My first birth was a beautiful homebirth without any of what I considered at the time to be interventions. I labored in my bedroom with my husband, both of our mothers, our lovely midwife Marianne, and her birth assistant Michelle.
Years later, a friend of mine from college asked me how I did it. “I couldn’t have done it without pain medication!”
It wasn’t rhetorical, she was waiting for my answer, and I didn’t know what to say! I was at a loss. I didn’t know how I did it. I didn’t have a method or a system. It was birth–it’s inevitable!
I know so much more about typical medicalized birth now, that I can imagine the reasons why she couldn’t do it.
I wish I could have the conversation again, my big chance to educate her.
Was she given anything to stimulate, or hurry labor? Artificially induced contractions are reportedly much more agonizing that natural ones, with the added problem of trying to birth a baby that was not ready yet–an uphill battle that may take longer and “require” more interventions (natural labor begins when all maternal and fetal systems are ready, and that is a moment that doctors have been unable to understand or predict).
Did she have a pain killer that failed to complete mask the pain, or which wore off so that she felt the subsequent pain? Such interventions interfere with the body’s system of combining oxytocin to cause contractions with endorphins to give the mother and baby a natural morphine-like pain relief. They prevent the body from laboring as intended, and from providing the mother and baby with the means to withstand the strength of the labor. Since the mother did not have the benefit of the gradual building up of contractions along with the endorphins, when pain relief does wear off, the sudden pain can be shocking and intolerable.
Was she in one position, lying flat on her back? The only position known to be less conducive to childbirth is possibly hanging by one’s feet. Lying on the back can deprive the baby of oxygen rich blood and cause fetal distress. It can severely slow the progress of labor which is naturally helped by gravity when a mother is in an upright position, and by a frequent changing of positions to help the cervix and vaginal opening open up. Lying on the back also closes the vaginal opening by about 30%, making it hard for a baby to squeeze through and is probably the leading cause of diagnoses of CPD (baby doesn’t fit through pelvis) and “failure to progress.”
Was she deprived of food and drink during labor? Labor is probably the greatest test of human endurance and the super-human strength required is unlikely to be mustered without sufficient nutrition throughout what is often a marathon of a process!
Were there, did she, did they, so many things could have contributed to her needing pain relief. What she experienced was likely not the natural course of labor, and the natural course of labor is something that is so rewarding and worthwhile, I wouldn’t want anyone to miss it. I’m even sorry for my husband!
It’s worth noting that not least among interventions that might have intervened with the natural course of labor, are the interruption of labor that accompanies transport to the hospital, the discomfort of an unfamiliar location with a multitude of unfamiliar faces, the various moods of those various faces, the cool air and cold mein of the hospital setting, the time-limits afforded birthing women, and the schedule of the average birth that is expected to be conformed to.
In contrast, what encourages a body to relax and open up is privacy, confidence, comfort, freedom to move and change position instinctively, and all the time in the world because some births take minutes and some take days.
I am surprised anyone at all manages to birth naturally in a hospital.
