Letters to the Editor
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The swinging pendulum
Ricki Lake's movie is just the same swing of the pendulum that I lived through in the '60's. Natural childbith, La Leche League etc. Frankly, I find it tiresome and unoriginal...as if Ricki Lake discovered childbirth.
Meanwhile, in 1960 I expected to have a natural childbirth, that is, without drugs, in a hospital. Had I not been attended by a first-rate surgeon who acted quickly, I would have lost my daughter and might have died myself. Or, more likely, had a brain injured child. If I had been attended by a midwife outside a hospital the consequences could have been fatal. Meanwhile the birth was accompanied by hours of extreme pain and anxiety which could not have been good for the newborn.
Two years later, and for the same reason that I needed the first, I had a second Caesarean.It was scheduled before I went into labor. And we had a great family party the night before I went to the hospital. I can tell you it was a very easy, happy experience with no accompanying exhaustion and stress. And, only half in jest, I attribute my son's peaceful nature to a "birth without violence".
Forget the hype for this method or that, bonding will happen if you are a happy mother. And don't be afraid of MEDICAL care. I fear Ricki's movie while celebrating childbirth will make women feel "less than" for making a different choice.
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Feminism and Childbirth
The most astounding part of this article was Epstein's confession that she didn't know that "there were any feminist politics in the birth world." My gosh, how is this possible? What issue could be more relevant to feminism than childbirth?
My own two kids were born at home during the early 1980s and most of us who were "normal birthing" activists back then also identified as feminists. At that time, the concept of reproductive choice was being applied to all aspects of pregnancy, from safe,legal abortion to safe, legal home birth. My friends and I lobbied for the liberalization of midwifery laws and marched on behalf of abortion rights--on at least one occasion during the same weekend--believing that these were essentially the same issues.
At some point, however, feminists became preoccupied with abortion to the exclusion of all other pregnancy issues, and in the process more or less handed childbirth over to the anti-choicers. The result has been a loss of ground in both areas and it has occurred to me that continued access to legal abortion may depend upon feminism's willingness to embrace pregnancy in its completion as well as its termination: in terms of paternal control over maternal functions, there is no ideological difference between birth-by-scalpel and abortion-by-coathanger.
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what choices?
I fear Ricki's movie while celebrating childbirth will make women feel "less than" for making a different choice.
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Women can only make choices if they know the options and the options are available. This is clearly not the case these days. Midwifery is illegal in some states, insurance doesn't cover home birth and/or midwives, doctor's refuse doing ultrasounds for women who choose home birth, some areas don't have any midwives and so on.
Not to mention, women have their children in hospitals because that's all they know, everyone does it. Everyone and their milkman knows how dangerous home birth is and how competent doctor's are and the hospital is just THE place to be.
But even if you go to a hospital you don't have choices, the moment you walk through the door chances are you'll be treated nothing short of an annoying little child that can't be talked to normally, sort of a half-human that deserves patronizing condescending attention. So who cares if you didn't want an episiotomy, if it's time for dinner soon you'll get one anyway. Informed consent, what's that?
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Not just for the privileged
Many readers here are missing the point behind the documentary. It’s not about telling anyone they should have a home birth. The purpose of the film is to let women know that it’s an option and to educate the general public about the benefits of midwifery care, which is a subject, as the letters here indicate, many people continue to have misconceptions about.
For starters, home birth is not something reserved for the privileged. In fact, the exact opposite is the case. In most states, a significant number of women who give birth outside of the hospital do so for religious, cultural or financial reasons, and midwives deliver babies for a large percentage of Amish, Mennonite and Christian conservatives, migrant and undocumented workers, as well as immigrants from countries with strong cultural traditions favoring home birth, in addition to low-income, rural and uninsured women.
In over half the states in the US, midwives with the education, risk-assessment skills, training and national certification that qualifies them as professional midwives with a specialization in out-of-hospital maternity care cannot practice legally. As a result, midwifery in more than a few states has been driven underground, and many women are unaware that home birth is an option, while others prefer not to work with unlicensed providers.
Activists in dozens of states have recently succeeded in passing legislation to license and regulate certified professional midwives to ensure that underserved populations, as well as privileged women with other options to choose from, have access to safe and affordable maternity care. I hope the film will raise awareness about the value of enacting these reforms.
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I've done both methods, they both sucked.
The whole debate about natural vs. not is a load of crap.
My first birth was planned to be a blissful home birth with a nurse-midwife. But after 3 days of laboring at home in the absolutely excruciating pain of back labor without making any progress, I ended up going to the hospital (my choice). Once I got some pain relief, my cervix finally opened up. Unfortunately my uterus was too tired to push anymore by then, so I ended up with an emergency C-section, which was a nightmarish experience after 3 days of non-stop pain and sleeplessness. If I had gotten to the hospital a little sooner, I may have had a vaginal birth after all.
Still, I bonded beautifully with my new baby, got to hold him and breastfeed right away, etc.
His brother was a planned C-section. After the trauma of my first experience (and yes, it was real trauma, I had PTSD and everything), I didn't even want to be in labor again the second time because honestly, I had too much terror built up around it. I was also not up for jumping through the numerous hoops you have to jump through in order to attempt a VBAC.
Well, that experience sucked too. My baby was whisked away right after birth for "problems transitioning". Basically he was breathing too fast. What it comes down to is that he was utterly freaked out by having been in the womb one minute, out the next. I personally think it would have been a good solution to have him held and nursed and comforted by his mama, but whatever. I had no choice at the time. I didn't see him for 24 hours. This was a different hospital from the first one.
He was in the NICU for 5 days, mostly just being monitored. I had to fight to go in and hold/breastfeed him every 3 hours so that he didn't just lie in a bin with an IV in his head. Err... welcome to the world? Geez. Finally we went home.
So the first time around with a home birth, me and my baby could have died for lack of intervention. It was traumatic. The second time around in the hospital, we had cascading pointless (to me) interventions. It was traumatic.
I am totally bonded to both of my children. The birth itself had nothing to do with that. I am just thrilled that we all made it through healthy and happy and alive.
If you get the birth you want, hooray for you. If not, but you and your baby are healthy and intact, then hooray for you too.
And if you think that "natural" births are all that, Google "obstetric fistula" and see the results of intervention-free births outside of hospitals.
Birth is a very risky process. Anything at all can happen, good or bad. You just don't know until you're there.