I have to admit...when I was pregnant with Lily, it started as something I wanted to do because my sister did it. Then, after I would tell people I was planning a natural childbirth (NCB) and they would say "good luck" and "just wait until those first contractions come - you'll be begging for your epidural," it became something I had to prove. Comments like that just fueled my fire - being the stubborn person that I am. I had done some research then, but just enough to know that I didn't want an epidural, I wanted the option of laboring in the tub, I wanted to move around, and a couple of other 'minor' things. Even though Lily's birth didn't go completely as planned, I succeeded in having a NCB. It felt good to be able to prove to everyone else that I did what they thought I couldn't do. But there were things about how my labor went that I knew didn't have to have gone the way they did. I wished I could have changed them, so I started to educate myself more about alternatives to routine procedures. I began to learn why so many people choose NCB - that it was about trusting your body, and giving you and your baby the best in labor and delivery.
A woman's body knows what to do. I've heard stories of women being completely knocked out during labor 60+ years ago. I always wondered how the baby was born if the woman wasn't conscious to push it out. Well guess what? Her body will push even if she's not trying! A baby can be born even if a woman is in a coma! So why do doctors and hospitals feel the need for all these interventions? Why are women led to believe that they need help to have their baby and that they NEED all of these things that hospitals 'require.' (Which is not true, by the way. You can always say no and hospitals actually don't have many requirements - and most of those are for women with epidurals, pitocin, etc.)
So what started as something to prove ended up leading me to see that a NCB is safer than having interventions. I trust my body. It knows what to do, and if I just let it do its thing, I don't need anything to 'push' me along.
Now, I do realize that there are circumstances in which interventions are necessary. I'm not saying that a NCB is the ONLY way to birth. I'm just saying that it's the safest.
Did you know that all of the routine and "just in case" procedures that OB/GYNs are made for high risk moms? A low risk mom actually doesn't need to have most of the things that they do during pregnancy or in hospitals during labor (like an IV, rupture of membranes, episiotomy, etc). Low risk women really should use a midwife as their caregiver. I love this article. It really gives you perspective on how behind the US is in our healthcare in relation to low risk obstetrics. One quote, if you don't want to read the whole thing: "Today, only 7 percent of births in the United States are attended by midwives. This statistic is striking, considering that midwives attend approximately 70 percent of births in Western Europe." And when you look at the intervention rate, among other things, of Western Europe compared to the US...it's shocking, especially when you consider how 'advanced' the US is in its technology.
Anyway, I kinda went off on a tangent there. It's really hard for me to stay on one subject, since everything is so connected! But I hope that this gives you a better idea why I choose to birth naturally!
