Dispelling the "perfect birth theory" - Page 3

[Lynann]

I'm joining the discussion late, but there are a few things that concern me.

The OP mentioned watching reality tv birthing shows as contributing to her thought that the perfect birth isn't possible. I've watched some of these same programs recently, and I am horrified at the way the show birth. Every single woman I saw was made to birth on her back, even with 2 separate cases of shoulder dystocia. Also those who did manage to birth without pain meds were made out to have some kind of super woman complex, rather than being concerned about the effect of those drugs on their baby. There are very real reasons for wanting to avoid interventions, but this is never portrayed on these programs. Watching them with give a very distorted view of what birth can be.

It makes me sad that everyone seems to feel so defensive about their birth choices and not just allow each of us to own our own feelings about our births no matter the method or outcome.

My first birth was definitely less than ideal. I read and prepared well, or so I thought at the time. I was using a LM who encouraged me to educate myself. However I was also one of the 10% who had my water break before labor started. What I later found out by experience was that choosing a LM rather than a CNM put a time limit on how long I could labor at home after the breaking of water. After 24 hours I had to be transferred to the hospital because it was State Law, not for any real medical reason (I had no infection nor showed any signs of infection or distress of baby). I was then under the care of the on-call OB, a complete stranger. Even when I informed the nurses & OB that I had difficult to reach veins I was ignored and instead treated as dehydrated, which then caused my body to swell up from the IV fluids they forced on me. After another 12 hours and only at 8cm I was told I had arrested dilation and the baby would need to come out by c/s. My son was then treated to all sorts of invasive tests as they were still obsessing about infection that wasn't there. He was very traumatized and never managed to successfully latch while we were still in the hospital. The long term effect was that nursing only lasted 12 weeks because of issues that started with how he was born and how he was treated during that first hour (away from me.)

With my second birth I only had 2 choices. I could have a hospital birth with an OB, but it would be a scheduled c/s, as none of the local hospitals did VBACs. Or I could try to find a CNM who would do a HBAC. Fortunately I found a wonderful CNM and she gave me a lot more info than I previously had, including how to avoid another early rupture of membranes (vit c from week 20.) She respected me as a mother and as a woman, and was content to stay as hands off as I wanted. I also found ways to work with my body during labor from The Pink Kit. My HBAC birth was 9 hours total with only 20 minutes of pushing. My HBAC baby was 9lb 8oz and had a nucal arm so the quick pushing phase was truly amazing. It wasn't just luck. I learned the right info about internal relaxtion during labor. I prepared for a long labor and was surprised that it went as quickly as I did. I did get a minor tear and a few skid marks thanks to the nucal arm, and my water didn't break until the pushing started. Recovery was harder 2nd time around because of one particular skid mark at the front. Yet this second birth was perfect. It wasn't just luck. It was many different things. It was the right birth attendants. It was the right education before birth. It was the right diet during pregnancy. It was the support of my husband. It was letting my body do what it was designed to do. And mostly it was accepting that each birth is different, not just woman to woman, but child to child for the same woman.

I've had the birth that didn't go as I thought it would, and I've had the birth that did. I don't think it was good or bad luck. I also don't think it was all me either. It was a complex mixture in both cases that made the difference. I will always regret some of the things that happened with DS1 even though I have been successful with DS2 in those same areas. It doesn't make me bad, unhealthy or someone who had deep seated issues. It just makes me human.

The perfect birth is possible even for those who did not like how a previous birth happened. I would however recommend switching off those awful reality tv birth shows and spend the time doing something/anything else instead.

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by SilverSage 

To me, an ideal birth is one where mother and baby both come out the other end, no matter how they get there.

This comment really set me off, but hopefully, I can be reasonable. First of all..."to me"...so what? If it's your birth you're talking about, then your idea of an ideal birth is relevant. If it's not your birth, then it's not. Four of my five "births" ended with a living mom and a living baby, and they were as far from anything resembling an ideal as it gets. (The fifth left a living mom, who wished she'd died - it wasn't ideal, either.)

Other random comments:

People in this thead seem to be using the words "disappointed/disappointment" to describe women who have been traumatized. That's really dismissive. You don't have to understand the trauma to understand that it exists. I've been disappointed many times in my life, but my feelings after each of my children arrived were so far beyond disappointment that I don't even have the words to describe the difference. Disappointment was barely on the radar. Pain, anger, fear, despair, extreme frustration...those were all there to a significant degree. Disappointment...not so much.

There's also an underlying vibe, in both the OP and subsequent posts, that women who have birth trauma feel that way, because other people have trained them to expect a "perfect birth". I never expected a perfect birth with my oldest. I'd never even come across the concept of a perfect birth at that time. I expected it to hurt ,and it did. I expected it to be exhausting, and it was. I expected labour to be scary, but it wasn't (I was a little nervous at first, but it was mostly exhilirating). I didn't expect to have a c-section forced on me, with minimal explanation, after I verbally refused consent. I never expected perfect. I also never expected medical assault. And, no - I didn't want a c-section. I grew up looking at a c-section scar (vertical incision, with keloids) and it scared the crap out of me...way, way more than all the birth horror stories in the world. None of that means I expected perfection.

Then, there's the control thing. I think people use "control" differently, but I never, ever, ever expected to be able to control birth. The only control I ever thought I'd have - and I didn't even think about it consciously - was that other people wouldn't do things to me, unless there was an actual life and death emergency situation, without my permission or after I'd said "no". Surgery itself is traumatizing (at least for me). Surgery performed after I said, "no", goes to a whole other level. To this day, I've never had a good explanation for why my son was taken by c-section, or why said c-section was done on such a panic basis, or why I was loaded up with so many drugs afterwards, or anything else. They just decided to do it, and to hell with me. I don't give a crap about "ideal" or "perfect" (and that's not uncommon - I know several other women irl who had unexpected c-sections, who weren't swayed by any natural birth community, and weren't expecting "perfect"...and they still had a hell of a time dealing with it). I just wanted "not abusive" and, preferably, not surgical.

And...Getting over it. I'm slowly getting over the c-section thing, at least to some extent. But, people overlook the fact that it's not as simple as whether one baby arrives via c-section or vaginally, if one is planning to have more kids. I had secondary infertility, and then a couple of miscarriages, after ds1. No medical explanation was ever found. I'll never know if my primary c-section had anything to do with it...or if that c-section had anything to do with the pelvic pain (also no diagnosis ever found) that bothered me for years...and is back, after my last c-section. There can be significant long-term effects from c-sections, even "uncomplicated" c-sections like mine. It's hard to get over something when you were coerced into it, and then it has long-term and/or permanent consequences. I had several people tell me I needed to "get over it" when I was trying to process my third c-section...but most of those people failed to realize that one doesn't get over something until it's over. Now that I've had a tubal, and wll never have another c-section, I can get them into some kind of perspective, and "get over" the experience. I couldn't do that while I was still facing more c-sections.

Oh - and I don't recall the exact comment upthread, but...yeah...I'll probably go to my grave wondering what it's like to actually give birth (in the biological sense - I don't feel up to the fight about whether having someone anesthetize me and cut me open is giving birth or not). It was something I looked forward to for a long time, and I never experienced it. That part is disappointing, but it's pretty minor, in the overall scheme of emotional upheaval related to being legally assaulted by doctors.

[Turquesa]

Oh, wow.  I couldn’t disagree more with the entire premise of this thread. 

OP, you’re at peace with your cesarean, and that’s wonderful.  You are qualified to judge only one woman—yourself—and one set of lived experiences—your own.  And on those grounds, other women have no business judging you.  I think I share a lot of peoples’ sentiments when I say that I’m tired of childbirth—and pretty much every parenting event thereafter—turning into a pissing contest among women.    

But it’s when you start in on your SIL and friends who’ve had cesareans where you lose me.  You are not these women, you will never know the fully story of their births, and you are therefore not in a position to pass judgement on their experiences or how they perceive them.  So what if they feel robbed?  It’s their right.  Just as it’s your right to feel reconciled with your own cesarean. 

The underlying assumption seems to be that if women feel trapped and betrayed within the confines of our obstetric system, if they question routine and invasive (but anti-evidence) interventions, or if they feel that they were manipulated, scared, and maybe even bullied into their cesareans or other interventions……they were just a bunch of shallow, spoiled little ninnies who wanted The Perfect Birth.

Alenushka’s rant about First World women not understanding poor women does nothing for me, either.  There’s already a parallel thread about this in the Vaccinations forum.  This line of thinking didn’t work when I was in grade school and the cafeteria ladies tried to guilt me into eating my vegetables by mentioning the famine in East Africa.  It doesn’t work when somebody is trying to guilt me into consenting to some or all vaccinations.  And it certainly won’t convince me to lie back, spread my legs, and give obstetricians carte blanche to do whatever they please with my body and my baby.  The latter may indeed be the goal.  But exploiting the sufferings of Third World women to make this point is unacceptable.     

We don’t have to dispel the theory of the Perfect Birth.  Every one of us posting here knows that there’s no such thing.  Let’s work instead on debunking the myth of women demanding the Perfect Birth.   

[cat13]

Originally Posted by Turquesa 

Oh, wow.  I couldn’t disagree more with the entire premise of this thread. 

OP, you’re at peace with your cesarean, and that’s wonderful.  You are qualified to judge only one woman—yourself—and one set of lived experiences—your own.  And on those grounds, other women have no business judging you.  I think I share a lot of peoples’ sentiments when I say that I’m tired of childbirth—and pretty much every parenting event thereafter—turning into a pissing contest among women.    

But it’s when you start in on your SIL and friends who’ve had cesareans where you lose me.  You are not these women, you will never know the fully story of their births, and you are therefore not in a position to pass judgement on their experiences or how they perceive them.  So what if they feel robbed?  It’s their right.  Just as it’s your right to feel reconciled with your own cesarean. 

The underlying assumption seems to be that if women feel trapped and betrayed within the confines of our obstetric system, if they question routine and invasive (but anti-evidence) interventions, or if they feel that they were manipulated, scared, and maybe even bullied into their cesareans or other interventions……they were just a bunch of shallow, spoiled little ninnies who wanted The Perfect Birth.

Alenushka’s rant about First World women not understanding poor women does nothing for me, either.  There’s already a parallel thread about this in the Vaccinations forum.  This line of thinking didn’t work when I was in grade school and the cafeteria ladies tried to guilt me into eating my vegetables by mentioning the famine in East Africa.  It doesn’t work when somebody is trying to guilt me into consenting to some or all vaccinations.  And it certainly won’t convince me to lie back, spread my legs, and give obstetricians carte blanche to do whatever they please with my body and my baby.  The latter may indeed be the goal.  But exploiting the sufferings of Third World women to make this point is unacceptable.     

We don’t have to dispel the theory of the Perfect Birth.  Every one of us posting here knows that there’s no such thing.  Let’s work instead on debunking the myth of women demanding the Perfect Birth.   

[chapluqa]

Thank you, Turquesa, you've said so much that I wanted to say, in a very clear and eloquent way.

I would add the following:

In my opinion (after years of research on this whole birth thing), it is not at all unreasonable for women to demand or expect that their basic human rights to bodily autonomy over their own physiological process will be respected. Sadly, this is not the case with birth under the medical model, where pregnancy and childbirth are treated as near-pathological conditions which need to be intervened with in order to 'protect' women and babies from the risks of such conditions.  Of course nearly all of these interventions are at odds with the physiological process of birth and the conditions it needs to take place optimally. Just being in a hospital environment can easily disrupt the flow of hormones which guide the birth process and enable women to birth their babies in the most efficient and manageable way possible. Do other mammals respond well to being forced out of their 'safe place/nest/den' while giving birth? Of course not, it can cause their labor to stop and most people are aware of this. Yet we expect women to be able to birth naturally in the most unnatural of environments with so many interruptions and disturbances.

I'm not saying that staying at home will guarantee an easier or smoother birth for anyone. There are so many factors involved, mental, physical, and emotional, not only within the birthing woman herself, but also with respect to the support people around her. But it's a good start.

There are no guarantees in life. There is no magic formula or list of things to do (or not do) that can ensure that absolutely nothing will go wrong during birth. That is why we have medical facilities available, but just because they exist doesn't mean that giving birth is so inherently dangerous as to justify the outrageous amount of intervention that most women are subject to.  Anyone who attempts to birth at home but has had to transfer to hospital for a medically indicated reason shouldn't be judged (or judge herself) for 'failing' at natural birth or on the other hand having unrealistic expectations of a 'perfect' birth experience.

I don't agree that women who have pleasant, straightforward births are simply 'lucky' - this should be the norm. In an unhindered physiological birth, naturally occurring complications are extremely rare.  Unfortunately the entire maternity system is stacked against us having normal, physiological births. And yet, women are conned into believing they can have a 'perfect birth' within this system, without understanding the forces they are up against or the conditions necessary for the physiological process to proceed smoothly. It doesn't help society in general perpetuates so many unhelpful images and beliefs about how childbirth is a horrible, painful experience that is only worth enduring because you get a baby out of it in the end.

I agree that there's no such thing as a 'perfect' birth, but we should acknowledge that birth is a normal physiological process which is seldom given the chance to unfold as nature intended it. Women are strong and our bodies are evolved/created to do this.

[CI Mama]

Originally Posted by Storm Bride 

People in this thead seem to be using the words "disappointed/disappointment" to describe women who have been traumatized. That's really dismissive. You don't have to understand the trauma to understand that it exists. I've been disappointed many times in my life, but my feelings after each of my children arrived were so far beyond disappointment that I don't even have the words to describe the difference. Disappointment was barely on the radar. Pain, anger, fear, despair, extreme frustration...those were all there to a significant degree. Disappointment...not so much.

This is such an excellent point. One of the things that I wish fervently is that birth trauma could be better understood and better treatments and responses to traumatized women could be developed. No matter where I look, I seem to see 2 prevailing views of birth trauma:

1) Birth trauma exists in the heads of neurotic women who need to get over themselves.

2) Birth trauma exists because mainstream medical care and its emphasis on "unnecessary interventions" of course causes trauma. So steer clear of "mainstream medical" and you should be fine.

My problem with 1) is that this is misogynist and cruel and frankly compounds the trauma by telling the traumatized woman with the feeling that she must be a basket case. 

My problem with 2) is that it lets both the medical community and the natural birth community off the hook. Medical community is just assumed to be brutal and horrible (and presumably beyond reform, so just avoid it like the plague), and the natural birth community can just revert to 1) when women experience trauma during their HB/UC/or whatever. 

And neither of these views leaves any room for understanding or empathy or compassion for the woman who has experienced trauma. In fact, she as an individual is not valued at all. Let alone trying to frame what kind of care and support could actually move her through her trauma. There's no room in either of these stances to understand privilege and its role in birth care and outcomes. And there's no room at all for women who enter their labors perfect healthy & sane and perfectly prepared to have a non-traumatic experience, but end up with trauma anyway.

[GoBecGo]

Reading this thread makes me see red.

I do believe it's about control.  CONTROL of women.  Drink a glass of wine in the 3rd trimester?  BAD DRUNKEN MOTHER.  REFUSE to give baby a 2nd-hand dose of morphine the dr prescribed RIGHT before it has to learn to breathe?  BAD HIPPY MOTHER.

Lie down and do as your told, that is the medicalisation of birth culture.  Seeking to avoid that is NOT about a women seeking a perfect birth, it's about trying to maintain sovereignty over her own body and it's functions it's about wanting to make one's OWN decisions about what needs to be done.  In the 19th century women were accused of wanting unreasonable/irrational things if they complained of their husbands raping them.  Women were having a baby every 14 months, often stillborn or damaged due to the lack of food during pregnancy and their weakened state of health, but they were to feel "grateful" for their "blessings".  Women would refer to having "a good husband" - this was a husband who DIDN'T rape and allowed some spacing between children!  This is no different.  This is just one more thing women are told not to want, not to seek, not to feel bitter about having kept from them.

[DoubleDouble]

Originally Posted by GoBecGo 

Reading this thread makes me see red.

I do believe it's about control.  CONTROL of women.  Drink a glass of wine in the 3rd trimester?  BAD DRUNKEN MOTHER.  REFUSE to give baby a 2nd-hand dose of morphine the dr prescribed RIGHT before it has to learn to breathe?  BAD HIPPY MOTHER.

Lie down and do as your told, that is the medicalisation of birth culture.  Seeking to avoid that is NOT about a women seeking a perfect birth, it's about trying to maintain sovereignty over her own body and it's functions it's about wanting to make one's OWN decisions about what needs to be done.  In the 19th century women were accused of wanting unreasonable/irrational things if they complained of their husbands raping them.  Women were having a baby every 14 months, often stillborn or damaged due to the lack of food during pregnancy and their weakened state of health, but they were to feel "grateful" for their "blessings".  Women would refer to having "a good husband" - this was a husband who DIDN'T rape and allowed some spacing between children!  This is no different.  This is just one more thing women are told not to want, not to seek, not to feel bitter about having kept from them.

What I see on these forums, pretty often by the way, is the attitude "I sought the perfect birth, I had it, and if you didn't, that's because you didn't work hard enough for it, and you are an epic fail because of that". Not nice. And it's also a form of control. And that's what (I think) is the topic of this thread.

Birth was over-medicalized for a long while, and now the push in the opposite direction is starting. Which is great, and normal - every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and it's healthy in general, but it has a potential to turn nasty in its own way and push a bit too far. I'll give examples below.

What makes *me* see red is the insinuations that non-perfect births are somehow a woman's fault. And the gloating that the perfect births are all due to the perfect poster's diligence (and very few admit to just pure luck, such as not having pre-e and not needing an emergency c-section at 31 weeks.) Humility and "Here but for the grace of God go I" is often conspicuously absent from these forums. I've seen it so many times here, it's tiresome.

Same for cesareans - I've always felt this vibe here (not from all members of course, but it's very pronounced nonetheless), that people look down on those who have c-sections. This thread about a cesarean forum was very educational. In fact, the cesarean forum didn't even exist a few months ago - as if women who had it didn't exist either!

And now that whole thing with the orgasm during birth - why thanks, let's raise the plank a little higher still! I've seen a woman ask about it, in full seriousness, about how to do that during birth. Some described their nice experiences that came pretty close to that, others were nice enough to explain that it was just a function of that particular person's neurology and while possible, it's not a requirement (yet, thank God) for everyone to have a "When Harry met Sally" moment during birth.

Another example is that people can's even say they were unable to breastfeed, without humbly apologizing fifty five times that they had the nerve to bleed severely and to have Sheehan's syndrome. That atmosphere is not supportive. Yes we know breastfeeding is best, everyone on these forums knows, so if she said she couldn't, just lay off.

Anyways... *some people* manage to turn the healthiest, most natural ideas into mommy wars and "I'm better ("stronger", crunchier etc) than you" games. That's what I thought this thread was all about.

Edited by DoubleDouble - 2/29/12 at 4:32am

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by CI Mama 

My problem with 1) is that this is misogynist and cruel and frankly compounds the trauma by telling the traumatized woman with the feeling that she must be a basket case. 

Agreed. The "just get over it", "don't wallow", "you're over-reacting", etc. etc. mindset is very prevalent, and it makes it worse. It's very hard to work through things when every attempt to process is shut down by someone telling you that you don't have anything to process. I actually think my almost ten years of barely ever even mentioning my first section contributed, in a major way, to my difficulties coping with my subsequent ones. I never really processed the first one, because people basically said, "it's not such a big deal", or "you're lucky you didn't have to push a baby out of there".

My problem with 2) is that it lets both the medical community and the natural birth community off the hook. Medical community is just assumed to be brutal and horrible (and presumably beyond reform, so just avoid it like the plague), and the natural birth community can just revert to 1) when women experience trauma during their HB/UC/or whatever. 

This is a really good point. I tend to fall into the "natural birth and the natural birth community are all awesome" camp, simply because my homebirth midwife was amazing (yes - despite the bad outcome), and my OBs...not so much (although my last one was a major improvement over any of the others). Intellectually, I know that the medical community aren't all horrible, and I know that homebirth midwives and the natural birth community, in general, also run the gamut. It's just that my own experience colours things a lot, and my experiences have been pretty solidly on the "medical community = abusive/natural birth community = amazing" side of things.

And neither of these views leaves any room for understanding or empathy or compassion for the woman who has experienced trauma. In fact, she as an individual is not valued at all. Let alone trying to frame what kind of care and support could actually move her through her trauma. There's no room in either of these stances to understand privilege and its role in birth care and outcomes. And there's no room at all for women who enter their labors perfect healthy & sane and perfectly prepared to have a non-traumatic experience, but end up with trauma anyway.

Well said. I have some thoughts on this, but just noticed the time, and I need to hustle to get my kids out for a field trip - we're going to the museum to see a blue whale skeleton.

[mambera]

Originally Posted by chapluqa 

It doesn't help society in general perpetuates so many unhelpful images and beliefs about how childbirth is a horrible, painful experience that is only worth enduring because you get a baby out of it in the end.

Well, I'd suggest that the reason for the perpetuation of these 'beliefs' is that many (perhaps most?) women *do* experience childbirth as horrible, painful, and only worth enduring because you get a baby out of it.  (Good Lord, would anyone here choose to go through labor if *not* for the baby?!)  Certainly this has been my experience in two rapid, straightforward, 'natural' labors.  Best of luck to you for something different, but I'd be wary of assuming that the 'horrible, painful' bit experienced by many is merely a result of suboptimal delivery environments.

I agree that there's no such thing as a 'perfect' birth, but we should acknowledge that birth is a normal physiological process which is seldom given the chance to unfold as nature intended it. Women are strong and our bodies are evolved/created to do this.

Right, because normal labor and delivery 'as nature intended it' is freaking painful, at least IME and in the experience of most mothers I've spoken to.  Evolution doesn't care about anyone's subjective experience.

[chapluqa]

Mambera -  I wasn't trying to imply that giving birth wasn't horribly painful for some, many, or most women. The point was that for our entire lives we're conditioned to expect it to be this horribly painful emergency situation, so it's not surprising that most women experience it that way, regardless of the environment they give birth in (although I argue that this can make a big difference).

However, I wouldn't say that's a universal human experience to have horrible, painful birth, just as 'orgasmic birth' isn't something that every woman experiences. My own mother describes giving birth to me (her first and only child, delivered naturally in a hospital) as 'blissful' and not at all painful. Intense, yes, but not painful. At the time she was heavily involved in personal development seminars that promoted the idea that we are powerful and create our own reality, so I suppose she envisioned the experience she wanted to have and made it happen by actively de-programming herself from the mainstream expectations of birth as horrible and painful. I don't think she was just 'lucky' - her doctor was completely surprised that she had such an easy labor as he was anticipating she would need a c-section due to being a tiny woman.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all we need do is visualize our perfect birth and everything will go according to plan - as I've said before, there are no guarantees in life. But there's no denying that the mind-body connection exists and that expectations can make a difference.  My personal plan for my upcoming birth is to do as much as possible to create the right external and internal conditions to enable the physiological birth process, but also to let go of any expectations about how easy/hard, painful/not painful it will be. Instead I will focus on the knowledge that my body knows what to do and the best thing I can do is relax and let it do its thing. I won't be surprised if it's bloody hard work but I have total confidence that I can do it.

GoBecGo - ITA with everything you are saying. It makes me so sad/angry to hear people say to a woman who has gone through a birthing ordeal (usually, but not always at a hospital), "at least you have a healthy baby."  Shouldn't we aspire to a bit more than that rather than just accepting that because this is the new 'norm' that it's the way it always has been and always will be?

I don't blame individual women if they have such crappy birth experiences. As mentioned above, it is largely a result of patriarchal control over women's bodies which defines our maternity system. It's not the fault of individual women but it's certainly our collective responsibility to reclaim our bodily autonomy.

I daresay that way, way back (and perhaps in the few matriarchal societies left today) when pregnancy and childbirth were regarded as 'strictly women's business' and were the provenance of multigenerational communities of women sharing collective wisdom, they were simply regarded as a normal events in a woman's life rather than 'the most dangerous thing a woman will do in her lifetime'. Even just a few generations ago most women would have had first-hand experience of attending births, learning from women breastfeeding in the community, and taking care of infants while growing up - while sadly today we need to read stacks of books, attend classes and hire experts to teach us these essential skills of womanhood. 

[mambera]

Originally Posted by chapluqa 

I daresay that way, way back (and perhaps in the few matriarchal societies left today) when pregnancy and childbirth were regarded as 'strictly women's business' and were the provenance of multigenerational communities of women sharing collective wisdom, they were simply regarded as a normal events in a woman's life rather than 'the most dangerous thing a woman will do in her lifetime'. Even just a few generations ago most women would have had first-hand experience of attending births, learning from women breastfeeding in the community, and taking care of infants while growing up - while sadly today we need to read stacks of books, attend classes and hire experts to teach us these essential skills of womanhood. 

Hmm.  I rather think that childbirth was, until recently, quite the most dangerous thing most women would do in their lifetimes.  There was a piece in the NY Times recently by a Western woman who became pregnant and gave birth in Somalia.  Apparently they have a saying about pregnant women there: "The mouth of your grave is open."

My own mother describes giving birth to me (her first and only child, delivered naturally in a hospital) as 'blissful' and not at all painful.

Actually my mother also said she didn't find childbirth particularly painful, although she is the only woman I've ever heard say that.  (She's the reason I put 'most' and not 'all' in my previous post.)  But it's definitely her birth stories that shaped my initial thoughts/expectations about childbirth.  Before I had my first I was hoping I'd gotten whichever gene was responsible for the painless childbirth; sadly it doesn't seem to have worked out that way.  I wouldn't say I was *expecting* horrible pain, although I was aware it was a possibility.  I certainly would *not* say that I had been 'conditioned' to believe it would be a horribly painful experience.  Nonetheless, fbow, horrible pain is what I got, and what lots of other women get too regardless of how much preparation they've done or how optimal their birthing environments.

This idea that bad childbirth experiences are "largely a result of patriarchal control over women's bodies" is just not right.  Maybe *some* of them are, but many others are traumatic just all on their own.
 

[DoubleDouble]

Originally Posted by chapluqa 

... At the time she was heavily involved in personal development seminars that promoted the idea that we are powerful and create our own reality, so I suppose she envisioned the experience she wanted to have and made it happen by actively de-programming herself from the mainstream expectations of birth as horrible and painful. I don't think she was just 'lucky'

My mom fully expected birth to be awful and painful, and she said pain wasn't a big deal. When she started having regular contractions and was sure is was birth time, she *walked* to the hospital (didn't want to call the ambulance). To use her words about the pain of childbirth, "it's nothing you can't put up with for an hour". That gives an idea about the level of pain and the duration of it, doesn't it? (My mom is a very realistic, sound-sense, skeptical person that doesn't believe in creating alternate realities, Universe hearing our thoughts, etc.) And she fully admits she was lucky.

Originally Posted by chapluqa 

I don't blame individual women if they have such crappy birth experiences. As mentioned above, it is largely a result of patriarchal control over women's bodies which defines our maternity system. It's not the fault of individual women but it's certainly our collective responsibility to reclaim our bodily autonomy.

I daresay that way, way back (and perhaps in the few matriarchal societies left today) when pregnancy and childbirth were regarded as 'strictly women's business' and were the provenance of multigenerational communities of women sharing collective wisdom, they were simply regarded as a normal events in a woman's life rather than 'the most dangerous thing a woman will do in her lifetime'. Even just a few generations ago most women would have had first-hand experience of attending births, learning from women breastfeeding in the community, and taking care of infants while growing up - while sadly today we need to read stacks of books, attend classes and hire experts to teach us these essential skills of womanhood. 

The lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 out of 16 in sub-Saharan Africa, for childbirth and pregnancy related complications (compared to 1 out of 4000 risk here in the patriarchy). I don't know what most women there learn about childbirth, but I'm willing to bet some of that knowledge is "she was in awful pain, and she's now dead, because no one could help her. I hope I survive." Seriously, if every 16th woman I know died in childbirth, I wouldn't feel like a powerful earth goddess, I'd be scared.

The figure for Afghanistan is 1 out of 8. 

Edited by DoubleDouble - 3/1/12 at 1:26am

[slmommy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mambera 

This idea that bad childbirth experiences are "largely a result of patriarchal control over women's bodies" is just not right.  Maybe *some* of them are, but many others are traumatic just all on their own.
 

Originally Posted by DoubleDouble 

The lifetime risk of maternal death is 1 out of 16 in sub-Saharan Africa, for childbirth and pregnancy related complications (compared to 1 out of 4000 risk here in the patriarchy). I don't know what most women there learn about childbirth, but I'm willing to bet some of that knowledge is "she was in awful pain, and she's now dead, because no one could help her. I hope I survive." Seriously, if every 16th woman I know died in childbirth, I wouldn't feel like a powerful earth goddess, I'd be scared.

The figure for Afghanistan is 1 out of 8. 

I'm sorry, I realize you are two different posters, but I think this should be pointed out in regards to "This idea that bad childbirth experiences are "largely a result of patriarchal control over women's bodies" is just not right."

These two countries, in addition to poverty and bad healthcare access, etc. have HORRIBLE patriarchal control over women's bodies - FGM in Somalia, in Afghanistan, childbrides are having their first babies very young, domestic abuse/rape are huge issues.

Maybe this is why we shouldn't be comparing women birthing in US/Europe to women birthing in developing, war torn countries with terrible women's rights.

Honestly I don't know why women are telling other women how they should feel about their birth experiences. I realize it goes BOTH ways.

I think this ideal of "perfect birth" is silly, we don't apply that to anything else... is there a myth of "perfect marriage"? Do we tell women they shouldn't feel bad about their divorces? Or that if they had done x, y, z, everything would have been perfect and it's their fault? Ehh... if that happens, I guess I just haven't seen it. I guess I wouldn't be surprised though, it's fun to be judgey on the internet.... 

[DoubleDouble]

Originally Posted by slmommy 

Quote:

I'm sorry, I realize you are two different posters, but I think this should be pointed out in regards to "This idea that bad childbirth experiences are "largely a result of patriarchal control over women's bodies" is just not right."

These two countries, in addition to poverty and bad healthcare access, etc. have HORRIBLE patriarchal control over women's bodies - FGM in Somalia, in Afghanistan, childbrides are having their first babies very young, domestic abuse/rape are huge issues.

It was in the reply to the idea that evolution, Mother Nature, and seeing other women give birth will somehow guarantee safer childbirth (the non-FGM part of Africa has bad childbirth safety statistics too.) Same for childbrides in Afghanistan - average age of menarche is 12, if evolution and Mother Nature cared that much for birth success, the first menstruation would come after the age of 20, when the bones stop growing (actually pelvic bones keep growing and spreading till old age.)

Maybe this is why we shouldn't be comparing women birthing in US/Europe to women birthing in developing, war torn countries with terrible women's rights.

But that's exactly where Mother Nature has a chance to shine - no medicine, no intrusive hospital personnel, just the woman and her female relatives who has seen childbirth before and "had first-hand experience of attending births". So why does Mother Nature fail so miserably?

And before someone mentions nutrition, what does Mother Nature and evolution have to do with nutrition - if there is a drought and a famine, that's normal, that's how Nature operates!

Honestly I don't know why women are telling other women how they should feel about their birth experiences. I realize it goes BOTH ways.

I think this ideal of "perfect birth" is silly, we don't apply that to anything else... is there a myth of "perfect marriage"? Do we tell women they shouldn't feel bad about their divorces? Or that if they had done x, y, z, everything would have been perfect and it's their fault? Ehh... if that happens, I guess I just haven't seen it. I guess I wouldn't be surprised though, it's fun to be judgey on the internet.... 

Now this is pure genius! I haven't thought about it that way. Although "perfect marriage" was IT a few decades ago, and  women got blamed for failing to nourish the perfect marriage and getting divorced. Maybe the same cycle will happen to perfect birth, too?

Edited by DoubleDouble - 3/1/12 at 5:32am

[AbbyGrant]

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Edited by AbbyGrant - 6/28/12 at 9:46pm

[AbbyGrant]

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Edited by AbbyGrant - 6/28/12 at 9:46pm

[slmommy]

Double Double - 

 Ahh, ok, I totally agree that mother nature can be terribly cruel sometimes. I personally feel that she gets a lot of things right, a lot of the time... but there are no gaurantees or absolutes in life. haha maybe that is an absolute - no absolutes!!

I still think it is problematic to be using Somalia and Afghanistan to show what "natural birth" is. Abuse and FGM aside, we can say famine could be mother nature, but I'm pretty sure she didn't intend women to be covered in burqas = low vitamin D = rickets. There are just a lot of other social/political/cultural/economic factors going on that "mother nature" is not responsible for.

I agree that sometimes the rhetoric among the NCB community has gone too far. However, I think it was mostly in reaction/response to the standard medical rhetoric on childbirth which dominates. I know there is a backlash going on. Hopefully things can improve because the macro rhetoric/attitudes of both movements/systems does hurt a lot of women. I do not think anyone should be telling a woman how to view/feel about her birth experience. 

[CI Mama]

This thread is about a lot of things...one of which is how our expectations shape our birth experience.

And I think it's really important to understand that a woman who is processing her birth (no matter how it went) and/or coping with a trauma has a really different relationship to expectations than a woman who is preparing for a birth (especially a first birth). Birth is such a big unknown, and so for the woman preparing to birth, it makes sense to do a lot of research, learn about all the possible things that might happen during birth, understand what options will be available to her in different scenarios, etc. Putting birth in a cultural context, having a theory about how to make it the best possible birth...these are important tasks for the soon-to-be-birthing woman. It's a nice idea that we can all do this work & preparation while at the same time letting go of all expectations, but in reality I think only a few enlightened souls really have that capacity. We enter our labors with expectations & with hopes. That's just how it is.

But for many of us, perhaps most of us, birth is going to present things that we don't expect, and that's why we also have to put our faith in something, because there are unknowns and the only tool we have to face the unknown is faith. We put our faith in our caregivers or a system of care, or in our bodies, or in our belief in something bigger than ourselves to carry us through.

And then the birth happens. And sometimes our expectations are met & our hopes are realized & our faith appears to be rewarded. And sometimes, there is disappointment, trauma, and betrayal of faith. Sometimes we're happy, sometimes we're not. Many of us have an experience that is a jumbled up mix of things that don't necessarily make logical sense. But whatever expectations we had, they are in the past now. The birth is no longer a theoretical future thing, it is a known past thing. Our expectations ring true or they ring false. Our faith is strengthened or it is betrayed. Our relationship to those expectations has shifted, and the conversation has to shift, too.

To praise or blame ourselves or other women for our expectations & hopes is to give them a power that they don't have. Yes, there is a body-mind connection and yes how we think about birth matters. But that doesn't mean that our expectations and hopes have the power to determine the outcomes of our births. Our expectations & hopes are important because they are pieces of our stories and our stories matter. But our birth experiences are not narratives to be written by our minds.

As I've been processing my birth experience, I have found that the most healing and beneficial thing is just have space to tell it like it was, and to feel that my story is heard & valued. And for some reason, this is a very difficult thing for us to do in community, especially when it comes to difficult experiences.

[Plummeting]

I share Turquesa's sentiment about this all being a "first world problem". That's something you say when someone complains about their smart phone being on the fritz, not something you say to women who are talking about the issues of bodily integrity and self-determination, which is generally what discussions about childbirth are about. If you want to say it applies equally to a woman's right to choose how to she gives birth, you might as well apply it to EVERYTHING. Wish your kid's cancer treatment didn't make her so ill? That's a first world problem. Some parents don't have any options for treating cancer at all. Upset about the idea of your employer not covering birth control? Pshaw! Such a first world problem - some women don't have access to any form of birth control. Fighting your employer to pay you for those 30 hours of overtime you worked last month? Really, you shouldn't complain. There are people in the world who would love to get paid $35/hr. What makes you think you deserve overtime, too? It's a pathetic argument used to shame women into keeping their thoughts to themselves.

It's funny to come across that argument on MDC, because where it's most usually thrown about as if it actually has any merit is on that blog, and after reading another nonsensical tirade over there, complete with nonsensical comments about what a "first world problem" wanting bodily integrity and the right to make one's own decisions in childbirth was, I was discussing it with my husband. It seems to me like it fits right into Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs. No one in their right mind would say, about ANY OTHER TOPIC, that once you've got your basic physiologic needs met, you should just give up. It's absurd on the very face of it. And yet for some reason, many otherwise rational, intelligent people, will say it about childbirth. I think it has nothing to do with what one really thinks, and everything to do with supporting the idea that we aren't really entitled to seek out anything more than what we get. We should take it and shut up, because that's what's comfortable for certain people.

OP, I'm glad you had a satisfactory birth experience. Let your family members and friends process theirs however they want. It's not your place to tell them how they feel is wrong. I think it's terrible that women ever act like other women have failed when they require a c-section. I also think it's terrible that women ever act like other women have nothing to complain about if they have one that they are upset about. There IS a lot of luck in childbirth. There are some things that no amount of preparation can fix. You can read all you want and educate yourself as much as possible, but if that baby is transverse and isn't budging, you're getting a c-section, whether you like it or not. No shame in that, but certainly a woman has a right to be upset that she had to undergo surgery to give birth. I would feel that way - not because I felt like a failure (how the heck would it be my fault?) but because I don't WANT a c-section scar and I don't WANT the added risk that comes to me and my baby from having one and I don't WANT to be recovering for that long. There's nothing wrong with being upset over those things. There's something very, very wrong with telling a woman that if she is, it's because she went into it with the wrong mindset, just as there's something very, very wrong with telling a woman that if she had only done something better, she wouldn't have needed a cesarean.