Natural is about the mother’s comfort, the baby is just along for the ride. It’s a method that developed to try and avoid epidurals or pain medication because warm water is supposed to relax you during labour (it doesn’t particularly help most people). There is a risk of infection, but those natural birth people who are against c-sections for the same reason don’t seem to care much. If people truly wanted natural, wouldn’t they be squatting in the dirt to give birth?
All of this “observation nursery” stuff is very weird.
I had no idea anyone was still doing that.
My daughter was born by c-section. She left my side for 15 minutes the day she was born while I was sewn up. Since she was in my husband’s arms in the recovery area at the time, I wasn’t bothered.
Then, she was taken for about 20 minutes to be weighed and measured and bathed while I had a bedbath and got changed out of my theatre gown and into a nice nightie to receive visitors about 4 hours after she was born.
The only other times she was out of my sight was when I was in the shower or lavatory for the next 72 hours until we went home.
The woman in the bed beside me asked for her baby to be taken to the nursery every night because he cried constantly and she couldn’t sleep, but she had to ask.
You do need to trust your OB. I love mine.
He would have worked with me if I’d insisted on trying a vaginal delivery- but I could see by the look of relief on his face he was happy I didn’t.
I know he’s worked with women who wanted to attempt vaginal breech and twin deliveries and made that happen for them. He’s cool if you want to try VBAC, and cool if you don’t.
My friend chose him as her OB as well- when her first baby stopped growing at 35 weeks he was quick to get her the c-section she needed.
Now she’s pregnant with her second and the growth is slowing, so they’re reaching a compromise (he wants her on total bed rest, she wants to stay at work, they’ve met in the middle with off work, but not in bed) aimed at prolonging the pregnancy as much as possible.
If you and your OB do not have similar ideas about risk, risk management and appropriate interventions and compromise you may end up butting heads.
Phlosphr has an OB and a midwife who are supportive and willing to work together. That counts for a lot.
In all likelihood they will have a normal delivery without any problems, and good luck with that.
It really isn’t a big deal if you don’t though, as long as you can both reconcile yourselves to letting go of “the dream” and embracing the reality- which might be utterly terrifying.
Here, as well community midwives who will call out to the house regularly for the first 3 weeks to check up on mum and baby, there is the Health Visitor (a nurse with special training in social work and child development) who calls out from then until the child is school age as much or as little as needed.
Possibly so much emphasis is put on the birth because the support from professionals postnatally isn’t there. Just a thought.
Mud bath birthing. Not only will you have the most natural birthing process ever, but you’ll have soft skin afterwards. Soft as a just-born baby’s bottom!
Very cool. Thank you for sharing. I think that if I lived in a state where it was possible, that may have been a path I’d have taken.
I absolutely agree. However, I think it’s also important to realize that these emotions are not antithetical. It’s entirely possible (trust me, I know this from personal experience!) to be profoundly saddened and disappointed in your labor and delivery experience, while at the same time being elated with one of the best moment of your life as you see your child for the first time. I felt - and feel - both of those, simultaneously. The day she was born was the worst day of my life. Every picture I had of not just labor and delivery, but the whole second half of my pregnancy - that time of fricking beauty and awesomeness that’s unlike any other time in a woman’s life - all of those dreams were gone, replaced with an emergency c-section and a half-baked fetus who could very well not live out the day. That day was one of the best days of my life, when I asked my friend the ICU nurse to come up and see her with me for the first time, because I just had to share my beautiful baby girl with someone who wouldn’t be freaked out by the medical equipment. (I had only seen her for <5 seconds in the OR, all the way across the room, but I knew she was beautiful anyway!) It can be incredibly confusing to feel all that about one day. So I don’t want to negate women the ability to feel both. I don’t want to tell them they can’t regret one or more parts of their childbirth experience and yet still value that part, you know?
Like someone else says, it’s colostrum first, and there’s very little of it produced.
Except that, we really don’t know that. There are lactation consultants (RNs with special training) who are doing research into whether or not overstretching an infant’s stomach with feedings greater than the average volume of colostrum may be doing harm. Yes, at this point, we don’t think so, but they may find a link to NEC (necrotizing tissue in the intestine) or childhood obesity or diabetes or…we just don’t know yet. But I think it’s an interesting line of query. If women produce only about 25cc of colostrum, ARE there any effects to filling a neonate’s belly with 3 or 4 ounces of formula or sugar water?
If I wanted to inject four ounces of water anywhere else into a newborns’ body, I’d have to have a hell of a good reason and a bunch of studies showing it to be safe and effective for treating something. Yet no one’s thought to study what putting it in a tiny baby belly might do.
Phospher is smarter than this but not NAF. Timely “warm fuzzy” story. Likely shoulder dystocia mom and baby trauma, but never bothered to see a doctor afterwards: http://mobi.perezhilton.com/2011-06-17-311-frontman-nick-hexum-tells-story-of-how-he-delivered-wifes-daughter
Well I gave birth as a hale and healthy 17 yr old. In a hospital.
Had I been anywhere else, we’d have both died.
That child, just had her first child, she went to the hospital to see the midwife (who just happened to be there) as she had a headache she couldn’t throw. They took her blood pressure, which was in stroke range, and in less than a minute she was in an OR with 23 people delivering her child, 2 months early, by C section. Two more lives, most assuredly, saved.
C sections are cool by me, as are hospitals.
My Granny married at 15, and birthed 15, children all at home. She knew how to do it, let me tell you! Thing is, only 13 of them survived. But that was back in the dawn of time, it’s not necessary anymore.
I’m a risk taker by nature, but this is a risk I would never take.
I wish your family nothing but good luck.
( I still kinda think you’re a closet Scientologist, who won’t own it out of fear of getting heaps, here on the board!:D)
I completely agree with you here. I had a difficult birth experience with my son, who was an emergency c-section, and had a very hard time coming to terms with it, to the point of being diagnosed with PTSD by my psychiatrist. Long story short, my epidural didn’t fully work during the surgery. I was already in a state of extreme anxiety and had expressed to the anesthesiologist that my biggest fear was feeling pain during surgery, so when the anesthetic failed me it was very traumatic. I vividly remember trying to focus on my son, who was in my husband’s arms next to me, while trying to break the restraints holding me on the OR table as I writhed in pain.
So yes, there are certainly times when the experience matters. Instead of spending his first few hours marveling at his tiny hands I was first in extreme pain, and then drugged out with morphine and fentanyl and could barely keep my eyes open. I don’t remember much of his first night alive, and that still hurts. He spend the night in the nursery while I tried to recover.
And then to have people say, when I tell them he was an emergency section, that “as long as the baby is healthy it doesn’t matter how he came out!” Well, that fucking hurts my heart. Sure, they don’t know the details, but if the mother is in pain, or disoriented, or otherwise has a hard time with her labor and birth, it DOES matter to her state of mind afterwards. I grieve for the experience I had, and I’m not apologetic about that. It sucked hardcore, and like WhyNot said that day was both the most horrible and wonderful day of my life.
So basically fuck that sentiment. I’m not comfortable with home birthing, but to act like the end outcome is the ONLY thing that matters is missing a huge part of the process, namely the mother’s state of mind and ability to see her child’s day of birth as a positive experience. For a lot of us (more than you would think, I bet), it’s much more mixed.
I guess I’m some kind of monster. I gave birth in a hospital, didn’t ask for the slimy baby to be set on my chest, and got my first look at my son after he had been wiped off and wrapped in a blanket. Then, while I delivered the placenta and was cleaned up, he and my husband were in an adjacent room getting weighed, Apgar-ed, etc. Then we spent a few hours with him. Since I delivered at 11pm, he went to the nursery to sleep, and I moved to a room to sleep myself. They fed him and kept him happy so I could get some rest.
The next morning after I awoke, they rolled the baby in without my asking, and left him there. I had hoped to get a few more hours sleep, since I only got about 4 and it would be my last chance for years to get a decent nights sleep.
Now, I love my son, but I viewed the hospital as way to make sure he was healthy and for me to get the rest I needed after delivering. I spent most of the day with him, but had him removed to the nursery so I could get my strength back.
He’s 6 now, healthy and well-adjusted, and our relationship seems to have suffered no issues. I guess I just view biology as biology.
No one has suggested you’re a monster. In fact, all of the name calling has been directed at people supporting homebirth as an option for low-risk pregnancies. We haven’t had a single hardcore homebirth-good-hospital-birth-evil poster. The strongest homebirth supporters here have all said it’s not for everyone or every birth, that sometimes hospital birth is more appropriate and that people should educate themselves. It’s been pretty moderate from our end, and yet we’re the ones getting cursed at and called names as if we’re suggesting Unassisted Childbirth for first time mothers with gestational diabetes and preeclampsia.
Our baby would have died if we weren’t in a hospital. But my wife could have died at the hospital – pulmonary embolism following the C section. We got lucky. Life is a crap shoot.
Phlosphr, if you’re referring to me, I did not miss when you responded to me. I am not one of the people who’s castigating you for OMG Won’t You Think Of The Child!! I’m sure you have done your due diligence in preparing for what if things go sideways. I’m just saying that it’s easy to get disappointed and unhappy when you add spiritual longings into the mix even if you have tried to manage your expectations. I went in saying if my baby needed formula it would be fine (and rationally I did believe that; both my sister and I are formula babies and turned out just fine if I do say so myself), but I didn’t really believe it viscerally – boy, if I had, I’d’ve gone to formula the first day; breastfeeding was really difficult for me. Do you really deep down believe that if you miss the spiritual bonding experience completely that it will be all A-OK with you? If so, you would probably just have had a hospital birth and skip all the Dopers calling you scientologists, right? 
Or: see overlyverbose’s story.
Sateryn76, heh. My husband and I were begging the nurses to take the Little One away so we could get some sleep… we were sad when we had to go home from the hospital and couldn’t hand her off to a nurse. And I love her soooo much now!
You are awesome.
(emphasis mine)
Umm, how does this square with all the subsequent posts about CMs (the 2-4 year vocational training and apprenticeship) and direct entry midwives?
Is it really illegal to be a midwife and not a nurse in most states? Or does “nurse” not have a technical definition?
CNMs sound great. Midwives with a couple years of vocational training? Not so great. Wasn’t that midwife who was prosecuted in Virginia just a CM?
It seems like we need some better terms. “Midwife” could mean someone with little formal training, or someone with years of schooling and a master’s degree. It seems like CNMs should be trying to distinguish themselves from the former.
Hey, if someone else can learn from my stupidity, all the better. My second child’s birth was a dream - went in at 12 a.m., dilated 7 cm. They gave me an epidural, I dozed off and on for about three hours, my doctor walked in, asked how I was feeling and I said, “I need to push.” He put on his scrubs, I pushed and she was born at 4:58 a.m. No complications, I was mentally and physically present for all of the birth in a way that I just wasn’t with my firstborn, held her after she was rubbed down, actually enjoyed my time with her early on and breastfed successfully for 14 months.
Funny how my experience with bonding was so flip-flopped - the one that had the least interventions turned out to be the one I had the most trouble bonding with, most issues breastfeeding, most overall guilt. The one with the most early interventions was the easiest and breastfed successfully.
As I understand it:
It is illegal to be a “midwife” without certification as a RN/APN in 15 states at present. In most cases, the crime is charged as “practicing medicine without a license.” None of these states will license someone CNM as a CNM, they will only register them as an obstetric/delivery RN/APN.
In 26 states, it is illegal to be a direct entry midwife, but it is generally legal to be a nurse-midwife (implying formal training as an LPN/LVN, but not up to the level of an RN/APN).
The remaining 24 states will license direct-entry midwives.
I have to say, I’m kind of surprised at the knee-jerk, dramatic, anti-home birth attitude I’ve seen here and in Phlspher’s thread. Obviously, it’s not something everyone would choose, but it is not the irresponsible thing it’s being made out to be. Several of the most amazing mothers I know have had home births, including one friend who recently gave birth to full term twins at home. I guess I just thought that here, of all places, people would actually take the time to get their facts straight before jumping to conclusions.
And the silliness about the term “midwife” in the beginning of this thread really made me want to beat my head against a wall. It’s a perfectly respectable term. What does a midwife have that a nurse doesn’t have? Tons of experience and knowledge about pregnancy and the birth process, along with breastfeeding support and newborn care. I would really encourage anyone who thinks “midwife” is some hippy dippy term to take some time to read up on the work of Ina May Gaskin (who, admittedly, looks like a hippy, but is highly respected by OB’s and birth professionals of all types), or the Navelgazing Midwife blog that’s written by midwife Barbara Herrera (a very well-respected midwife, doula, and monitrice).
This might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever read on the Dope. You think natural childbirth is about the woman’s comfort and an EPIDURAL isn’t??? That doesn’t even make sense. The epidural is where they numb the woman from her tits to her toes, while natural means no drugs for pain. Go ahead and look up the effect that epidurals can have on a woman’s labor (I’ll give you a hint, it’s usually what happens right before they name “failure to progress” as the reason she needs a c-section), and while you are at it take a look at the side effects it can have on the baby. I would never judge anyone’s decision to get an epidural or other pain relief during labor, not at all. Labor is fucking hard, and it HURTS…especially when you are in a hospital bed. There’s no shame in wanting relief. But there’s also nothing wrong with wanting to do it naturally. The idea that natural birth is somehow a selfish desire on the part of the mother is ridiculous. The benefits of a natural birth on mother and baby have been proven over and over again.
And your little comment about water birth not being “that effective” on soothing the mother’s pain? I’d really like to know where you got that information, because everything I’ve read and seen on the topic supports the belief that water can provide great relief to a laboring woman. And it can be a gentle way to bring babies into the world. I know many people only know birth as the chaotic, rush rush, emergency, panicky thing they’ve seen on tv and in movies, but it absolutely doesn’t have to be that way.
I just don’t get the hostility towards wanting to birth a baby the way our bodies are designed to do. Women have been doing it successfully since time began. Natural birth isn’t the new thing, the highly medicalized, treating pregnancy like a disease type of birth is what is new. Pregnancy isn’t a high-risk, medical issue for the majority of women.
When a laboring woman is able to walk around, squat, get in the shower, or relax in a birthing pool her movements play a part in that labor. It enables the baby to shift positions, and likewise allows the woman to get into positions that are comfortable to her. When she’s allowed to push with the contractions of her uterus, in a position of her choosing, it is gentler on her body and on the baby. On the other hand, if she’s flat on her back with her knees pushed back to her ears, being screamed at to PUSH as hard as she can, it’s more likely for her to experience trauma to her body than she might not have if she pushed along with her own instincts. “Purple pushing” can cause tearing, hemorrhroids, and pulled muscles in the mother’s legs, because when your legs are numb and you have strangers pulling them back, it’s very easy for them to overextend your legs—which you realize when the epidural wears off. Sounds super fun, huh?
Oh, and the comment about squatting into the dirt? You have it half right. Think about it. If you are trying to get a 7-10 lb baby out do you want to go against gravity, or with it? Do you want to be flat on your back, or permitted to move in ways that work for you? I just don’t think it’s a big mystery why women choose to birth naturally. A laboring woman’s body releases hormones that help the labor along and act as a natural painkiller both during and after the birth. Those hormones are also essential in the bonding process between mother and child. That isn’t to say that a woman who has been given an epidural or other pain meds doesn’t benefit from hormones as well, but I can see why so many people don’t want to risk anything interfering with that. (And that’s at home, in the hospital, or wherever.)
If complications arise and intervention is needed, I doubt you’ll find many natural birthers who won’t do what is necessary to get their babies out safely. Just because they are preparing and hoping for the “ideal” situation doesn’t mean they won’t make the appropriate choices for themselves and their babies if an issue arises. Many a natural birther has consented to necessary c-sections, or pitocin, or treatment for hemmhorage. They aren’t against intervention when it is warranted, nor do most of them have a problem with anyone else making different choices than they would. The natural birth community isn’t exactly full of people who want to strong arm anyone else about anything. I’m not sure why they have that reputation.
A lot of women who are choosing home birth are going in that direction because of bad experiences they’ve had giving birth in hospitals. Despite the whole “as long as the baby is healthy, nothing else matters” crap we hear constantly in this country, the mother’s birth experience ABSOLUTELY matters. How could it not? If a woman suffers birth trauma it affects everything from that day forward. Many women are sort of stunned after going through a complicated birth, and initially focus on the healthy baby. But after they get home, and the baby bliss hormones wear off, she’ll replay that day in her head over and over again. It can affect her relationship with her baby, the breastfeeding, and can contribute dramatically to post partum depression and post partum psychosis. And because all she hears is how “lucky” she is to have the healthy baby, she will internalize the pain and trauma, and will have trouble admitting to herself or others that she needs help.
Too many women in this country have had their rights trampled by the medical establishment and have had interventions pushed on them that led to their trauma. After suffering abuse like that, it’s understandable that many then look for an alternative. The home birth movement is growing in this country, and before too long it’s likely that someone you know will choose to birth at home. Don’t assume they are glossing over the risks. Chances are they’ve done their homework and are finally making a truly informed decision for themselves and their families.
The ‘punching out the doctor’ part of that story was really quite incredible. These people show up at the hospital in a state of dire emergency with both mother and baby in serious danger. The doctor on duty doesn’t spare any time for niceties as he moves in to quickly assess the situation and he gets a knuckle sandwich for his troubles. Was he not supposed to touch her while he was in the process of saving her life?
I can forgive the mother for her actions since I’m sure she wasn’t thinking too clearly at that point, but the fact that NAF obviously thinks her actions were justified and says that the doctor “had it coming” is unbelievable.
That’s the part of the home birther crowd that I don’t get - the people who seem to just hate all medical professionals and go into the process with an adversarial attitude towards doctors and nurses. I tend to agree with you that Phlosphr doesn’t really sound like one of those. Personally, I would never choose to give birth at home (dear god, think of the mess!), but I don’t have that big of an issue with other people doing it unless they’re also constantly spouting off about the terrible evils of the medical establishment.
cite?
While warm water can be soothing please provide evidence that birthing a baby underwater and have the baby potentially aspirate filthy water is better for either the mother or the baby. Certainly having a baby in the NICU with pneumonia for a few weeks on a ventilator can interfere with bonding.
And perinatal death rates have been relatively high for both mother and child since time began.
cite?
Remember, you are talking to somebody here who feels that home births may be appropriate in certain cases, but the above statements which are NOT supported by fact are hurting your case.
Also, for anybody who states that the “natural” way of birth is not harmful to either mother or child in this day and age, I recommend an excellent film A Walk To Beautiful.
Again, I am NOT against home birth in a low-risk patient with an experienced CNM present and medical back-up available.
A water birth is for the mother’s comfort, that’s all I said. I was joking around with psychobunny, I guess you have no sense of humour. If anyone is interested this site seems to have information about the benefits and risks of a water birth.
I know exactly what an epidural is and maybe you should be the one doing some reading. Why don’t you start with overlyverbose’s post just above your rant. The rest of what you posted is a more of the same garbage, so I’m done here.
So in fact, in most states you CAN practice midwifery without being a Certified Nurse. And in a fair number, you can have almost no formal medical training. Why don’t CNMs care that their brand is so diluted? This is what gives midwifery a bad name.
This is the article I was thinking about – a midwife was charged in Virginia with a raft of felonies for presiding over a breech birth that ultimately resulted in the death of the infant. She was a Certified Professional Midwife, not a CNM. I can’t tell from the CPM website what, if any, nursing or medical certifications CPMs have to have. (I’m sure they have a lot of requirements, but being a nurse doesn’t seem to be one.)
Also, the Slate article asserts that CNMs rarely do homebirths (but does not provide a cite). If so, then many of the assertions in this thread are very wrong. If this is correct, then any midwife you can get to preside over a homebirth is almost guaranteed NOT to be a CNM, but rather a CPM.
Home birth is passe, even home waterbirth. Now the animals need to assist: