The point about hypnosis regarding intuition is simple. If a woman knows that she doesn't trust the doctors opinions, her intuition is more valuable. She believes herself more than the doctors in that situation and will cooperate with her body for the best outcome if she does not compromise.
Put another way;
She should seek what her subconscious mind can agree to for the best outcome. And she can expect help from her subconscious when she chooses the path she intuitively feels is right for her. What you want on the deepest level is what you need to cooperate with. Educate that wanting for the best outcome and the best chance for influencing yourself in the right direction.
Indeed. A hurricane might take my home and possessions but a health crisis threatens something much more precious to me.
If you would have asked me this maybe only a year ago I would've said that it is important but not as important as knowing things scientifically. Fast forward to this pregnancy and the closer I get to my due date the more I am relying almost completely on intuition. It is a very hard thing to describe to people and I can see how it seems absolutely loony to UC and especially do your own prenatals but now I wouldn't do it any other way...unless I felt that I should during that pregnancy.
I'm not getting into it about atheism, how I deal with not having evidence of the non-existence of god, etc., because it all seems deeply irrelevant to the topic of the thread.
My point is NOT that stress doesn't effect women, or pregnancies, or babies, or anything. I think you need a sense of proportion. If you find medical test results as stressful as you think the average person found living through Katrina in New Orleans, or Sandy on Staten Island, or as stressful as you would personally find those things, I cannot argue with your perception. However, I think that level of sensitivity (or whatever you care to call it) is bound to be a crippling inconvenience in the course of an ordinary life.
What I'm confused about is how the fact that you read something about breech birth while pregnant means you have fabulous intuition, but the fact that you also (per other posts) read about TTTS and twins while pregnant (but ended up not have twins) doesn't mean anything.
This is something I have frequently noticed with those who claim they are intuitive -- they vividly remember every time they can claim their intitution has paid off (no matter how stretched the claim) but blithely ignore and forget about all the times their intutition was wrong. Its called bias memory.
What I'm confused about is how the fact that you read something about breech birth while pregnant means you have fabulous intuition, but the fact that you also (per other posts) read about TTTS and twins while pregnant (but ended up not have twins) doesn't mean anything.
This is something I have frequently noticed with those who claim they are intuitive -- they vividly remember every time they can claim their intitution has paid off (no matter how stretched the claim) but blithely ignore and forget about all the times their intutition was wrong. Its called bias memory.
I didn't buy a book about TTTS. I didn't even feel it applied to my needs to know about it but I learned about it anyway to the degree that I could intelligently answer that I didn't need to concern myself with treating it at the time that thread you refer to was going. And I ended up being right, ironically.
I didn't think it was possible that I had ID twins. Maybe triplets, I said, if one of the eggs was ID - but if that was the case and it needed intervention at some point then I would need the pregnancy to progress as triplets past 27 weeks before even considering the what-ifs that situation would cause and the possible need for intervention that would then have to be considered. It did not maintain characteristics that made me suspicious of triplets that long. My measurements stalled by 24 weeks and then fell backwards 13cm
Furthermore the baby I birthed did not lose an ID twin of his own in pregnancy due to TTTS, so I was right. I didn't need to do anything with TTTS. He had a singleton placenta.
Sorry but the example you gave actually supports my position.
I'm not getting into it about atheism, how I deal with not having evidence of the non-existence of god, etc., because it all seems deeply irrelevant to the topic of the thread.
My point is NOT that stress doesn't effect women, or pregnancies, or babies, or anything. I think you need a sense of proportion. If you find medical test results as stressful as you think the average person found living through Katrina in New Orleans, or Sandy on Staten Island, or as stressful as you would personally find those things, I cannot argue with your perception. However, I think that level of sensitivity (or whatever you care to call it) is bound to be a crippling inconvenience in the course of an ordinary life.
I really like how this thread brings out the different sides of the UC movement. There are many reasons that a woman can justify a UC and it does not have to hinge on intuition or a particular theology or philosophy.
Childbirth is a suggestible time and I think it's a good thing for women to be listened to and not ordered around during the process.
Nature did not make them suggestible so that they could be told their natural birth couldn't work and they need to submit to unnatural procedures. They are supposed to be paying attention to their complex maternal instincts instead.
And the fact that most "rescues" of birthing women and their babies is not evidence based medicine makes it all the more ridiculous that such women should listen to the fearful selling of intervention.
"However, I think that level of sensitivity (or whatever you care to call it) is bound to be a crippling inconvenience in the course of an ordinary life."
I would say the same to someone getting super stressed about a house fire. But it's not up to us to decide what should freak another person out. Humans are too complicated. Better to just put extra emphasis on avoiding the stress factors or just not paying attention to them as priorities, unless productive focus is needed to improve the situation.
In my case I focused on productive attention to caring for my pregnancy. I avoided negative, useless distractions or worries, as I perceived them.
Meepy, don't feel obligated to respond since you do not think religion relates to this topic, but - do you remember these words you typed to me when I was halfway through the pregnancy? I don't blame you for abandoning faith if this is what you believe. God gave us intuition, instinct and if we work with our bodies - control over our bodily functions to help us get through birth.
I needed an easy labor with a ready baby and God gave me just that. His needs and mine are one, just as Jesus promised. An easy safe delivery when we follow our nature honors the God who made us and provides for His heritage. That's my belief.
How fast we dilate and how easy our labors are partly if not entirely depends on those gifts. I had 20 minutes of active labor before he was all the way out. I felt my cervix open up extra to accommodate his head, which was bigger than his tummy and chest without resistance or hesitation while I pushed. Do you believe that the cervix obeys the mind and opens according the woman's acceptance of the birth process? I do, especially after what I witnessed myself.
I needed an easy labor with a ready baby and God gave me just that. His needs and mine are one, just as Jesus promised.
BlessedJess, this is actually not where I fall of the train of faith, but I still think you're talking about a process in which you got lucky.
You needed an easy labor with a ready baby, and you say God provided, because His needs and yours are one.
Did I not need an easy labor with a ready baby as much as you did? Because I thought I needed that, but I got an obstetrical hemorrhage and a premature infant. Do you think I had placenta previa because I just didn't accept Jesus into my heart? Because I can go out into the wild and find you some women of sincere faith who had the same problem I did, which is that it turns out to be that there's nothing preventing the placenta from implanting over the cervix, it just usually doesn't happen to happen that way.
There are a lot of possible ways to interpret the evidence of your easy birth as contrasted with my crappy luck. It does not seem to me to add up to a universal assurance that God will give you what you need, or what you want. Sometimes this birth process genuinely does go badly, and I don't think that's because the women involved have insufficient faith or are otherwise doing something wrong.
While I am a deep believer in intuition/cosmic truth/and so on, I am also a believer that within the scope of what we are capable of knowing in this moment that "science" can be a fantastic aumentation to our inner knowing. (For me denying either is like throwing the baby out with the bath water) Intuition for many is recalling the patterns and systems we have known/learned in our life and for others it may also including calling on what they might identify as a source beyond themself (cosmic force.. so on.)
Science is only fact for the time in which is discovered, indeed there is much more we DON’T know than what we actually DO know. At one point it was believed having babies in a sterile environment with little human interaction was beneficial (and at the time backed by “evidence.”) Spirituality/intuition, “science” and “evidence” all have one vital thing in common; they all require someone to believe them to be true, through their own experience and/or research. Furthermore, I would argue that successful natural childbirth (or heck most births) requires spirituality/intuition to enter the experience.
When it comes down to it I believe in something greater than myself. But more so, I believe in myself because I am the primary source for my human experience. I don't as a matter of course seek validation outside myself though I will look to see if I can find resources to help me navigate places I am unsure of. These resouces might even be scientific data or spiritual guidance. That is what is right for me.
Additionally I believe intuition is vital in pregnancy and labor.
This.
For me, intuition is part of my daily life because it is part of trusting myself. It isn't more important or less important in pregnancy and childbirth than at any other time.
I don't look only to my intuition for answers to everything, but I don't distrust it when it does give me an answer.
I read a saying recently "We don't know who discovered water, but it probably wasn't a fish". When we are surrounded by something all the time it is very difficult to be aware of it, and I do believe that some greater force flowing through the universe is such a thing. Some people are more able than others to tune into it, and some people simply chose to distrust it and not tune in. Trusting your intuition is the same to me as trusting my instincts. I don't discount experience playing a role as Banana 731 says, certainly it does, but I can't discount something beyond this as well.
Oh, and prescottchels, living in the city and working 9-5 and birthing in a hospital doesn't mean you can't be an intuitive. Speaking from personal experience. 
There are a lot of possible ways to interpret the evidence of your easy birth as contrasted with my crappy luck.
I agree. I don't believe in luck, but I also don't see it as you doing something wrong. It's not wrong to have the experience you did. Job had experiences that were awfully trying and tragic.
As a believer there is something to be gained from whatever experience you get but I really believe the point of being a priest and a king is that you have the ability to influence outcomes in your life and partake in blessings. And there are ways to experience tragedy as a blessing but that also does not make my previous statement untrue.
It is both in my favor and God's for a healthy baby and I believed I was working with him towards that outcome.
Now if God said I was going to have a stillbirth but it would all work out according to his purpose, then I would work according to that. Or if God said I had to go to the hospital and it would be difficult I would still believe that experience would work out to my advantage and I would be carried through.
Generally the outcome will be good and for a good reason. And I really believe that deep down we will feel what is going on and be okay with it, especially if we believe and have faith in God. But you don't have to proffess faith in God to still have a similar experience. Matt 25 makes it clear that some who serve Him don't realize it at the time. They just do it from the heart. So there are probably multiple ways of looking at this same truth about ourselves. Religious or otherwise.
I believe God gives us the gift of intuition for good reason.
I love your story,thanks for sharing.
As a pregnant mom going for an HBAC with my second child, I do not tell a lot of people what I think or what I am going to do because of my beliefs/intuition and the perceived "dangers" involved. I just let the midwives and OB have their thing to say and then I decide what I will do.
I feel like this time I am heavily relying on intuition, whereas, with my first, she ended up as an "emergency" c-section. Actually, after speaking with my midwives this time, I feel like it was an unnecessary c-section. I'm not mad or grieving for my desired birth, but still, I'm so set on listening to my own body to know what to do that I feel I have had the healthiest pregnancy I could have had. I also know exactly what I am getting into. I have researched and researched and asked question after question, read books, talked to professionals and it has only solidified what my intuition has told me. Don't worry, I've heard lots of "the other side". I know my risks.
I've had two ultrasounds, bloodwork, regular checkups, and every time each professional is very happy with this pregnancy. However, I absolutely am planning on staying at home and having the absolute fewest interventions (VE's and fetal monitoring included). I have decided each and every thing that has happened to or entered my body and I don't plan on letting the midwives just have their way just because it's "the standard".
There is always more to life than what we can see. I have never paid much attention to my own intuition up until now, but I'm wondering why not. It's been a marvelous experience. I would recommend it to anyone. :)
Did you not read the part of the op wherein she studied and learned about the things she was led to study?
To answer the op, I believe intuition is incredibly powerful - if we listen to it. I don't know why some people see the word or idea, "intuition," and automatically assume it means "no study". Intuition has a place. So does study and preparation. My intuition has saved my skin more times than "study" ever has (I'm talking regular life here, not pregnancy and birth).
It looks like this thread is going to go the same direction as the other one, so I'm not reading more. BlessedJess, I'm one of your true supporters. I think you are awesome! I think you did the right thing.
I really miss the old mothering of around 2007 (before it became uber-militant, which is when I left the first time). There were fewer attacks on ucing in the uc forum.
When intuition is playing a role, you do want that c-section if that's what you need. You knew what you wanted in your case and it wasn't that surgery.
Some might call that your intuition. I don't believe intuition only tells a woman good news. But it's amazingly helpful.
I read a book for multiples last time I was pregnant after hearing two heartbeats. The OB who wrote that book put a lot of faith in intuition and she ran a special mulitples clinic with incredibly better statistics than the average hospital, bigger, healthier later babies on average. It's goofy sounding to say you only "feel something is off," but sometimes that's all the warning you get that preterm labor is threatening, for example. I had just such feelings last time and was delighted to make it to 36 weeks based on that nebulous feeling and suspicion.
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