but a natural thing. I know that home births are scary to some, but having been through a birth where all control was stripped from me, lived through the horrible dysfunctional world of the hospital - even armed with lots of information beforehand - I see that no matter how wonderful a doctor is, they still exist within the western medical system that is founded on treating birth and pregnancy as illnesses and women as too weak to handle them. I am choosing a home birth because it:

1) Allows labor and birth freedom

2) Promotes family bonding

3) Allows mother and infant bonding

4) Allows the mother to be more comfortable

5) Allows the baby to be more comfortable

6) Prevents unnecessary medical intervention

7) Promotes a less painful labor

8) Produces emotional well-being

9) Provides as much as or more safety than a hospital

10) Is much more convenient!

(reference- http://www.nchomebirth.com/art-whatMakesHBdiff.html)


I know that a home birth for many will not be their option. The next best thing after that... a midwife in a birthing center, although, birthing centers are in hospitals and do have the hospital culture still embedded deep in their philosophies and practices. If you are set on a hospital birth, then I just urge you to really check into your hospital. What is their C-section rate, their policy on skin to skin between mother and baby immediately after birth, even with a C- section, their position on breastfeeding, etc.? And then after you have carefully selected your hospital, get yourself a great doula! No one thinks they need a doula but with a hospital birth, they're imperative, as they're the only way to have a liaison/advocate between you and the bureaucracy of the hospital. I thought my husband and my mom could be my doula, but they just didn't have the savvy and the experience of the hospital situation to be able to advocate for me in the way that I needed during that heighten moment in my life.

If I can write one thing that people will take away with them, regardless of where they choose to give birth or how, it is to TRUST your body. You can have a drug-free birth if you want it. I'm not going to tell you that labor is a picnic - it isn't. But the minute it's over, you forget the pain, biologically and chemically. Your body doesn't allow you to remember it. My first birth experience was not at all what I wanted and I am still, 14 months later, in a mourning period over it. I mourn the c-section, the 4 hours before the nurses and doctor would let me hold my son saying I was "too tired", and the sterile hospital environment and all the crappy things that were said to me like, "Oh relax, you have your whole life to hold your baby!" I think it's appropriate to have some anger over the desire of the medical establishment to control women and their bodies. My biggest hope and wish for any pregnant woman is that regardless of how difficult, painful, or complicated your birth may be, that you have no regrets. I think that is more possible with a midwife and/or a doula. Again the wisdom of my friend Liz needs to be shared here. She recently wrote, "I strongly believe that just being a mother is being an activist. The little choices we make every day do shape our world. It can be really empowering."




some reference to check out:

Websites-
http://www.llli.org/llleaderweb/LV/LVFebMar04p11.html
http://www.babycenter.com/refcap/pregnancy/childbirth/168.html
http://www.gentlebirth.org/ronnie/homesafe.html
http://www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/homebirthchoice.asp
http://www.mothering.com/articles/pregnancy_birth/pregnancy_birth_main.html

Books-
Immaculate Deception II by Suzanne Arms
Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin
Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer
The Nature of Birth and Breastfeeding by Michel Odent
Silent Knife by Nancy Wainer Cohen & Lois J. Estner
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding - La Leche League International

Soulmates in Cyberspace

My husband, Matthew, is my soulmate. Now, I know how trite and overused that word is nowadays, but he truly is mine. Yes, yes, I know all about the images in storybooks, the false "ever-afters" and the need to be rescued that trip up so many people in their pursuit of a life partner. I would never say that Matt "completes me" - that terrible Hollywood movie line that made millions of women sigh and perpetuated unhealthy beliefs in what a real and lasting relationship or marriage is based on. No, I know very well that no one person can be everything to another person and that one must be completly and fully in love with one's own self before ever even dreaming of fully loving and feeling complete with another person. I know all that stuff from Relationships 101, and thus do not use the word "soulmate" lightly.

I am a woman who has done tons of work on myself, had years of therapy, and gone through the hell of self-hatred and back to find out that I am a pretty interesting and inspiring person, with my own merits and my own accomplishments. So when I say that Matt and I are soulmates, I say it with the gravity and sobriety that those words carry. I mean to say that our souls are those that most mirror and connect to each other, making it possible for us to be our best selves when we are with each other and when we are in the world, souls unfettered by the shackles of jealousy, possession, and a need for control which dominate so many relationships.

The position of soulmate was not an easy one to fill in my life, believe you me! I spent years searching for someone with a similar mix of passion, artistry, humor, and sheer nerdiness to be able to walk with me down the road of marriage, children and an unknowable future. "Okay, okay... do tell," you say, "Just HOW did you meet this soulmate - the being who most makes your heart sing and ignites your secret dreams, desires, and passions???"

I met him on an internet dating site. Yes, unbelievable, but true.

Okay, so here's the story: I broke up with a guy that I was with for three years and really thought I would marry. I wasn't even interested in dating till a year later. The relationship and subsequent break up really snapped me in half. I had no interest in internet dating but so many close friends keep pushing me towards it. Even my therapist was in on it. So finally I thought, "What the heck... it can't hurt, and if nothing else it will shut them all up."

I started by putting my profile on Match.com and after about 15 minutes had over 65 responses. I was overwhelmed, but carefully and methodically narrowed the emails down. Slowly, I started having some phone conversations with a few of these suitors and then went on a BUNCH of dates. Okay, actually a slew of them. Now I was on a mission. I WOULD meet a soulmate! I would not rest. I would tire. I would drink pots and pots of peppermint tea and thwart many obnoxious advances just to be able to hold hands with the man who could be the father of my children.

After a while, I was going on so many dates that I had to keep note cards with the guy's name, job and relevant information on them so as to keep it all straight and not embarrass myself on the date. "Tonight is Bob. He is a musician. We talked about politics and favorite kinds of chewing gum on the phone last week," I would coach myself before entering the restaurant. Something had gone terribly wrong.

Needless to say, the dates were all bad. I am not exaggerating. I mean, really, really bad. One guy's only deep conversation was to ask me if I thought I was more like Ginger or Marianne on Gilligan's Island. I told him I was like the Professor. Next, there was the guy who after hearing I was a self-defense instructor, told me that he "could kick my ass if he wanted to." Then there was the man who reached across a table, took my hands in his own, and said, "For such a pretty girl, you have such ugly hands." Oh, there are many more such horror stories, but I will just leave it at that. You all have great imaginations, I'm sure. Those bad dates went on for about 3 months!!!

I changed internet dating services and checked out Dreammates.com. It was mostly the same thing for a while, except the guys and the dates weren't nightmares; they were just "not right for me" kinda guys. Maybe it was the site change or maybe my screening process had just gotten a bit better, I don't know. Either way I was still VERY defeated and about to give up. Soulmate on the internet? What was I thinking? I told an acquaintance of mine who had suggested the internet dating thing that I was taking my profile down. She said, "Terri, don't do it! Just wait two more weeks and if nothing happens then you can take it down. I have a feeling you are close to meeting someone special." I was like, "Yeah, right... meeting a psychopath!"

I don't know why I listened to her but I did, and a week later I got my future husband's email. We had a 100% match, and that wasn't even the half of it. We e-mailed back and forth, then we talked on the phone for hours. When we met for coffee for the first time, we talked for 8 hours straight. A friend of mine thought I was abducted or dead when she didn't hear back about how it went after the first two hours. Our next dates were 12-14 hours each, and this continued for 2 months until we finally HELD HANDS! By then we were already in love with each other so when the first kiss happened later that night... well, let me just say that "knees getting weak" is not just a metaphor for people in love. It is a reality.

I promise you that although I was searching for one, I never really believed deeply that soulmates existed until I met Matthew. It all sounds so corny I know, but now there's no doubt in my mind that they exist. Our first date was 6/1/03, first kiss 7/27/03, we were engaged 11/23/03, and married 8/21/04. And our beautiful son arrived on 12/15/06. Every day with my family is just an amazing gift. It is phenomenal to think about where I was and that I almost never met this man because I was going to give up or not even post on ad on-line. I can't imagine my life without him now.

I know many people are skeptical about on-line dating, and I think that is with some good reason. I know it is difficult, time consuming, and sometimes even costly. Going out to eat a few nights a week can take a toll on your budget for sure. I know also that there are a lot of "bad" dates out there in the way of meeting the "right" person. I know there are risks and vulnerabilities, but when you juxtapose it with the abundance of blessings and love and trust and true companionship that could be waiting there for you if you risk it, then it is a no-brainer. Really! If I can meet my soulmate, on-line no less, then truly anyone can. Most people know me as a very picky, intensely passionate, opinionated, and high-strung woman with a past full of bad relationships and some icky baggage. How liberating it is to be loved despite it all or, even better, because of it all. Matthew has taught me that.

On the eve of Valentine's Day - a holiday invented to sell greeting cards and stuffed bears and make single people want to jump off buildings - I say to all the singles out there desperate to find their soulmate, what do you really have to lose? A little dignity? A few Friday nights? Just make your profile honest and specific. Everyone is looking for someone who is nice and fun. Go deeper than that! Oh, and talk and/or e-mail with anyone BEFORE you agree to meet them. My only advice. Beyond that, try to stay positive and have fun. A soulmate in cyberspace? Anything is possible. Truly.