Labor and Birth

[Julie Doula]

It is interesting the role expectations have on what happens at birth.

I was 30 when I had my first baby.

In my pre-natal class, we had to draw pictures of what we thought labour would be like. Most women drew picture of being sawed in half, lightening rods hitting their abdomen - the pictures looked like the torture on the rack.

The ante-natal teacher had loaned me a copy of Ina May Gaskin's 'Spiritual Midwifery' and my head was full of stories of women having 'rushed', feeling the love, and all kinds of warm fuzzy concepts.

My picture was of waves on the ocean. I felt so silly and naive compared to the others, my picture stood out like a sore thumb.

Everyone in our group of 10 couples had caesareans except for one super-fit woman - and me. (I had mine at home, and a birth pool featured strongly through my labour.)

I've always wondered about that 'expectation' thing.

But also, I had an insider's knowledge of how women are routinely treated in hospitals during birth, as a result of my nursing background. I knew enough to know that being in a hospital would not suit me, so I chose homebirth, where I thought I'd have more freedom, control and respect. Had I been in a hospital, I may well have ended up as a primip c/s too (or an instrumental vaginal birth and a dose a birth trauma.) I had about 36 hours of contractions all up, the others were getting ceasered after about 16 hours, which is hardly a fair go for a primip.

I was speaking to a woman yesterday at a Blessingway for one of my clients. She attended a birth preparation session at her Yoga class. They had to discuss their fears. She said she was looking forward to giving birth and had no fears (she's planning a homebirth). The others looked at her strangely. They spoke a lot about interventions and emergencies. She said one woman is a theatre nurse. She has witnessed hundreds of caesareans and only three vaginal births. How does that influence her with respect to her expectations for her own birth?

I interveiwed a pharmacologist during my doula training, who told me that as a student, she's witnessed a forceps delivery with the woman in stirrups. All the students had to witness one birth and that's the one she got assigned. She was so traumatised my this, that when she was pregnant, she told her obstetrician she wanted a c/s under general, and why, and he complied with her wishes.

Expectations are powerful things indeed. i have heard that they show some pretty upsetting births at some hospital pre-natal classes. I think viewing some normal, gentle and unhindered births can make a huge difference in women's consciousness about what is possible and what they deserve ... what they can hope for ... Check out these births - a picture tells a thousand words.