Stop Blaming Your OB

Hi!  Welcome to my first ever blog post! 

I'm sure some people are going to read this and think, "Wow.  This is odd for a natural birth blog."  I hope I'm not losing my entire follower base (all 4 of you... HI!) and ruining my carreer forever with this one.

Dear crunchy community... Please don't crucify me!
Everyone else, please read on, then sign up for a birth class!

OK... disclaimers overwith... on to the topic at hand!


Let's admit it.  The more natural birth becomes a "trend" in this country, the more people learn about neonatal and maternal mortality rates as they relate to unnecessary interventions, the more we start to point the finger at the obstetricians.

Let me clarify something here.  I'm really doing my best not to make blanket statements.  There are definitely good AND bad O.B.'s out there, and it's my sincere hope that as more and more women take control of their births that those "bad eggs" go out of business.  Litterally.

I personally have had one medicated hospital birth, one birth center birth, and one home birth.  Of the three, I definitely preffered the home birth (it was much like the birth center birth, minus the car ride).  However I have a sister who's an RN in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit).  Unfortunately she sees every home birth that goes wrong.  They are rare, but when you see every single case gone wrong it tends to skew your perception of things a little bit.  If you saw every single car wreck in the whole U.S., you'd probably never get in a car again.

But I digress.

The point is, my last two births drove my sister crazy.  She's all for natural birth, she just thinks it should happen in a hospital, just in case.  It's one of those topics we usually have to agree to disagree on.  She knows how messed up the system can be in our country.  However, her argument to me is, "How can we change birth in this country if every person who wants a natural birth does it at home?  We need strong educated women to show the hospitals what natural birth looks like."

Folks, on some level I have to admit it.  She has a point.

Take the following stories into consideration.  Both are completely true.

I once interviewed a midwife to find out more about her practice.  She asked me if I had given birth naturally before.  The reason she asked is that if my answer was "No" either due to a previously medicated birth or being a first time mom, her criteria for my care would change slightly.  She said that she now required all her first time natural birth moms to read five natural birth books (dads got away with only 3, lucky ducks) and every mom was REQUIRED to take a natural birth class.  The reason for this is that she had seen the following scenario one too many times:

Moms would come to her clinic asking for a birth center or home birth.  They would rave about how they had been born at home, how their mothers had all natural births or how they had seen a friend have a natural birth and how they were so excited to have a natural birth themselves.   They figured since they'd signed up to give birth with a midwife (and outside of the hospital to boot) then they were good to go.  Then the big day would arrive and as labor got harder and harder she had too many moms giving up and quitting, begging to be sent to the hospital for an epidural.  She had found as the years went on that too many moms just weren't prepared for the work of birth.

Then there's Carla.  When she was pregnant with her first child she read every book she could get her hands on.  She took a good natural birth class.  She knew why she needed to avoid IV's and how to relax so her body would work effectively.  When she arrived at the hospital she agreed to a hep-lock, allowed herself to be strapped to the monitor (mostly to keep the nurses happy), but then she told everyone to stay out of her way.  Her baby boy was born completely naturally.  Only after the fact did she find out her OB's cesarean rate.  It was high.  So high she almost how to wonder how she escaped the knife.  He told her something every mother needs to hear.

"If every mom came in here as prepared as you were, I might start to think that natural birth works!"

Incidentally, her following two births were also natural births in a hospital setting.

When I teach a birth class, it is my sincere hope that couples walk away with the tools they will need to empower themselves in whatever situation they find themselves in.  Hiring a midwife is great, but it's not a "get out of jail free" card.  Subsequently having a baby in a hospital is does not sign you up for automatic abdominal surgery.

Really, in the end, the buck stops with you mom.  No one is going to experience your birth except you.  Not your husband, not your doula, not your care provider.  Going in completely cold turkey is not going to get you the birth experience you want (unless you want someone else to make all your decisions for you, in which case knock yourself out!).  Being pepared, educated and empowered, however, will - especially if you decide to stand up for yourself if you do end up with one of those pushy "bad" O.B.'s.  But realize you WILL have to stand up for yourself.  It's rare for them to honestly be able to force you into anything against your will.  Taking a birth class will help teach you how to handle those kinds of scenarios.

So how do you empower yourself for a great birth? 

1) Get educated.  Read positive birth stories.  Read books.  But more importantly (maybe most importantly), take a birth class.  Nothing is better than having a live woman who's been there done that be available to pass along wisdom and answer your questions!

2) Hire a doula!  Our culture is one of the few where birth is no longer a woman's social event.  Mom's, Grandmothers, Sisters all used to join a mother and aid her as she was giving birth.  There is something to be said for having a caring, understanding woman available to you while you give birth, especially someone who's passionate about birth and has some nifty tricks up her sleeve!

I could list a plethora of other things like staying healthy and ridding yourself of fear and negativity, but I figure these two are the essentials and I like to keep things simple.  I'll save all that for another posting.