Natural vs. Industrial Childbirth

Some of y'all know that this is one of my pet topics, and has been since early 2008. It began when I was in massage therapy school, working on my final project, which our class chose as Postnatal Massage. Throughout the course of researching the project, I studied the physiological effects of labor and delivery, and it was then that I began to learn how many problems a so-called "traditional" hospital birth in the lithotomy position can truly create for so many women and their babies. (The lithotomy position is where you're put on your back, legs up in stirrups. Yeah. That position actually closes off the birth canal by up to 30%... making childbirth more painful, more dangerous, and therefore "justifying" more interventions that would otherwise be totally unnecessary, such as episiotomy, or in many, many cases nowadays, cesarian section. So why are women put into that ridiculous posture to give birth? Because it makes it easier for the M.D. to see what's going on. Godforbid he be uncomfortable.)

I also learned about the epidural-pitocin-epidural-Cesarian vicious circle: Most women are never taught anything about how to prepare for the pain of childbirth, much less how to actually get through it. They arrive at the hospital, and they're usually offered an epidural, which numbs them from the mid-torso down. This almost invariably slows down contractions and the labor fails to "progress" (hospital-speak for, "you're not having this baby quickly enough for our convenience"). The slowing down of contractions then "necessitates" the use of pitocin, which is a synthetic version of the hormone oxytocin, except that it provokes much stronger contractions than oxytocin would, which in turn create more intense pain. At that point, the mother may be offered another epidural. Either way, the baby is still subjected to those unnaturally intense contractions. This often puts the baby in distress-- often the fetal heart rate will begin to slow, and at that point you've got a full-on "crisis"- necessitating a cesarian section. Surprise surprise. Seems rather obvious that there is something wrong with this picture. For one thing, it's just plain bad medicine.

From there, I started to study a bit about the history of midwifery in the United States, and how midwives were demonized by the AMA (notorious for stamping out competition-- just ask any chiropractor), and how midwifery was made illegal in poorer communities, where women were herded towards the hospital system to be treated by obstetricians-- who are trained surgeons-- to give birth. Hmm. Is it any surprise that by the year 2005, 1 in every 3 births in the United States was done via Cesarian section, which is a major surgery, with risk factors of its own, including serious infection?

As part of the same reserach project, I also looked into alternatives to hospital care, and I discovered home birth and waterbirth. It is amazing how many clips of beautiful, peaceful, serene waterbirths you can find on YouTube! No screaming bloody murder. No agony. No trauma. I was shocked and amazed the first time I witnessed these clips. I was looking at an image of childbirth I had never been exposed to before. I just couldn't believe it.

It also happened that, around the same time, my friend Stacy, one of the yoga teachers at the Bikram studio where I practice, was pregnant. She chose a natural birth with a midwife, at a local birth center, and she shared with me about her experience as well. At this point, my eyes were opened, and there was no going back.

In November of last year, I decided to enhance my massage therapy training with a Pre- and Perinatal Certification, which I completed with the fabulous Carole Osborne-Sheets and her assistants. Once again, we studied the physiology of pregnancy, labor, and delivery in great detail, and once again, it was just so clear to me how natural, empowering, important and yes, very intense, this process is for women. It isn't something to be feared, avoided, sedated, drugged, or operated away! I feel very, very strongly that this is a feminist issue. Women need to take back pregnancy and childbirth for ourselves in this country, or we run the risk of losing natural childbirth altogether.

Here are four resources I found extremely interesting:

Adbusters October 2008: Industrial Childbirth

Consumer Reports October 2008: Maternity Care: High Tech vs. High Touch

The Business of Being Born


Orgasmic Birth


If there are any women in your life who are giving birth in the near future, might choose to become mothers, or if you may do so yourself some day, then I truly can't recommend these resources highly enough!