Letters to the Editor
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BACK THIS UP
No wonder men are like tripped out by this. No wonder men are scared of women and try to contain this thing. Because that is a godly act I just saw!'"
Back this tired old assertion up. I think the only ones tripped out by natural childbirth are small thinking but presumptuous women who claim to speak for all men (!).
Overall I agree with the premise that women ought to do it naturally. I was actually disappointed by the article. No talk about the massive orgasm a woman naturally has during the birth process? That is one of the most beautiful things, tying sexuality with creation at the other end (rather than at the beginning, during procreation).
BTW, time to brag about Brightstar65's AWESOME Penis. Divine lingam of the Goddess world.
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Oh, and it is NOT godly.
childbirth is beautiful, amazing, earthy, but it is NOT GODLY.
I like how women ascribe all sorts of divine crap to themselves. Is it time for men to begin talking about them exerting their GODLY WRATH in Iraq?
Is it time for your favorite guy to begin waxing eloquently about his GODLY staff of justice and how he will use it to administer DIVINE punishment for trangressors and uppity women?
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Godly is
if a woman waved her hand and, like a magic bunny, a baby appeared from thin air.
That would be GODLY.
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For Canadian Readers:
There is a happy medium in this birthing business: Some provinces' healthcare systems are set up so that a woman can have a medicare-funded, certified (that is, university- or college-trained and fully accredited) midwife from conception until a week AFTER birth. These midwives are highly trained and have legal hospital privileges, so women may choose to have their midwife assist their birth at home, OR assist them in a hospital (in a position of CONTROL -- the midwife is not relegated to an assistant position in any way unless medical intervention is required).
Our experience: I laboured with my births at home until a point close to birth, then we drove to the hospital and spent the hard labour and birth in a hospital, attended by our midwife and a hospital nurse (as law requires).
This gave me the option of fast medical intervention in the case of a problem; but in the case of a safe birth I didn't ever have to deal with a doctor, and nobody even had the right to touch our baby without the okay of our midwife. No interventions we didn't want, no manhandling whatsoever. Just us and our midwife (and the required nurse and whomever else you want around), with whom we had a close relationship.
We left the hospital within hours with the baby (our choice -- you can stay a day or so), and were followed up for days with home visits by the midwife. No dim-witted community-health nurse you've never met for home visits -- just our highly knowledgeable and educated midwife to help with post-partum problems and issues.
Check out the regulations of your province. Meet a midwife, make your own choices.
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Oh please
I'm all for good old natural birthing and parenting, and generally support the notion that birth has become overmedicalized. However, hospital births attended by doctors are not necessarily the soul-sucking assembly lines the homebirth converted like to tar them as, in which your child is RIPPED OUT OF YOUR ARMS, PREVENTING BONDING.
My first child was born prematurely and needed immediate care by neonatologists, so I could not hold him right away, but nobody left the delivery room until I did, once he was stabilized. My second child was right as rain at birth, and I held him immediately. He was then checked out right in the delivery room with me, wrapped in a blanket, and given to me, his father, and his grandmother (who attended the birth) to hold for as long as we wanted to, before he was taken for a little while to the nursery for routine tests and washing, and I was cleaned up and settled in to rest. This, in my experience, is perfectly ordinary in hospitals.
I support those who choose to have drug-free births, homebirths, and so on, but those of us who go the hospital route are not just dupes, being deprived of important bonding with our children. Oh, and PS -- no episiotomy needed or offered either time.
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Stupid title
stupid article. Quit trying to make evolution some sort of fucking magical thing.
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Sad to see so many stereotypes here
Apparently being open-minded enough to consider homebirth does not preclude a person from resorting to ridiculous stereotyping of fathers involved in the birth experience. None of the dads I know who became fathers recently (including myself) were running around frantically during the birth, fainting, nonchalant, objectifying women or fetuses or infants or vaginas, or doing anything but trying to help comfort their partners and get their children into this world safely. Maybe there's just some female bonding through negating the fathers involved in the process going on here, but that's just as stupid as any form of male bonding that goes on anywhere. Don't get me wrong ... I'm not claiming anything near the experience that a birthing mother goes through and am the first to admit that I truly don't think most men (even if we were magically physically capable of doing so) could bear children. But really, most of us are not sitcom characters.
I'd also like to remark on several comments in previous letters. 1. Homebirths (not an option we chose) don't have to take place in a tub of water, but if the thought of that skeeves you out, you really should think twice about giving birth, period. 2. Lying on your back in stirrups may make for acceptable television, but a woman's pelvis opens when in a squatting or semi-squatting position and gravity is able to help the baby drop. If you're a soon-to-be-mother, consider a birthing class for couples and/or prenatal yoga if you're interested in finding out more about optimal positions for labor. 3. Doulas (which we've had twice) are there for everyone involved, although the obvious focus is on the mother. Everyone participating in the birth clearly focuses on the mother, but since birth and labor can span days and is intense and involves (in most cases I'm guessing) multiple people, a doula can help everyone involved and can act as a sort of general contractor ... facilitator, communicator, relaxer, focuser, etc. The time it took for the birth of our children was vastly different in each case and the doula was paid the same amount both times ... but we wouldn't hesitate to engage the services of a doula again if we were to have another child.