Runaway October

Okay, so some of you know this already, but I am 1000% for what I call “nat­ural” par­ent­ing. To me this means home­births, breast­feed­ing, intact gen­talia, lim­ited immu­miza­tions, etc etc. I feel that we’ve made it this far, thou­sands of years, with­out all the inter­ven­tions and place a lot of trust in our bod­ies and the com­plex inter­nal sys­tems that keep us alive.

Every now and again I’ll run across some­thing that just totally solid­i­fies me in my want to avoid all inter­ven­tions when pos­si­ble. Here are some exceprts from “10 Home­birth Facts No One’s Telling You” on Indiebirth.com by Maryn Leis­ter. Please read the full arti­cle here.

2. The US has the high­est obstet­ri­cal inter­ven­tion rates of any coun­try. (1) The US is cur­rently ranked 28^th for infant mor­tal­ity (that means 27 other coun­tries have a bet­ter rate of infant sur­vival than we do). 

• How is it that med­i­cine is one of the most advanced coun­tries, in the world, yet our babies die in such numbers?

4. You are very likely to have a c-section if you chose a hos­pi­tal birth. The WHO con­cluded that there is no rea­son for any region of the world to have a cesarean rate of more than 10–15%. As of 2004, the US has a 29.1% c-section rate. This rate is up from 27.6% in 2003. (2, 20) (3) C-section infants also are four times more likely to die than those born vaginally. 

• 4 times! 4 times more likely to die!! Granted a C-Section is a major abdom­i­nal surgery but still. Why would any­one be okay with a C-Section that wasn’t absolutely required?

Both of my boys, arrived early and were hos­pi­tal births because of it. My old­est son spent two weeks in the NICU becaue the doc­tors felt that my womb was not the best place for him. They felt that they could help him bet­ter than I could. In the end, the doc­tors were wrong and should have left him alone.

My youngest son was just in a hurry to get here. I was 2 days, maybe it was 4?, from being able to birth at home. Had I stayed home any longer he would have been and if I remem­ber cor­rectly (oxy­tocin has a ten­dency to make you for­get any­thing com­ing from some­one over 6 months old) my mid­wife stated she would not have sent us to the hos­pi­tal. Although he was early, he was strong and healthy. The hos­pi­tal kept him in the NICU for a week “just to make sure”, fed him for­mula and pumped him full of med­i­cine pro­phy­lac­ti­cally. Had they known my water was bro­ken for 10 days prior to deliv­ery they would have flipped a  lid.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that any and all of my next child­births will be attempted home­births. You’ll only find me in a hos­pi­tal if some­thing is actu­ally wrong and med­ical inter­ven­tion is nec­es­sary. Some­times I strug­gle to keep my mouth shut but in the end I also respect a mother’s right to birth how she wants, granted that it was an edu­cated decision.

What were your child­birth expe­ri­ences like? Is there any­thing you would change?

I can’t say that I’m not a fan, because I’m not even sure if I’ve heard any of her music. But I came across an inter­view of her and I have to say I’m a fan now even if I haven’t heard her music.

When asked how moth­er­hood has changed how she views the world:

“Being a mom seems to have changed the way the world sees me more than the other way around. Being preg­nant really shifts your rela­tion­ship to soci­ety, and then walk­ing around with a baby shifts it again. I love the feel­ing that I get from other par­ents — women in par­tic­u­lar — of being a part of the club. Club Sac­ri­fice, you might call it. It’s cool to have cama­raderie, warmth, and open­ness with strangers. I wish that dynamic was more preva­lent in gen­eral, but I am grate­ful to have it now.”

When asked if she would have a home­birth again:

“I would def­i­nitely choose a home­birth again despite the fear mon­ger­ing of this patri­ar­chal soci­ety, which con­vinces women that they are inca­pable of hav­ing babies with­out the inter­ven­tion of men and their machines. I look at soci­eties where women are mar­gin­al­ized and oppressed their whole lives (even cov­ered head to toe in tarps!) but are still in con­trol of birthing prac­tice, in a whole new way now. I mean, who is really more advanced? To take birthing out of women’s hands and deny us the con­tin­uüm of eons of wis­dom and expe­ri­ence is to eject us from the very seat of our power. I believe that women in hos­pi­tals are pre­vented from being able to have nor­mal, healthy birthing expe­ri­ences because of the intim­i­da­tion of being on the clock, being pres­sured to take drugs to make it quicker, being inhib­ited in their move­ment and activ­i­ties, and alien­ated by a ster­ile, flu­o­res­cent lit, feet-in-the-air type envi­ron­ment. You know the clas­sic “per­for­mance anx­i­ety” of not being able to pee or poo because somebody’s watch­ing you? Mul­ti­ply that by a mil­lion! A cervix is a sphinc­ter after all! Then to add tragic insult to injury women are numbed through their great moment of rev­e­la­tion. I believe the act of giv­ing birth to be the sin­gle most mirac­u­lous thing a human being can do and it is surely the moment when a lot of women finally under­stand the depth of their power and con­nec­tion to all of nature. You think it can’t pos­si­bly be done, you think you can’t pos­si­bly take the pain, and then you do — and after­ward you look at your­self in a whole new way. If you can do that, you can do any­thing. Check out the books on this sub­ject by Ina May Gaskin. She’s one of my great heroes. P.S. I was in labor for 43 hours. Pushed for five hours. It was bru­tal and scary and pro­longed, and if I was in a hos­pi­tal, they would have def­i­nitely cut the baby out of me. I thank the god­desses that I was at home with patient mid­wives who knew how to go the dis­tance. The mem­ory of pain always recedes. The mem­ory of tri­umph does not.”

I just love that last quote. So true.

I’m not gonna get on my high horse or any­thing, but I really wish that more women would think about birth choices and the effect that it has on every sin­gle per­son in this soci­ety. Too often do I talk to moth­ers who don’t even know that there are choices. Life in Amer­ica is all about the choices ladies! Please ask what they are.

Via [Celebrity Baby Blog]