Sorry about the long post, I just joined and saw this thread and had to catch up! :)
Extreme birth? You know what the first thought that entered my mind after reading that? Extreme sports! Since when did birth become one of those risky sports that involve speed, height, high level of physical exertion, highly specialized gear or spectacular stunts? :rolleyes:
I'm sitting here visualising women jumping out of planes in labour to give birth mid-air. Now that's spectacular!
How typical of the media to put a sensationalist slant onto women who have birth without *gasp* some medical professional to extract their babies from them.
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this kind of birthing, IMO, seems as "competitive" as the whole "my post-baby body is perfect in 6 days" thing that goes on in Hollywood.....
ETA Cherie not saying you are competitive darl - I would love an unassisted birth too in a perfect world but I think it is more a backlash against the over-interventionist climate we live in than anything that is actually ideal....
I find it interesting that when someone you know expresses their desire to freebirth, they are an exception to the rule and that the majority of freebirthers must be doing it for some other reason like to be competitive!? Hasn't it occurred to you that a lot of freebirthers may feel the same way that Cherie does?
Is homebirth a backlash against the over-interventionist climate? Many homebirthers would argue that, a lot of them just want to give birth at home simply because birth is a part of life and they don't see the need to travel in labour just to give birth in another place that is not their home.
I had a homebirth with a midwife for that reason. Why should I go somewhere else? I was in my home, I was in my secure comfortable private nest. Why would I want to leave that to birth in some foreign and uncomfortable environment? Funny thing was, when it came to labour I didn't feel the need to call my midwife, and wasn't going to call her only, I had my mum as a support person and unbeknowst to me she was "timing" my contractions and called the midwife when she thought it was appropriate. Sigh. After my midwife arrived, everyone stopped relying on me for sources of info and started looking to her. When I got pushy, she tried to tell me it wasn't time to get pushy yet. Well she was wrong. I wasn't pushing. My body was doing that spontaneous fetal ejection reflex which she had me try and control just so she could make sure I was "ready" to push with an exam. I was too far gone into labour to do anything but comply.
Afterwards it was like gee. I didn't NEED help. She didn't NEED to do anything. Hmmm. How would it have looked for her if she came and sat at the door and DID NOTHING and left after my baby was born? Gee I'd sure wonder what I was PAYING her thousands of dollars for. In hindsight, I would have gladly paid her even more for her to not come to my birth and just to be someone to talk to during my pregnancy.
My next child, I had a freebirth. Having a midwife attended homebirth was great but it wasn't quite right. Wonderful, awesome birth yet something wasn't right. When I heard about freebirth from Laura Shanley and read the book she sent me, that did it for me. Here was a truth that echoed from my bones. I knew this was my birthing option, I could feel it click within me.
So I did and I can say now it was so biologically normal. Birth is birth, it was as natural as breathing, and my body knew what to do, I knew what to do without THINKING about it. Amazing. I saw Psalm and Zoya: The unassisted birth of twins on DVD when I was pregnant with my second and it hit me so hard that I haven't quite yet recovered : ) It was like plop, plop... plop and done. What's the big deal here? That came across really clearly in that movie how birth was just a part of life like having sex, bowel movements, breathing, eating.
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IMO - it is incredibly dangerous to do freebirthing, and midwifes and other medical practitioners truely have the level of knowledge and experience to detect problems and try to prevent further ones before others will occur.
And what about the woman's knowledge? I know a homebirther who KNEW there was something wrong and wanted to transfer when her midwife said everything was fine. Turned out her cord was really, really short and she had an emergency cs and everything was fine.
I've heard many freebirthers transfer merely on the basis of a feeling, a type of knowing when on all appearances, things were fine. Saved their baby's life or theirs. Another freebirther did what she had to to get her baby out by getting on a chair, arching her back and pushing with all her might because she felt something occur within her. She knew she had to get her baby out NOW and that if she transferred to hospital it would be too late. She also knew if she had been a hospital birther, it would of also been too late because the drs would of had to diagnose the problem and then get OR prepped etc. Her placenta had ruptured and partially come away from the uterus during birth. Because she did what she did intuitively, her and her baby were okay. Her story is on unhindered living.
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most women choose autonomous, or family birth, because they want that utterly sacred and intimate experience and to have complete decision making power.
Janet that is exactly it!
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Just a random qu... How do you get a birh certificate for a UC baby?
It varies by state. All I had to do was to e-mail the BDM, ask to speak to the head of the Registry, explained to him that I was freebirthing and needed the necessary paperwork mailed to my house prior to birth so I didn't have to worry about it while looking after a newborn. It arrived shortly after and I filled out a statutory declaration, got it signed by a JP then sent it all back in. When the BC arrived, I took it to Centrelink and got my payment.
