It's time to stand up to the birth police
By Sally Morrell
November 01, 2007 12:00am
Article from: Herald Sun
WHEN are the birth police going to stop making pregnant women feel guilty for using modern medicine to bring their baby into the world?
Yesterday, we woke up to news from the British Medical Journal that women who have caesareans double the risk of death and illness to themselves and their baby.
And this week, British home-birth guru Sheila Kitzinger is in Australia to scare pregnant women across the country into believing that only a "natural" birth is a good birth, and the best birth is at home.
Let's take the study first. I would have thought it was pretty obvious that women who have caesareans have more problems.
That's the whole idea of caesareans.
Most women end up having a caesarean because their planned vaginal birth went horribly wrong and the doctor needed to get the baby out - now.
That sort of drama does tend to double the risk of death and illness to mother and baby.
It's hardly rocket science.
Women who opt for caesareans for social rather than medical reasons areas, the too-posh-to-push brigade, are the very, very small minority.
But I'm sure the Kitzinger devotees will seize on this study as yet another reason to blame evil doctors for wanting to cut babies out of their mothers so they can make their Wednesday golf game.
Many women have been brainwashed into feeling traumatised and unable to bond with their babies because they didn't slip out with just the help of aromatherapy oil massages and deep breathing.
I was once under the spell of this cult. I believed with a religious intensity that I had to have a drug-free, natural birth.
In my first pregnancy, I read every Kitzinger book and wrote out a drug-free birth plan that would guarantee me Earth Goddess bragging rights among my friends.
Unfortunately, the baby hadn't read it and got awkwardly stuck after I'd laboured 18 long hours the Kitzinger way.
When the anaesthetist arrived to give me an epidural for the dreaded "intervention" I felt a failure as a mother.
If I couldn't even give birth right, how was the poor thing going to survive the next 20 years?
Luckily, once I saw the baby, I saw the light.
Who cares how he came out? He was there, he was healthy and it was bloody fantastic.
Nothing else mattered.
But ask around any new mother's group and you'll hear still hear plenty of victim stories.
"I felt so violated when I had to have a caesarean"; "I felt a failure when they had to use the forceps", and all said while they bounce their healthy babies on their knees.
Don't these women put two and two together?
Maybe some doctors do opt for a caesarean a little earlier than they used to.
But no wonder they err on the side of caution when so many people are so quick to sue unless the end result is a perfect baby.
It's time we pushed out a new birth message to counteract the zealots, who want to take us back to the good old days when everyone gave birth naturally and lots of women and children died.
A successful birth is when mother and child are healthy. Period.
How the baby came out, and what the mother used to deal with the pain, are irrelevant.
It's just one day, for goodness sake. Get it into perspective.
There are so many opportunities to feel real guilt when you are a mother.
Don't start feeling guilty on your first day on the job.
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♥ BellyBelly's Creator ♥
Creator of BellyBelly.com.au, doula, writer and mother of three amazing children
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