why did you/do you want to go natural? - Page 3

[ShadowMoon]

I've always been drawn to natural, earth-based practices, healing, eating, etc. I always try to listen to my body and listen to what nature has to teach me. This part of my life was no different.

[jacie87]

DH's family has all done natural births, except for 2 c-sections because the babies were transverse. When we found out I was pregnant, he had no interest in taking me to a doctor. I could have made the appointments and found an OB myself, but I was the shyest person you ever met, and I didn't even want to make a phone call to order a pizza. Since I didn't have any support to set up a hospital birth with an epidural and episiotomy in my birth plan (I didn't know better) then I was kind of forced into planning a UC.

At first I was uncomfortable with it, but once I realized he was serious about not helping me if I wanted a hospital birth and OB then I started doing the research about how to have the baby at home, came to the conclusion that he was right, and I no longer wanted the hospital/OB either.

I did end up at the hospital (ironically, DH's family scared him into thinking we couldn't do it at home ) but I still had my natural birth. The doctors and nurses were so annoying that I would never want to go through that again. It only solidified my desire to birth naturally at home, and so now I'm pg again, due in 2 weeks, and going to have a UC this time.

My reasons for a homebirth: I have no interest in having an IV, I don't like being told what I can/can't eat/drink during labor (they would only allow me ice chips. I desperately wanted water, but if I let the ice chips melt then they would take it away and replace it with another cup of ice chips...), I don't like the idea of a doctor putting a time limit on my labor, being home is more comfortable and less noisy...

My reasons for a natural birth: I think it's healthier to not have drugs in mine or baby's system, and also there's a far lower chance of a c-section.

[jtrt]

I am a RN and felt profoundly uncomfortable during my OB rotations in nursing school. It felt *wrong* to subject women and families to the typical high-intervention hospital scenario. I was only 21 at the time but I remember feeling ashamed while participating in what I considered to be dehumanizing procedures in the hospital.

When I became pregnant at 29, I knew I wanted absolutely no part of the hospital scene. We had our firstborn at a freestanding birth center with a CNM and it was lovely! Hard work, different from my family's expectations or experiences, but perfect.

Our next two babies were born in the water at home with the same CNM. We are expecting a new baby in a few weeks and will birth her naturally at home too.

Amy

[MegBoz]

Oh, I love discussing this.
NO ONE I know, at all, had a natural birth or tried for one. As a matter of fact, right until the end, my MIL kept saying, "Humph! Natural birth! Well you just wait until you feel those ctrx." DH was instructed to keep her away from me at the end.

#1 reason for me was to avoid a CS. I was 100% confident in my body's ability to birth a baby vaginally. I'd joked for years that I had "child-bearing hips!" I knew it would be a much tougher recovery for me & then more difficult if I had to have a RCS with #2. Didn't want to be faced with caring for an infant + toddler while recovering from major surgery again!

I knew the CS rate in the US was astronomical! When I read "The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth" I learned the truth & shunned medicalized birth because of the damage it does & how it leads to the cascade of interventions that are hard on the baby & mama & lead to CS.

At that point, around 22 W, I decided I'd just "Suck it up & deal with the pain." (I'm tough, I didn't worry that I could handle it.)

Then I read "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" & realized, yeah, birth is likely to be painful, but probably manageable for the most part, and overall fabulous! I started looking forward to it, as opposed to something I would merely "endure."

Thankfully, it was awesome! Fast, not that painful, great! Planning HB for whenever we conceive #2.

[GoBecGo]

I have a few reasons...

1. I was abused as a child. So the idea of letting someone numb my lower body and then touch/put their fingers/hands into my vagina is NOT HAPPENING. I would rather be in screaming agony than let anyone do that. I am fine with medical examinations etc. SO LONG AS I AM AWARE and able to be in control.

2. I am scared of hospitals. I spent most of my teens in and out of hospital with my terminally ill mother (heart attacks, a stroke, surgeries for heart problem and then later cancer, radio and chemo appointments) and my BP shoots up by about 20 points (diastolic too!) when i walk in the door. No amount of non-understanding people (medical or random) saying "but maternity isn't for ILL people" makes that go away.

3. I want to know if i can do it. With #1 i had a homebirth. It was what a lot of people would call "natural" but i used gas-and-oxygen (entonox 50% mix) for the last 40 or so minutes and had syntometrine for the 3rd stage (for no medical reason - nervous midwife). So to ME it wasn't natural. I didn't ask for either, they were just handed over by the (NHS) midwife who i'd never met before and who kept telling me i wasn't in real labour yet and not to push until DD's head actually crowned. This time i'm super excited to birth again and to go all-natural (luck and nature allowing of course). The "active" stage of my first labour was 89 minutes, so i'm hoping i can handle the intensity, but i have a REALLY great midwife and i'm going to ask her to just leave the entonox at home I know people say there are no medals, but if i do it that WILL be a medal for me, it means a lot to me to know i can do it (i can't tell you how great it was to have a fast easy birth with DD after years of thinking, because of my abuser, that my body was dirty, ugly and broken). I know after having DD i was super-happy with my experience APART from using the gas (which didn't even help!) so i know that how i'll feel after will be medal enough for me!

4. I have a lot of friends who had natural homebirths, so it's not weird to me, but equally i have friends who have had inductions and elective c-sections too, so whatever happens i have people i can talk to. I was born by elective c-section at 37+4 ("because it was half term and your sister could look after your brother" - my mum). My brother was born at 31weeks by emergency section (with classical cut) after an awful praevia abruption which nearly killed both of them. The other 4 of us were born vaginally, without drugs, even my sister, #4, who was posterior, born at 44+1 after a 96 hour labour. So i knew i could do it, and also that fate could intervene. I was kind of raised with the idea that birth was normally uncomfortable but satisfying and safe, and that if, IF it went wrong in some way, surgery was also a perfectly fine way to bring a baby into the world.

5. Assuming 1-4 weren't the case i can't think of any drug (other than the one i used with DD, entonox) which doesn't carry simply-not-worth-it risks for me and/or the baby. And having gone to all the effort of growing them, i wouldn't risk them over something like pain. Physical pain is nothing to me. It's almost by-the-by. But then i'm very lucky, my threshold for pain is quite high, i've ridden fences on horseback with a broken arm, gone around for 4 days unaware that my wrist was broken, and my birth was not as painful as the 3rd degree ankle sprain i sustained at age 19, luckily (or not, since that's probably why i tripped) i was drunk at the time, which numbed the pain somewhat.

[JennTheMomma]

With this baby I'm having a homebirth, no meds there.

[scottishmommy]

Originally Posted by GoestoShow

The natural birth community led me to believe it would work out because if you plan, do this, do that, get your doula, etc., etc., birth will be a unicorns and fairies.

i never got the impression that there would be magic from a natural birth. everyone i talked to said it would be very painful and unpleasant. and that was coming from all the natural birthers i knew. i'm glad i didn't expect anything special like that because i would have been very disappointed. one of my big problems with natural birth extremists is that there is a sense that if women do everything right there will be no complications and no pain. i wanted a natural birth to avoid the very common risks of anesthesia, like low blood pressure, and spinal headaches. i think that mothers should be aware that even if they take precautions there will always be risk.

[GoestoShow]

.

Edited by GoestoShow - 1/4/11 at 8:58am

[scottishmommy]

Originally Posted by GoestoShow

I think people are confused as to what I am upset about. I am upset that the natural birth community led me to believe that I could do it. Well, I didn't. And I didn't have a vaginal birth, either. Everyone told me I could do it. Everyone said if I prepared, it would happen. Everyone said I was doing what was best for me and my baby. And I ended up with a c-section with inadequate anesthesia and a lot of complications. If I hadn't been so encouraged into a natural birth, I'd probably at least be mentally a much healthier person a year out.

well, they were lying to you. if they were right then we could have a 0% c-section rate if all mothers chose to go natural.

[MegBoz]

Originally Posted by GoestoShow

I think people are confused as to what I am upset about. I am upset that the natural birth community led me to believe that I could do it. Well, I didn't.

I'm sorry you had that experience.

While it's a much, much, much less severe issue, I can relate to how you feel - in that you feel 'duped' & misled. That was my experience with BFing. (Guess I shoulda visited the forum here first, huh?) But the BFing exposure I did have, including the class the hospital offered, made it seem like a piece of cake. What was really awful was when my nipples cracked & I was in agony 24/7, I kept going back to the hospital LCs & they just kept parroting the phrase, "It shouldn't hurt. Nipple pain is due to a bad latch. If your latch is good, it shouldn't hurt."

Then they checked my latch, said it was good, when I said I'm still in pain, they said, "Well it shouldn't hurt."

Um, ok, so it was MY FAULT?! :

FWIW, my Bradley teacher & doula (also a Bradley teacher) both said that with the best of preparations, still the most we can hope is a c-section rate like Dr. Bradley himself had - about 3%. I never thought anything was guaranteed as long I did what I was supposed to. Just that doing what I was supposed to got me the best odds possible.

[GoBecGo]

GoesToShow I'm really sad you felt so misled. FWIW a lot of people told me i could do it and it'd all be fine too, and i guess i just took it as encouragement, rather than fact. But then by the time i got PG i knew that at least 10-15% of babies NEED to be born by c-section, and even 1-3% of Ina May Gaskin's birthing ladies (who are carefully screened to be low risk, given nutritional and health advice and support throughout pregnancy and usually hear about, learn about, and SEE natural birth as they approach their due date (those who actually live on the Farm at least) need a section. I also knew a few women who lost a baby at a homebirth (not "because" of homebirth, but during one nonetheless) and a few who had to transfer from home for a c-section (one brow presentation and one severe foetal distress - turned out to be an abruption). So i had a grain of salt in my ear already when they spoke, and even, though it felt utterly "wrong" (because of all the people who said "think positive and positive things will happen) i wrote a c-section birth plan too, JIC. I was lucky, i got my homebirth. But it was LUCK that divided me from those who didn't get the same outcome. I didn't do anything better or more than anyone else, including those who had terrible outcomes like losing their baby.

If people told you there was no chance of anything going wrong they lied, THEY WERE WRONG. YOU are not wrong. You DID nothing wrong. It must have been incredibly painful to learn the truth - that surgical birth is sometimes necessary, especially in the traumatic way you did. I can't imagine, and i won't pretend i can. I'm really sorry From my POV you DID do what was best for your baby - it sounds like you kept going for the optimal. Natural birth is optimal if nothing goes wrong, and surgery is optimal if it's warranted. I know the words of a stranger on a forum mean so little in comparison to the rawness of your memories and feelings on this. You had to face things in labour and make decisions then and accept hurts then that i still haven't had to face. To me what you went through for your child is something to be awed. You were more of a mother that day, in terms of sacrifice, pain, and love, than i am 3 years later. I'm sorry for the birth you never got, and the rough start as a mama you were dealt, but i think any child of yours can count themselves as blessed.

[Gena 22]

Originally Posted by MegBoz

FWIW, my Bradley teacher & doula (also a Bradley teacher) both said that with the best of preparations, still the most we can hope is a c-section rate like Dr. Bradley himself had - about 3%. I never thought anything was guaranteed as long I did what I was supposed to. Just that doing what I was supposed to got me the best odds possible.

Exactly this! That's about where the Farm in TN is too with c/s rates. Sounds reasonable.

Decided to birth my twins at home naturally because I wanted to stack the odds in favor of what was best for me and my children, and to be in a position to fully consent to any treatment.

More power to you ladies who have NCB in hospitals! You are the real heros.

If the time came that I thought my babes or I needed the hospital, I would have entered with a full knowledge of where my admittance was likely to be headed - for me, an intervention full surgical birth. I would tried to be at peace with that.

[accountclosed3]

for me, it's always been the way it was goign to be.

that is, i simply knew that natural was natural. i believed that my body could do anything it was designed to do, and do it well. i always knew that i would homebirth--i didn't always knwo that i would UC, but i always knew that i would homebirth.

most of my friends, my family, they are not homebirthers. most friends don't even have children. those who do had hosp births with epis and so on.

i've always just been this way, it seems.

[mambera]

Intervention-free birth has an estimated maternal death rate of 1-1.5%. The US overall has a maternal death rate of 0.011%. Obviously 'natural childbirth' is not a guarantee! It's great if it works out but often it doesn't.

[GoBecGo]

Originally Posted by mambera

Intervention-free birth has an estimated maternal death rate of 1-1.5%. The US overall has a maternal death rate of 0.011%. Obviously 'natural childbirth' is not a guarantee! It's great if it works out but often it doesn't.

Estimated by whom and based on what?

[accountclosed3]

expecting a natural birth doesn't mean it's going to happen, but it does mean that it is more likely to happen. and, expecting a natural birth doesn't mean not preparing yourself for the worst case scenarios.

[Astraia]

Originally Posted by GoBecGo

Estimated by whom and based on what?

yeah, that's my question.... that doesn't stack up to any of the numbers I've seen elsewhere.

[mambera]

Originally Posted by GoBecGo

Estimated by whom and based on what?

Dunno, it's off Wiki.

Here's their ref:

Van Lerberghe W, De Brouwere V. Of blind alleys and things that have worked: history’s lessons on reducing maternal mortality. In: De Brouwere V, Van Lerberghe W, eds. Safe motherhood strategies: a review of the evidence. Antwerp, ITG Press, 2001 (Studies in Health Services Organisation and Policy, 17:7–33).

What estimates have others heard?

[scottishmommy]

those numbers seem right to me, if not a little low. i'm assuming it means there would be a 1-2 % maternal mortality rate if the mother had no access to stethoscopes, blood transfusions, antibiotics, stitches, c-sections, forceps etc. the infant mortality rate would probably be much higher. interventions, when needed, can save lives.

[GoBecGo]

But it's a false statistic for this discussion, no? Or are all of us who are wanting to natural intending to do so at the potential cost of our own lives? Because i for one will be getting a c-section if it's medically warranted. I won't be going natural at all and any cost. Surely those who would are very few and far between?