Non-natural birth & immediate bonding - Page 8

[CherryBomb]

Originally Posted by RedOakMomma

OP, this is from your first post and is one of the reasons I find this information gathering so strange. How many hospital births have you attended? Where do you get the stats for saying that the women "lucky enough to have natural births have their babies taken away from them immediately after, etc......"

This hasn't been the experience I've witnessed, in my own or others' births. It may be policy at some hospitals, but the experience you relate (and I'm wondering, perhaps exaggerate?) is hardly universal. Many hospitals put a huge emphasis on post-birth bonding...whether the mom has had an epi or not.

Perhaps, before you decide what kinds of awful things are happening in medicated births, or hospital births, you need to conduct a study (or find an actual one, not just an anecdotal one) about what is actually happening in hospitals after medicated and non-medicated births. You've had many, many women describe how your idea of what happens after a medicated or hospital birth is not accurate. Are you listening?

My hospital vba2c was great. She placed on my chest immediately, they cleaned her off some on my chest and then I held her for over an hour (and she nursed for 45 minutes of that) before I told the nurse to go ahead and take her for the weighing, etc (they did it right next to my bed while I ate a turkey sandwich, I was starving!) They actually didn't even have a nursery for awhile because they really wanted moms to room in, but they found that that wasn't meeting the needs of the moms (especially c/s moms who were coming out of anesthesia) and so they brought it back, but really urged you to keep your baby with you as much as possible. No one ever tried to "take her away" from me. Everything was always done in my room with me right there. I had a birth plan, too, and all the nurses took the time to read it when they came in and did their best to honor our wishes. Everyone was really great and supportive.

[betsyj]

My hospital vba2c was great. She placed on my chest immediately, they cleaned her off some on my chest and then I held her for over an hour (and she nursed for 45 minutes of that) before I told the nurse to go ahead and take her for the weighing, etc (they did it right next to my bed while I ate a turkey sandwich, I was starving!) They actually didn't even have a nursery for awhile because they really wanted moms to room in, but they found that that wasn't meeting the needs of the moms (especially c/s moms who were coming out of anesthesia) and so they brought it back, but really urged you to keep your baby with you as much as possible. No one ever tried to "take her away" from me. Everything was always done in my room with me right there. I had a birth plan, too, and all the nurses took the time to read it when they came in and did their best to honor our wishes. Everyone was really great and supportive.

As was mine. As soon as my son was born he was placed right on my chest to nurse with the cord still attached. My husband cut the cord when HE was ready. When I birthed the placenta my doctor said, "and here is the most amazing thing," while taking the time to show me what had nourished my baby.

They weighed him right next to me, wrapped him up and gave him right back. He roomed in with me. There were several breastfeeding classes conducted every day by a lactation consultant. I found the whole experience to be wonderful. Nothing got in the way of our bonding.

[MegBoz]

Originally Posted by RedOakMomma

Originally Posted by amberskyfire

But most women in hospitals today give birth under some kind of anesthesia. Even the women who are lucky enough to have natural births have their babies taken from them immediately after

OP, this is from your first post and is one of the reasons I find this information gathering so strange. How many hospital births have you attended? Where do you get the stats for saying that the women "lucky enough to have natural births have their babies taken away from them immediately after, etc......"
<snip>
Perhaps, before you decide what kinds of awful things are happening in medicated births, or hospital births, you need to conduct a study (or find an actual one, not just an anecdotal one) about what is actually happening in hospitals after medicated and non-medicated births. You've had many, many women describe how your idea of what happens after a medicated or hospital birth is not accurate. Are you listening?

Whoa, ok, first of all, even if the OP were "listening" to those of us on this site, we are not representative of mainstream America! So even if 90% of MDC Mamas have had a certain experience, that hardly means it's likely that 90% of all American women have had that experience! (Sorry, I'm only familiar with birthing in the US.)

Second of all, that IS a fact that the majority of births in the US are medicated!!! Are you honestly questioning that? That seems to me an odd point to question the validity of.

Thirdly, the fact that birthing women are treated poorly in American hospitals is also well documented. I recommend the books, "Pushed" by Jennifer Block as well as "Born in the USA" by Dr. Marsden Wagner.

Now, as to the issue of whether or not a difficult/abusive/or simply medicated birth experience leads to difficulty mothering, well, that is another issue.

But I didn't think it was up for debate that:
1. birthing women are frequently mistreated in American hospitals
2. Most women have epidurals (like, well, WELL over 50%)

[RedOakMomma]

Originally Posted by MegBoz

Second of all, that IS a fact that the majority of births in the US are medicated!!! Are you honestly questioning that? That seems to me an odd point to question the validity of.

Nowhere in my post did I question that. I'm fully aware of the stats on epis and medicated labors. What I question is the assertion that "Even the women who are lucky enough to have natural births have their babies taken from them immediately after and the mother is usually left waiting as she listens to her baby screaming while the doctors and nurses run tests, measure, weight, poke, prod, and wash the baby before giving it back to the mother."

This seems like an exaggeration, or at least an assertion based on a limited or biased viewpoint...not one based on statistics or surveys of actual birth experiences. It's a strange, absolute statement to make.

[RedOakMomma]

Originally Posted by bebebradford

OH honey don't worry, she won't use any response that doesn't support her theory. Haven't you already figured that out?

I did, which is why I removed my personal experiences from this thread. I don't want to support this effort at gathering information for clients.

[kitkatkaddoodle]

I agree that most births in the US are medicated in one way or another, but I'd like to see some sort of proof that we've had a decrease in the amount of immediate bonding within the time where medication/anesthesia during labor has been popular. In order to do that, of course, we'd need at minimum to have some kind of criteria hammered out for how we're measuring "immediate bonding" and a control group who have not had medication but is similar in makeup to the group who did, with similar labor and birth trauma patterns, etc.

[matthia]

I think I would be VERY hesitant to try and correlate birth trauma or even a great medicated birth with a lack of maternal bonding.

I think the trend in the last...oh 50 or 100 years in society at large has been a move from informed consent, intellectual consideration, hard work, and necessary inconvenience towards a less informed, less intelligent, towards a populace at large that is less willing to put in hard work for results or put up with necessary inconveniences if there is any way around them. From the food we eat (from fast foods that are slowly killing us to eating any vegetable or fruit we want no matter where it;s grown or what it's growing season is) to the clothes we wear to the lifestyles we adapt, society is tending towards a seperation from intuition and tradition and what little instincts humans still possess. Fad anything is swallowed by the masses with very little regard for truth or reason. From fad diets to fad parenting, many people are looking for the easiest possible way to accomplish a certain goal.

Someone who is willing to question advertisements and fad lifestyles and all that is LIKELY to also question fad parenting tips. That being said, I don't agree that someone who doesn't AP is a "bad" parent, just as I don't think a baby who is fussy is a "bad" baby. People who have no access to this information or who don't agree with it can still be amazing people and amazing parents. I also very much DON'T think its a good idea to assume SO MUCH importance to such a small moment in both yourself and your baby's life. As important as I think immediate mother/infant contact is, and as much I could wish is on everyone in an ideal world, I DO NOT think that you can't recover that time later.

People who are less inclined to want to think for themselves, who often or always allow themselves to be swayed by what others say, regardless of how they feel, IN ALL ASPECTS OF THEIR LIFE, are PROBABLY more likely to be unattached or have a harder time bonding with an infant, if only because infants are SO instict driven that it can be scary to someone who has ignored that part of themselves their whole life.

I DO NOT think this trend is caused by or a result of medicalized/emergency births, nor even of outdated hospital procedures.

[Encinalien]

Originally Posted by amberskyfire

<snip>
This is, in essence, taking the responsibility of the baby away from the mother right at the critical moments in which she should be forming an attachment to her baby. Instead, she is forming an attachment to not holding her baby and hearing the sound of her child's cries.

<snip>

Everyone I know was terrified after the birth of their baby and even with their second and third babies, they told me it was like the first time and they didn't know what to do. All of them had problems bonding.*

Everyone told me that I would also be a scared first-time-mom, but it wasn't that way for me at all. I had a home birth and was absolutely intent on my baby.

Yes I can see why you wrote the first snippet because natural birth gives the woman back the power of producing her own delivery. *It's the big selling point.

And I can see why you would want to address the problems mentioned in the second snippet. *I know many girls in the south who might have said the same exact thing as your friends said, however:
**

Originally Posted by CherryBomb

I think when women spend their whole pregnancies hearing that they MUST give birth a certain way to be a "real" mother and a "real" woman, THAT'S what causes problems. *I never felt bad about my first c/s until other people told me I should. *I take responsibility for allowing people to influence me like that, but it's hard to ignore that when you're young (I was only 18 when I had dd1) and trying to figure out how to parent and where you fit in.

I think it's great you're studying midwifery in an area of the country where it sounds like it's lacking. *Just be careful to stay with the principals of natural birth and natural medicine in general which empowers the patient and fosters the belief that our bodies are capable, we are capable. *Lecturing someone with a medical problem doesn't really make them feel more capable, less scared, or more able to bond. *

To help with the emergency-transferred clients you could take some extra courses on lactation consulting, maybe work with a local herbalists to learn more about PPD and birth trauma healings.

Again it's a noble cause you're persuing. *Helping people is always worth studying ever more in depth. *There are no stupid quiestions. *Just keep searching for the truth.

[kitkatkaddoodle]

Originally Posted by matthia

I think the trend in the last...oh 50 or 100 years in society at large has been a move from informed consent, intellectual consideration, hard work, and necessary inconvenience towards a less informed, less intelligent, towards a populace at large that is less willing to put in hard work for results or put up with necessary inconveniences if there is any way around them. From the food we eat (from fast foods that are slowly killing us to eating any vegetable or fruit we want no matter where it;s grown or what it's growing season is) to the clothes we wear to the lifestyles we adapt, society is tending towards a seperation from intuition and tradition and what little instincts humans still possess. Fad anything is swallowed by the masses with very little regard for truth or reason. From fad diets to fad parenting, many people are looking for the easiest possible way to accomplish a certain goal.

Really? I see us as heading toward MORE choices, informed consent, and intellectual consideration, not less. After all, 50 to 100 years ago, how many choices did society as a whole have regarding their food, clothing, medical care, etc? How would they have known better without being able to share and compare with others as we can now?

Today, with our ability to find resources and information about things outside our immediate community or social circle, I think we are far better equipped to and willing to question and chose intelligently amongst these things.

[MegBoz]

Originally Posted by RedOakMomma

Nowhere in my post did I question that. I'm fully aware of the stats on epis and medicated labors.

Ah, gotcha, my bad. Based on what you quoted & your response, I thought you were questioning more of the content of her post than just the assertion that babies are removed from their mothers.

[4myfinn]

Originally Posted by CherryBomb

My hospital vba2c was great. She placed on my chest immediately, they cleaned her off some on my chest and then I held her for over an hour (and she nursed for 45 minutes of that) before I told the nurse to go ahead and take her for the weighing, etc (they did it right next to my bed while I ate a turkey sandwich, I was starving!) They actually didn't even have a nursery for awhile because they really wanted moms to room in, but they found that that wasn't meeting the needs of the moms (especially c/s moms who were coming out of anesthesia) and so they brought it back, but really urged you to keep your baby with you as much as possible. No one ever tried to "take her away" from me. Everything was always done in my room with me right there. I had a birth plan, too, and all the nurses took the time to read it when they came in and did their best to honor our wishes. Everyone was really great and supportive.

The hospital where I delivered also had no nursery. The nurses offered to take DS to the nurses' station for a few hours so I could sleep (and I usually refused), but that was it. It was totally up to me.

The entire staff read my birth plan, too. They never pushed me to get an epidural. They never even mentioned it, because it was in my birth plan.

[SashaBear]

I havent read the whole thread, but I need to comment.

My situation was weird. With my son, my pregnancy and labor were hard, long, and uncomfortable. My bladder was injured. We had problems breastfeeding. He had jaundice and had to have is blood checked every day. He was an awful baby too. Never slept, didn't nap well. I was a walking zombie. I would definitely say that we had bonding problems.
With my daughter, my 12 hour labor ended in a csection. She almost died; her Apgars were 1 and 2. She was sent to the NICU and hour away and I didn't hold her until she was almost 48 hours old. I stayed in the hospital with her I lived on a 3 hour schedule because thats how often she nursed. We bonded so well. Words cannot explain how I feel about my daughter. I missed her during her nap time. She was a good sleeper too. She co-slept with us most of the night.

I think so much more goes into the bonding than we think.

[Kama82]

Could it possibly be one of the many factors influencing bonding? Sure, so can a million other things. What about a mom who births at home in a very natural setting but suddenly comes down with a bad case of the flu right after or during the birth, that would probably influence the bonding process too, right?

I was induced with Cytotec,had an epidural, given stadol (I think some kind of pain killer that made me loopy), had a c-section, did not even get to touch my baby for hours after the birth, did not get to breastfeed for over 24 hours.

I also had not prior done any research on natural birth, parenting, I didn't even know what attachment parenting was. In fact I read someones UC birth story a few days before my daughter was born and I was mystified that someone would *choose* to not go to a hospital to give birth.

I felt bonded with my child the minute she was born, before she was born I felt bonded with her. I am a great mother I love her fiercely.My birth experience and my lack of prior knowledge in no way made me a less "loving" or "natural" parent. She breastfed for 3 1/2 years and self weaned. She co slept and still comes into our bed every night.

Do I think my birth experience made all this *physically* harder? Yes it did no doubt about that. Have I had some emotional difficulty with the c-section? Sure, I had some issues to work through about it. Did it make it harder to love my child? Harder to be a mother? No way.

Natural childbirth does not give you good mom or love your baby points that no one else can ever get. The reasons that people make the parenting choices that they do exist independently of birth.

That study you linked is a little deceptive. Sure 17% of the mothers in the c-section group had a self esteem loss. Why? Because of the epidural? Or because so many people believe that if you have had a c-section you have not given birth, or that you will be a lesser mother, or not have as good of a bond with your baby. The people who go into birth with those beliefs and end up with a c-section anyway have it the worst because they come out of the experience feeling like failures, and that they have lost something they can never ever regain. Having that reaffirmed by the beliefs of others does nothing to help their self esteem.
Birth is one day, not even a day, a moment. Guess what? Even babies who come out through surgical incisions are born. The mothers who gestated them are the ones birthing them. They may not be pushing the baby out but their body is being ravaged in order to give life to their child. Taking that away from them by minimizing c-section birth is so unfair.

Moms with "unnatural births" should not get lumped into "at risk to be a bad mother" by default. We should not have to prove that we have pulled away from the "norm" and are good mothers, we should get the same courtesy extended to any other mother and have it be *assumed* that we will be good mothers.

[KaylaBeanie]

Originally Posted by loveneverfails

I'm going to agree wholeheartedly with CherryBomb. I think the issue isn't any certain kind of birth, although obviously *trauma* is going to create a factor that can impact bonding for better or for worse, sometimes both. Natural does not mean untraumatic. Medicalized does not mean traumatic.

This. My mom had two unnatural births, and is one of the most attached mothers I've ever met in my entire life. My sister and I co-slept past toddlerhood, we were never left to CIO, etc. Her sister had totally unmedicated births and left her three oldest children to be raised by their father, so there obviously wasn't some sort of awesome AP-style bonding going on. My SIL had two totally unmedicated, natural births and she is a proponent of early weaning, CIO and doesn't co-sleep.

As it is, I don't worry about what type of birth I'll have. I will home birth unless I transfer or get risked out. If I require a medically necessary c-section or induction, I will be nothing but grateful for those medical interventions, because I absolutely think they have their place. Knowing my personality and myself, I can't imagine that I'll be disappointed or a bad mother over it. To me, AP isn't an all-or-nothing. If I had to have a c-section, it wouldn't stop me from nursing/cloth diapering/co-sleeping/baby-wearing/etc. I think it would be silly to say that method of birth doesn't play into bonding at all, but I also think that is largely because so many women feel totally out of control when they experience the cascade of interventions. There are obviously women here who have had inductions, epidurals and c-sections. I would venture to guess that the reason so many are just fine with their outcome is BECAUSE they were informed, and felt in control.