I often get asked and also notice the confusion over what a 'natural birth' means - lots of people believe a natural birth means baby was birthed (as opposed to delivered, pizza's are delivered, babies are born LOL!) vaginally. However a natural birth generally means, obviously born vaginally, without drugs and without medical intervention, i.e. forceps, epidural etc. The birth of my son Elijah was natural, I laboured at home until 9 centimetres, got to hospital and pushed until he was born - so that was an example of a natural birth compared to Marisa who was augmented, gas, epidural - despite being born vaginally.
If you want the WHO (World Health Organisation) definition of NORMAL birth:
This is of course a topic of debate amongst professionals and women, but it generally means without any medical intervention.:
"Spontaneous in onset, low-risk at the start of labour and remaining so throughout labour and delivery. The infant is born spontaneously [without help] in the vertex position [head down] between 37 and 42 completed weeks of pregnancy. After birth mother and baby are in good condition."
So just thought I would explain, hope that helps! I hope this post doesn't offend anyone, it's not law or how it 'should' be for absolutely everyone, it is not intended to glorify anything or make anyone feel that their experience was not as good as another, I just thought I would post this to explain to lots of people at once ;)
I suppose while I am at it, I will explain the birthing bit too and why I don't use the word 'delivered'... because I think that a woman births her baby and an Obstetrician doesn't 'deliver' her baby to her! The woman did all the hard work, it's her baby, she should take full credit for it! So birth your babies into the world ladies - don't let anyone else 'deliver' them for you ;) Oh yeah and your baby isn't a pizza ROFL!
