Talk Birth

When you plan a vacation, you do all of the research on the best hotels, dining, attractions, etc.  When you set out to buy a new car, you want to know the details like gas mileage, safety, and all of the possible options the car may include.  What about when you become pregnant?  No one wants to hurt their bodies or their babies, and we all wish for the safest birth of a healthy newborn. Yet, many women are still subjecting themselves to unnecessary medical procedures that may actually be hurting their bodies, their birth, their babies. We want to trust our prenatal care providers, and truly believe that they have our best interest when it comes to the safety of our birth. What people tend to forget is that obstetricians are trained surgeons. Therefore, their view of childbirth can often be skewed as a big medical event, somewhat of an emergency, and that they are in charge of getting the baby out by a set time rather then allowing the process to unfold naturally. C-sections are now the most common operation in the U.S., accounting for 31% of births (up from 4.5% in 1965). Childbirth is the number one cause of hospital admissions. The infant mortality rate in our country is at an all time high at approximately 7 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. This ranks us at 29th in the world for infant mortality. All of this great technology in our hands, yet, lousy numbers. Some of these deaths are attributed to performing inductions and c-sections too early, something that has been readily increasing. Unless there is an emergency, most babies do better the longer they stay in utero. With the “big business” approach to maternity wards in hospitals, and the fear of childbirth being instilled in our culture (we’ve all seen the way birth is portrayed on TV and in the movies!), the way America births has changed—and that is what is becoming an emergency.

Active birth has been lost in our nation. Women are now taught to believe that their care providers “deliver” their babies for them, rather then the idea that they birth their own babies. The power of the process is being stolen from mothers. What is active birth, and why is it so important? Active birth is not a new idea–in fact, it has been used from the beginning of time. Active birth is just that—being active while in labor. Active birth involves trusting your instincts as you labor, it puts you in control of your birth and its environment. It means getting in positions that are most comfortable for you, and that are conducive to lowering the baby into the birth canal. It requires being in tune with your body and baby, movement, breathing, and trusting. Research has shown that the average woman has a low-risk, uncomplicated pregnancy, and that supporting, rather then intervening, the process leads to healthier and safer results. Birth is normal, birth is natural, birth is physiological. We have developed a mindset where a woman cannot give birth without high-tech equipment, medicine to speed the process, IV fluids to hydrate the mother, narcotics to relieve the pain, and equipment to pull the baby out of the birth canal manually. This is like saying women have lost the ability to birth over the years, and that they cannot go into labor on their own. What you may not know is that most of this “technology” can actually slow the labor process, lead to further complications, increase the risk of c-sections, and can harm your baby.

Why? There will be specifics in further articles on this website detailing each medical intervention, the pros and cons, and when it is best to use or not use them. But for now, simply put–most of these procedures require a mother to be passive, lying on her back in a bed, with little movement. Each intervention carries risks and side effects to the mother and the baby, and often leads to further interventions. For example, pitocin is used to induce labor, but the contractions become so erratic, strong, and painful from this medicine that the mother often requests an epidural. Epidurals can often slow down labor. This usually leads to a balancing act of constantly having to add more pitocin drip, then upping the epidural back and forth. Not to mention that epidurals have a side effect of lowering the mother’s blood pressure, therefore affecting the fetal heart rate, often leading to fetal distress. The fetal heart rate can also become problematic when the mother is stuck laboring on her back in bed, which is often mandatory once a mother receives an epidural. Plus, laboring on her back means the body is working against gravity, therefore slowing the process of the baby working its way down into the birth canal. The mother may not have the urge to push because she is being told to push before it is time (just because the cervix opens to 10cm doesn’t necessarily mean it’s time to push yet), or the epidural has taken away this sensation. This often leads to obstetricians claiming the baby is “stuck”, requiring an episiotomy, and possibly forceps or vacuum extraction. To further speed the labor, the mother’s water is often broken manually (called an amniotomy). Now the only cushioning that the baby had against these overly-intense, abnormal contractions caused by the pitocin is gone, causing further fetal distress. This whole process often results in what the doctors like to call “failure to progress” in the mother in labor (when in reality, she probably would have progressed normally if the whole process was left alone, and the mother/baby were allowed to go into spontaneous labor on their own), often times resulting in an “emergency” c-section. If the baby isn’t ready to come yet, the induction will not work.

This is not to say that there is never a time and place for medical interventions. Things don’t always go as planned, emergencies do happen, and sometimes the life of the mother and/or baby are put at great risk. So it is an amazing thing to have modern technology! The problem is that our society sees it the other way around. We constantly intervene in the normal process with all of the technology rather then support the process, and intervene only when truly necessary.

Maybe you don’t mind, and you’re just more comfortable that way. It is still advisable that you do the research. Even if you are ok with this view of birth, and with putting this control into someone else’s hands, you’ll at the very least know what is being done! That is what informed consent is all about. The definition of informed consent reads, “Informed consent is a legal condition whereby a person can be said to have given consent based upon a clear appreciation and understanding of the facts, implications and future consequences of an action”. Unfortunately, many health care providers don’t have time to explain all of the details of a procedure to their patient, leaving the mother to just trust that “doctor knows best”. Or they are told that a particular procedure is just “standard measure”, without giving you the power to make the decision on your own. The intent is not to say that you are a bad person if you choose to have an epidural, or a hospital birth vs. a home birth. The point is to get the power of choice back to birthing women.

This website is about explaining your choices of where and how you want to birth (and how to do your best to achieve it), why it is important to make these choices, explanations of tests and procedures (including their pros and cons) done pre-natally, in labor, and post-natally, and providing you with further resources of doulas, midwives, OB’s, and VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean)-friendly doctors in your area (plus how to select the best care provider for your pregnancy). Hopefully in the future, this site will contain a section of positive birth stories told by mothers who want to help undue the “birth is scary” myth going on in our culture. Most importantly, this website is about the truth.

Active birth is just as important to a birthing woman as it is to the baby. The transition from womb to world can be a traumatic one. How peacefully we can make this happen for our little ones can help to foster a closer relationship with them, and get them off to the best start in life.