Protect Birth

I am struck, today, by how hostile the environment of giving birth is becoming in my home state. Not only struck, but saddened, confused, and downright pissed off.

This summer I have had one client already leave the state to give birth because she felt like her chances of having a natural birth in the hospital here were slim to none. I have another client whose due date is evermore impending still undecided on her birth plans because she is a VBAC mom and her choices are, well zero.

Having a VBAC in Mississippi is becoming next to impossible. One hospital in the Jackson metro area has banned VBAC’s and I feel sure more will follow suit. Not only this, but the ONE doctor I trusted to refer my clients to for hospital births has become owned by the insurance companies. He doggedly pushes the AFP test and is cracking down on VBAC moms. The newest policy I’ve heard in place is that he requires an epidural catheter to be in place as soon as mom is in the hospital laboring. Doesn’t have to be active, but the needle must be inserted and ready to go.

I am appalled that women are being forced to choose to travel out of state in order to have the birth choices that are rightfully theirs. Even worse, there are women who are limiting their family size because they are afraid of having to fight simply to give birth!

For a while, the birth climate in Mississippi was looking up. Today I am wondering what it will take for us to have the rights and choices we deserve. As a woman who fought to get what the birth I wanted and fought to give that to other women, I am forced to consider how much worse can it get before it gets better?

What if every woman with a scar across her belly stood up and said “NO MORE!” What if every woman with a virgin womb stood up and said “You will NOT tell me how to birth the children yet to enter this body!” What if every woman with milky breasts, crayon colored walls, stained shirts, and tangled hair said “I am in charge of my births!”

Would “they” listen? Would the men who decided we needed them to interfere in the birth process to begin with hush us back and “tsk” at our silly cries for attention? Or would they sit, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, and stare at the brazen revolutionists they’ve made us become?

I hear all of the abortion debates, “Get your laws off of my body!” and “It’s a baby, not a choice!” Why don’t I hear the birth cries, “Get your laws out of my uterus!” or “It’s MY baby, MY birth, MY body!!”

I’m screaming it. I’m screaming it to anybody that will listen.

Are you?

I was reading a post this morning on a spiritual forum. The poster was talking about the current negative state of our world and said something interesting: war cannot be ended by war. Now, I personally am extremely supportive of our troops and of the concept of freedom. I do not say OUR freedom because we are not free anymore, anyone who thinks we are is sadly deceived. Anyway, I digress. Without debating the morality of war, I have plenty of thoughts about, or at least around, her statement I’d like to get out.

I believe what she says. War cannot be ended by war. Just like in parenting, you cannot teach a child not to hit by hitting them, aka spanking. In examining the state of the world, though, I am inclined to agree that our negativity and negative energies play a large part in the violence and negative events. But, I believe that our negative energies begin much earlier in life.

A labor assistant I used to work with loved the saying “Peace on earth begins with birth.” Even though I have never had much for hokey little rhyming sayings such as that one, I happen to deeply agree with it. We talk about a world without violence and war, without crime where people’s rights are truly respected. How can we ever expect this to happen, though, when we begin so many lives with violence?

Babies across the globe are violently pulled from their mother’s womb without reason. They are brought into the world by force and on days they did not choose. We schedule our babies birthdays around convenience, like we are planning a party or something. We treat our new lives as if they have no consciousness, as if they are unaware.

Now, I know there will always be situations where babies have to be born by force. I understand that fully. But, the cold, hard truth is that the majority of babies this is happening to is happening out of convenience or fear instead of necessity. I believe with everything that is in me that until babies are treated with respect not only after birth, but before and during, then our current state of affairs will not begin to turn around. Until the majority of births are gentle and the minority are not, then there will never be a different world. Imagine a world where babies are birthed by confident women in secret places without cold instruments surrounding them and even touching them. Imagine babies who aren’t pulled on as they enter the world, who do not breathe blood from their entranceways being cut through surgery or episiotomies. Imagine a world where each baby is immediately held by his or her mother, to smell her and breathe her in.

I know what you’re going to say. We’re talking about babies, who cannot do anything for themselves. How could a baby change the world? But, babies are only babies for fleeting moments in time. These babies will grow up and be our country’s leaders – our world’s leaders. If we continue to teach violence and the violation of their rights at birth, how can we ever expect them not to carry this into adulthood? Peace on Earth really does begin with birth.

Here are some things I wish EVERY woman knew about birth.  Whether she’s having a baby or will never have a baby.  Birth comes with the innate quality of the feminine, and I am of the belief that anyone who possess the feminine should take a responsibility for birth.

1.  Almost EVERY woman is capable of having their baby 100% without intervention.  Now I don’t mean 3 our of every 4 women here, I’m talking about more than 9 out of every 10.  More than 90 – 95% of women, if left alone in labor, require absolutely no outside intervention.

2.  Most of the time when you hear (or say as the case may be), “Well if i hadn’t been at the hospital, me or my baby would have died” it isn’t true.  More often than not, when an intervention is required in a birth, it is in response to another intervention that has been used.  For example, a baby’s heart rate plummets and fails to recover during a contraction and mom is rushed in for an “emergency” cesarean.  Good thing the good ole’ doctor was there…right?  We won’t mention that the mother had been given pitocin, had her water broken, and was confined to bed for nine hours before this happened.  Oh, and she had an epidural.

3.  Having a natural birth has absolutely nothing in the world to do with your ability or inability to tolerate pain.  Birth is a different kind of “pain”.  It has a distinct purpose and is not constant.  The powers that be were smart enough to design it that way because the dura mater of the spinal cord wasn’t created as a pin cushion.

4.  If you have been so unlucky to have experienced a birth in which your epidural did not take or didn’t work completely, let me first say I am so very sorry for you.  That is not intended with any hint of sarcasm either.  But please, please do not think what you experienced is anything comparable to a birth where no medications have been used.  You have experienced far worse.  Let me explain why.  In a natural labor your body creates endorphines which act as natural pain relievers.  These wonderful little substances increase in production with each rise in the intensity of labor.  The harder and faster the contractions, the more endorphines you get.  But the minute outside pain relievers of any kind enter your body, endorphine production halts.  So any pain your feel from that point on is magnified.  Again, I’m so very sorry for you.

5.  In a natural birth everything works perfectly.  It takes a very important and very delicate coctail of hormones for birth and bonding to happen exactly as it was designed.  Here’s my favorite instance of that: immediately following birth mom’s body releases HUGE amounts of oxytocin (the love hormone) and even greater amounts once she begins breastfeeding.  This hormone induces a state of euphoria.  I promise no drug in the world feels better than this hormone.  At the exact same time, baby’s body releases catecholomines (stress hormones).  The end effect of this hormone coctail is a baby who needs and wants its mother desperately and a mother who is completely in love with her infant and has eyes for no other human being on Earth.  How amazingly simple and yet beautiful at the same time.

6.  Here’s a few things that make contractions tolerable: moving around in labor, education in pregnancy, relaxation and calm in labor, knowing and remembering that you have HIRED your birth attendants (doctor, nurse, midwife, doula) and YOU are the one in control, low interference from outside sources (procedures, hands, lights, noises), belief in your body and ability by everyone around you (including the professionals).  Remember, that’s only a few.

7.  You have complete right, protected under law, to refuse any and all procedures for you and your baby.

8.  Don’t automatically assume your birth professional is recommending an intervention or procedure because they truly believe it to be best.  Sometimes it is simply the way they were trained and they are not comfortable stepping outside their comfort zone.  A great example of this is inducing women before 40 weeks pregnancy.  Doctors and midwives alike have made this a terrible practice, and I’d be willing to put money down that most of them have never experienced a postdates pregnancy.  They were trained that something terrible happens after 40 weeks and therefore baby MUST come out before.  With that, on to 9.

9.  Due dates are anybody’s best guess, EVEN with ultrasound.  Babies decide when to initiate labor, that is their job.  There isn’t a switch in there that goes off at 40 weeks of pregnancy and all of a sudden everything stops working.  Nutritionally sound mothers can continue to be pregnant for as long as necessary, until baby decides it’s time.  No baby ever stayed in forever.

10.  Nutrition is hands down the most important part of pregnancy AND birth.  Be realistic and be honest about what you’re putting into your body.  Protein is super important, it is the foundation of a healthy, well-formed, and well-attached placenta.  So eat lots, as in 70-100 grams daily.  Eat salt, but not table salt.  Use sea salt or kosher salt and eat it daily in your food to your taste.  Consume enough water, 64 oz. daily is minimal.  The optimal amount is  1/2 of your body weight in ounces.  (Ex.: a 165 lb woman needs roughly 82 oz. a day).  And spread your water out through the day.  Otherwise you will simply pee out what you’re taking in.  Include a good serving of leafy green veggies daily.  Eat a salad if nothing else.  The last thing is eat a colorful variety of fruits and veggies: blue, orange, red, yellow.

Now I don’t expect this to convince everyone to have a natural birth.  Life just doesn’t work that way, no matter how capable I completely believe and know each woman to be.  These are just things I wish I could make into a pamphlet and distribute to women the world over.  Honestly, there’s so much more, but you guys would be reading for days.

Also, women who choose to have a medicated birth need some tips too.  Labor at home for as long as possible.  Remember that saying yes to one intervention doesn’t have to mean saying yes to all of them.  Demand you hold your baby immediately.  Everything they have to do right after birth can be done with you holding the baby.  Send your partner with your baby for all nursery time, tests, or procedures.  Most importantly, don’t use the absence of pain as a excuse to not participate in labor.  Remember you have a baby in your body making the most important journey possible, his or her entrance into the world.  Likewise, you are experiencing one of the three times in your life as a woman that literally changes who you are.  After birth your chemical makeup is never the same.  So, don’t be a passenger in your birth even if you are numb from the waist down.  Find ways to be present and experience the experience.

“Some women just weren’t meant to give birth vaginally.”

“My body just doesn’t work right.”

“Oh, well I just don’t dilate [past x centimeters].”

“Thank goodness I was at the hospital…I wasn’t able to have my baby naturally.”

These are just a small sample of things I’ve heard over the years.  Each of them kinda make me throw up in my mouth a little.  Women carry these things as badges.  All women carry their birth experiences as badges.  And why shouldn’t we?

But what no one stops to tell these women is this:

Yes, they were.

Yes, it does.

Yes, you can.

Yes, you could.

I was talking to a new friend and colleague yesterday on the phone and she brought up the phrase that the first intervention in birth is walking out your front door to the hospital.  I think Mardsen Wagner said that.  He’s almost right.  Right enough that it will allow me to branch off here on a semi-rant.  Whenever I talk to women about their births, which is constantly if you couldn’t guess.  I hear the phrases like I quoted to begin with.  I never criticize, there isn’t any place for that.  But I do ask questions.  What was your labor like?  Did you go into labor on your own?  (Almost ALWAYS this is a no.)  Why did they induce you?  Had you dilated before the induction?

Women are being lied to.  They are being told that their babies NEED to come out NOW.  They are being told their bodies are too small to birth their babies, their bodies quit working properly past a certain point in pregnancy, their babies are going to die, almost ANYTHING to get that baby out.  And, because we trust the medical profession like we trust God in this country we allow them to induce.  We believe them when they say the baby has to come out.  We don’t question.  And if we do, we only do it once because our questions are inevitably met with “Well I’m the doctor and I want to do what is best for your baby.  You do want a healthy baby don’t you?”

Here is what I would like to know.  How do you know you can’t?  If no body ever gave you the chance to dilate, how do you know you can’t.

Be patient.  It’s your baby’s job to start labor.  S/he has the wisdom of knowing when to come out, and s/he has the powerful job of sending out the hormones that start all of the other hormones flowing in labor.  And if you never went into labor or couldn’t dilate past a certain point, take a look at what happened in the beginning hours of your birth.  Were you induced?  Did they give you pitocin, break your water?  Did THEY cause your labor to break down?

It’s time to start telling women birth was stolen from them rather then painting the robbers as saviors.  I refuse to participate any longer.

This blog is a birth of sorts for me.

While attending the amazing Trust Birth Conference a little over a week ago in beautiful Redondo Beach, CA, I came to the realization it is time for me to stop…and start. That is…to stop contributing to the lies being told to birthing women, stop perpetuating the stripping of power. And to start telling the truth…my truth.

Birth is safe. Interference is Risky. Carla Hartley, truly one of the most amazing women I know, coined that phrase. She had it printed on a sign, about the size of a yard campaign sign, and was displaying it at the conference. She was told by the hotel staff that she would have to remove it from public display as it had offended some of the hotel guests. Imagine something so small causing offense. Simply because it is true.

And up until now, that had been my fear. Offending.

I can promise you that at some point something I will say will offend you. I can promise you that I will piss you off no matter how much you may like me or agree with me. The difference between me now and the me two weeks back is that I can’t let that stand in the way of me telling the truth. About birth. About being born. About the amazing, empowering experience it can and was intended to be.

So this is me. Unapologetic about who I am and what I believe in. Birth, women, intact baby boys, attachment parenting, the family bed.

Welcome to my latest evolution.