*Note from Katie, editor of MomFavorites.com – I just want to say thank you to Valerie for sharing the “Made for Childbirth” post on points of view on the birthing process. As I write this I’m still awaiting the arrival of baby #3. I have had severe medical complications in previous pregnancies and am so grateful for hospital care. But, I also understand the idea of natural childbirth. Valerie does a great job on sharing how you can want a natural birth and also not consider yourself a failure if you don’t or can’t!*
If you browse my blog, Atlanta Mom of Three, for more than a few minutes, you’ll find it’s clear that I support natural, intervention/medication-free childbirth. I finally pursued doing it with my third child, and found it to be intensely amazing. I hope to experience it again if we ever have another baby. That being said, I’ve come to realize that I have been wrong in my thinking about a certain aspect of birth.
Natural childbirth books, websites, and even mothers (myself formerly included) routinely use a few phrases that, in my third pregnancy, provided me with a lot of motivation and strength to choose this way of birthing. Perhaps you’ll recognize one of these:
“A woman’s body is made for this.”
“Your body is designed for birth.”
While, YES, they’re both true, they are also, in my opinion, risky.
As wonderful as those words are to a woman who has pursued and gotten the natural birth she desired to have, they can be equally hurtful to a woman who didn’t.
Consider the following scenarios:
A mother labors painfully for two days with hardly any dilation, finally having Pitocin and then an epidural, only to have her baby be delivered by vacuum extraction several hours later. Did her body “fail” her?
What about the woman who has placenta previa, making it impossible to have the baby vaginally, but who safely delivers via cesarean. Was her body not designed for birth?
There are so many other stories. So many that I’ve been told or read – and, I promise, they were not lost on me, but I had failed to understand them fully…until recently. I also hadn’t understood the magnitude of the phrases that had helped me so much, and how they might hurt others.
The thing is – Yes, women’s bodies are designed to conceive and deliver babies, but none of our bodies (children, men or women) are perfect. We sometimes have medical needs (even during labor), and thank goodness the help is there when those needs arise! Birth seems to be one of the only areas that we judge how our bodies work. This should not be the case.
From another angle…
Natural childbirth is popular right now. It’s the “in” thing, just as cloth diapering and baby wearing are. Not that I’m unhappy with their popularity(!), but I’m just saying that they haven’t always been as socially acceptable (or promoted) as they are now.
Because so many women are looking into having birth without medical intervention, I get the feeling that there is now this pressure to “succeed” at it. Well, I’m afraid that when you’re talking about succeeding at something, you are also talking about failing. While I FULLY support a woman who wants a natural childbirth (at home, at a birth center, or a hospital), I think we should be careful about our expectations.
I would have been devastated if I had needed Pitocin and/or assistance in the delivery of my third baby. I was dead set on having him completely on my own. I am glad that he was born the way he was, but I mostly am glad that he is ok. My older children were born vaginally, but with all sorts of medical “help.” They were ok too.
I guess my point in saying all this is that I want women to enjoy the day their babies are born. Want a natural childbirth? Great! There are many things you can do to make that more likely, but please don’t be under the assumption that if you don’t have the birth you have pictured in your head, that you have failed somehow or that your body wasn’t designed for this. We were also designed to breathe, and yet there are millions of people who need asthma treatment every day!
Please embrace your child’s entrance into the world. They are HERE NOW and that is truly all that matters in the end.
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Valerie is the woman behind Atlanta Mom of Three. She loves writing about marriage, pregnancy, childbirth, parenting, and more. On her blog, you will find daily posts, frequent blog parties, and fun reviews & giveaways! You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.
Image Credits: David Swift Photography via photopin cc AND fui via photopin cc
Love this post, Valerie! So very, very true. And this is something that I had never considered before when it comes to child bearing. Thank you so much for sharing!! xoxo
Thanks, Ashley! I hadn’t thought about it either until recently, as I’ve been meeting more and more women who all have such different birth experiences. 🙂
I’ve been on both ends of the birth spectrum, needing to have a c section due to complete previa and having a completely natural birth. I can’t say my c section doesn’t bother me even knowing it saved my baby’s life as there was no way for him to safely come out vaginally. I think I mourn the loss of what I feel would have been a gentler birth for my son. I’m sad for him (and myself) that we didn’t get to experience that hormone high, the hard work that my first son and I put in together to get him earth side. I don’t feel like I ‘failed’ his birth though.
But I can see how/why some moms feel that way. I think a lot of it has to do with society and the general view of birth. I feel like overall, the moms who feel they ‘failed’ only feel that way because society tells them they should and no one is saying any different. For society a healthy baby is the only thing that matters in the end. No one is listening to these moms and saying yes, you are right, you did miss out on the hormone high, you didn’t get to push your baby out by yourself, you were not in charge of your own body when the biggest thing that will ever happen to your body happened. I think the conversation needs to be changed from ‘you’re not a failure’ to ‘it’s ok to be sad that you missed out on what you were hoping to experience’, especially for those moms who have experienced it before and really know what exactly it is they missed/lost the chance to experience this time around.
“I think the conversation needs to be changed from ‘you’re not a failure’ to ‘it’s ok to be sad that you missed out on what you were hoping to experience” – You are SO right!! As you said, this is especially true for women who have already experienced birth. Thanks for your thoughtful comment – you’ve given me more to think about! XO
Its a nice post Valerie. I also planned for natural birth but the pain was immense. The nurse asked me if I want some pain killer? I agreed to have some. She put it in my IV. It did not help much with pain but in between those intense contractions, it helped me to sleep. It is hard to imagine that I slept between contractions, may be for a minute or so every time. But it helped me a lot. I did not go for epidural and did not intend to either. And after hours of pain struggle my daughter was born. During those moments I realized that the health of child and mother is more important than the procedure we go through for the childbirth. It is not a race or some achievement. The sense of being a mother is same in either case and should not be marred such thoughts.
“It is not a race or some achievement.” – Very true. I wasn’t competing with anyone but myself, really. I wanted to have things be as natural as they could be but I should have had a more opened-minded way of viewing it.
I had pain meds with baby #1 and they didn’t do anything but make me groggy! The epidural was lovely, though. 😉 Lol
This is a lovely post. The sentiment holds true for many aspects of motherhood.
Thanks, Lis! Very true; from birth and feeding to schooling and lifestyle, how things turn out is really all that matters. XO
Great perspective! No matter what your birthing plan, there are so many things that wind up being out of your control. No birth of a healthy baby can be considered a failure 🙂 (Of course, I had two C-sections, but I totally admire women whose deliveries were natural!)