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| 0789484404
| 9780789484406
| 0789484404
| 3.96
| 109
| 2002
| Mar 01, 2002
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really liked it
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This book was very useful in that it was true to its subtitle: "Choosing Birth at Home or in a Birth Center." It had a lot of information about birth
This book was very useful in that it was true to its subtitle: "Choosing Birth at Home or in a Birth Center." It had a lot of information about birth outside of the conventional hospital setting. So it wasn't only focused on natural childbirth but on the real differences you get between hospital and not in a hospital. The author is not a midwife, doula, or doctor; she is a social anthropologist who specializes in pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting (of babies and young children). She is an honorary professor at a British University teaching classes in the masters' midwifery program. I only learned after googling her that she is British, but I wondered, because throughout the book, while there were many American examples, there were a lot of British and European examples as well. I think it is helpful to get outside of one's own culture and view examples from other cultures, especially something universal like childbirth. The way the book is organized was very different from other childbirthing books I have read. There are a lot of full color pages. (And a lot of pictures, but that is not uncommon.) All of the asterisks indicate endnotes and are not numbered in the actual text in order, but at the end of the book they are listed based on what page they were on, so if you want to find out where her information was from, you should look immediately to the reference section. Her book is also indexed, which is very helpful for finding exactly what you are interested in. The author is a firm believer that any woman who is not high risk should have the opportunity to learn about out-of-hospital birth and decide whether that is the right decision for her rather than not educating herself about anything and just going along with the current medical model completely ignorant of other possibilities for delivery. I think there definitely is a lot to be said for births outside of the hospital: caregivers who will offer ways to manage pain without immediately resorting to drugs, caregivers who will allow your body to set the pace of the birth rather than forcing your baby's time onto a managed timed schedule, caregivers who view childbirth as a natural part of a woman's life rather than the most dangerous thing she will ever do, etc. Again, she emphasizes that this is an option for low-risk mothers, and she does emphasize the importance of having a truly qualified midwife, doctor, or general practitioner on board with your decision. She did make at least one mention of an unassisted home birth, but had no judgement statement for or against it. Many sections included a Q&A section that summarized the main points. And here are the excerpts that I would like to remember. "Whether birth is difficult or easy, painful or pain-free, long-drawn-out or brief, it need not be a medical event. It should never be conducted as if it were no more than a tooth extraction. For childbirth has much deeper significance than the removal of a baby like a decayed molar from a woman's body. The dawning of consciousness in a human being who is opening eyes for the first time on our world is packed with meaning for the mother and father, as it can be for everyone who shares in this greatest adventure of all. At least, that is how many women see birth. Not all of us, of course. There are women who think too much fuss is made about the birth experience. They simply want it to be painless and over with as soon as possible so that they can get on with their lives. That is a valid point of view. Some women are happy to accept induction, an epidural, and a forceps delivery, or a planned cesarean section, and feel more secure knowing that childbirth is being managed by a top obstetrician with skills to augment or replace the natural process. I believe that women should be able to have what they choose in childbirth. It is our bodies to which this is happening, and other people should not make decisions for us or make us feel guilty because they would have chosen a different way." "A good birth is not just a matter of safety, or of achieving the goal of a live and physically healthy mother and baby. We want birth to be as safe as we can make it, but should not take for granted that delivery in an operating room is necessarily the best way to achieve this. Childbirth has to do with emotions as well as with the sheer mechanics of descent, rotation, and delivery. It is bound to be so, because it is a major transition in the life of the mother, the father, and the whole family." "Labor pain is different from the pain of injury. It is caused by muscles stretching, pressure against nerves, and your body opening. It is similar to menstrual pain, but much more intense. It comes in waves. This rhythm means that there is a rest period between each contraction. As your cervix dilates progressively these rest periods become very short. There is just sufficient time in which to breathe out, drop shoulders, relax, and center yourself, before the next wave rushes over you. The meaning of birth pain is different from the pain of, say, toothache or earache, broken bones or colic. It is the pain of creative activity. In a labor that is going well each contraction starts gently, builds up in a grand crescendo to a peak, and then fades away. It is pain with a purpose�positive pain. That is not to say that birth pain is easy to bear. For many women it is the hardest pain they have ever experienced. It has been rated among the most severe pain ever known. Yet it is profoundly affected by what is going on in your mind and the attitudes of whoever is helping you. . . . It is difficult for someone who has had a distressing labor to understand how other women can enjoy giving birth. It seems to some women that when others talk about the joy of birth, and of triumphantly riding waves of contractions, they must be romanticizing or telling lies. A woman who, for example, relies on getting an epidural as soon as she turns up at the hospital, but is denied one because the anaesthetist is not available, or the midwife considers it too late in labor to give it, and that it would lead to an unnecessary surgical delivery, is likely to feel extreme and uncontrollable pain. She also feels anger that may be turned toward those who denied her the pain relief she wanted and on to other women who look back on their labors with satisfaction and delight. It is not hard to understand why this happens. This does not rule out the fact that it is possible to relish the birth experience, in the right environment, and with the right people in attendance." "'You are high-risk because you are 31 . . . it is your first baby and you have an untried pelvis . . . you had a miscarriage last year . . . you are in a high-risk ethnic group . . . you are single . . . this is your fifth baby . . . your last labor was induced and you had a forceps delivery . . . you have had a previous cesarean section.' At the first prenatal visit the doctor may refer to a 'risk score' to decide which category of care is appropriate for your pregnancy. . . . You may have little choice in this. You are labeled high or low risk either on the basis of a score like this, or simply because of the doctor's clinical hunches. . . . Attaching labels to pregnant women is damaging. A woman assigned to a high-risk category will probably have interventions that make birth more complicated, and women who are aware that they are 'at risk' lose confidence and become anxious. If everyone around you expects things to go wrong, you begin to believe that they will—and they may well occur. Often a woman is categorized as high- or low-risk without reference to her everyday life. Such things as inadequate housing, poor conditions in the workplace, little money for food, a violent partner, social isolation, unemployment, or family problems are social conditions which are at the roots of perinatal mortality (baby deaths) and morbidity (illness)." "All of us who approach childbirth with no idea of what happens, except what can be gained from books and films, are deprived. Girls growing up without any awareness of what it feels like to give birth, other than the fear of pain and injury, are especially deprived. In medicalizing childbirth and removing it from the home, our culture has made birth, like dying, a fearful ordeal that can be dealt with only by experts, that is no longer part of our shared lives, and is out of women's control. In bringing birth back into a setting that is controlled by women, making it a family occasion, and involving the other children in the family, we reclaim it, and prepare children to reclaim it for themselves. Women are often adamant that they would not want their older children present because it would be distracting and they would get in the way. they would have to be mothering when they wanted to concentrate on themselves. This is one effect of the isolation of women from each other. There is often no one else who understands what a small child wants or who can comfort him." ...more |
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Nov 15, 2012
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Nov 16, 2012
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Paperback
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| 0966351711
| 9780966351712
| 0966351711
| unknown
| 3.77
| 8,015
| Apr 16, 1998
| Apr 16, 1998
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really liked it
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I read the expanded edition that was published in 1998. I borrowed that copy from a friend. When I attended hypnobirthing class, I received a copy of
I read the expanded edition that was published in 1998. I borrowed that copy from a friend. When I attended hypnobirthing class, I received a copy of the third edition published in 2005, which I have not yet read. Therefore keep in mind that for this review, I am reviewing the 1998 book. I have not yet read the 2005 book, and I do not know what differences there may be. I found this book to be very interesting. I was raised in a culture where the idea that delivery is scary and that labor pain should be avoided is prevalent. This book contains the belief that when labor is not feared but rather looked forward to as a natural part of life then labor itself is much less difficult. That really makes sense to me, because I have found in my life that my attitude does greatly affect, and even control, my reality. When I first heard of hypnobirthing, I was skeptical of it. I thought of hypnotists and being put under someone's control and not being aware of what was occurring. After talking to friends who are hypnomoms, reading this book, and attending class, I have learned that hypnobirthing is actually the art of learning how to deeply relax, how to naturally breathe your baby out rather than "purple pushing," and how to think of "painful contractions" as "powerful surges" specifically created by our bodies to push babies out. I think this is a valuable book to read as you explore your birthing options. Even if you do not achieve the natural birth you are setting your hopes on (at least I assume anyone considering hypnobirthing is planning to birth without interventions), I think the relaxation techniques could be helpful to a mom undergoing pitocin, epidural, and/or Cesarean section. Some criticize hypnobirthing by saying that hypnobirthing claims that labor and delivery does not have to be painful. I would argue that hypnomoms simply view pain differently or use the word with a different meaning. I have not had this baby yet, but I do not think that I will view this labor as easy or as delightful as swinging on a porch swing on a warm evening relaxing with my husband and watching my children play. But I do think that this labor will not be painful in the same way that it feels to break your leg, have a tooth extracted without analgesic drugs, or suffer from pyelonephritis. Those pains hurt you, break you, harm you. The feeling of a contraction, or surge, does not actually harm you. It is your muscles contracting very powerfully. It is your body doing what it was made to do. Once the baby is expelled (and the placenta is expelled and the uterus shrunk), the pain (or sensations) end, and for many unmedicated women euphoria takes its place. My body knew how to create a baby out of the tiniest little pieces of matter. I trust that it also knows how to get that baby out of me. Anyway, now I'm going off on a tangent instead of reviewing a novel. Basically, don't dismiss this method before you've actually learned what it is. Then after learning if it isn't right for you, then great. You'll find what is right for you in a different book or class. Here are the snippets I found interesting. In reading this excerpt, know that this birth took place in 1954, and many (possibly most or all) hospitals, doctors, and nurses have come a long way since then. But I think it is a valuable experience, because it sets the stage for understanding, in my generation, the fight that the previous generation of women had to wage in order to influence the changes that make our labors and deliveries so much more pleasant. The experience of the author was definitely not an isolated one. "While I was in labor, the nurses kindly reassured me, 'When the pains get unbearable, you can have a shot of Demorol to eas them.' I was mocked when I refused. Left alone in a dark labor room, listening to the insufferable ticking of a 'Baby Ben' clock that was placed by my side so that I could 'time' my 'labor pains,' I found myself ignored by nurses, who wouldn't accept my word for what was happening in my labor. When I insisted that I was ready to push, they told me that when I was ready, I would be, '. . . yelling and screaming like the rest of them.' Once in the delivery room, my wrists were strapped to the sides of the delivery table with leather straps; and my legs were tied into the stirrups that held my knees and legs four feet into the air. My head was held as the ether cone was forced onto my face. That was the last I remembered. I awakened sometime later, violently ill from the ether, and was informed that I had 'delivered' a beautiful baby boy, whom I would be able to see in the morning. The nurse cautioned me not to be alarmed at the red bruises on his face from the forceps. My husband was allowed to visit me for ten minutes. Neither of us held our son Wayne that evening." "Dr. Christine Northrup, author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, expresses it well in her book when she forwards a challenge to all birthing mothers: 'Imagine what might happen if the majority of women emerged from their labor beds with a renewed sense of the strength and power of their bodies, and of their capacity for ecstasy through giving birth. When enough women realize that birth is a time of great opportunity to get in touch with their true power, and when they are willing to assume responsibility for this, we will reclaim the power of birth and help move technology where it belongs—in the service of birthing women, not as their master.'" "Today, many programs have become information channels for the local hospitals, designed primarily to acquaint you with the 'medical model' and educated you to the drugs, technological equipment, and medical procedures that are routinely in use at the hospitals. Some programs teach methods to attempt to take your focus away from the pain so that you will not be so aware of it, training you to cope with pain rather than reduce it or eliminate it. Others suggest that you look upon the pain as an empowerment of your womanhood, something to rise above and triumph over. You are taught to accept the pain of labor as inevitable but not insurmountable. Some teach that you view pain as an unavoidable, but useful, friend that can be tolerated, worked with, and learned from. These techniques are premised on a basic belief that pain must be associated with labor and the pain must somehow be accommodated. The HypnoBirthing philosophy differs vastly from all of these views. HypnoBirthing is predicated on the belief that as a woman, you can experience birth through your own natural birthing instincts—serenely, comfortably, with dignity, and with as little medical intervention as possible. The program teaches you to go with the natural flow and rhythm of your laboring body; to release your birthing over to your mind and body; and to trust your body to function as it was intended to, thereby alleviating pain. HypnoBirthing teaches you and your birthing companion to work with natural relaxation techniques, so that your body can work with complete neuromuscular harmony, assisting rather than resisting." "Medicine advanced with the rebirth of science after the dark and middle ages, but the status of women and birthing did not. Biblical translations, written at a time when it was believed that pain was a natural accompaniment of birthing, kept the concept of "The Curse of Eve" alive. Through his study into the Bible and from his association with scholars of the Bible, [Grantly] Dick-Read learned that the Hebrew word etsev is translated to mean 'labor, toil, and work' throughout most bibles, but when the same translators referred to childbirth, the word was given to mean 'pain, sorrow, anguish, or pangs.'" "It was in a humble, poverty-ridden setting in London in 1913 that Grantly Dick-Read first became sensitive to the possible answer of what is wrong with labor. As a young intern in London's White Chapel District in the heart of the East End slums, he was called to attend a woman in labor. After traveling on his bicycle through mud and rain, he arrived about three in the morning at a low hovel underneath some railroad arches. He found his way to a small apartment, where he discovered his patient in a dim room, soaked from the rain that was pouring in on her. She was covered with only sacks and an old black skirt. He asked permission to put the mark over her face and administer chloroform. Her emphatic refusal was a first for Dick-Read. He returned his things to his bag, stood back, and watched. Her baby was born with no fuss and with no noise from the patient. As he prepared to leave, Dick-Read asked why she had refused the relief from pain. She gave him an answer that he was never to forget�'It didn't hurt. Isn't wasn't meant to, was it, Doctor?'—an honest answer, given in a deep cockney accent, that has had a profound effect on birthing for many decades." "It is found that babies who were exposed to soft music and singing during gestation were calmer and they adjusted more easily. As a result, they were better sleepers." "Please, Mom and Dad My hands are small. I didn't mean to spill my milk. My legs are short—Please slow down so I can keep up. Don't slap my hands when I touch something bright and pretty. I don't understand. Please look at me when I talk to you. It lets me know you are really listening. My feelings are tender—don't nag me all day. Let me make mistakes without feeling stupid. Don't expect the bed I make or the picture I draw to be perfect. Just love me for trying. Remember, I am a child, not a small adult. Sometimes I don't understand what you're saying. I love you so much. Please love me just for being myself, not just for the things I can do. —Author unknown" "There is literature showing that a presence of negative emotions or maternal anxiety and stress can have an adverse effect on the fetus and the newborn baby." "It is important for medical care providers to examine their suggestions. They should pause and consider the effects upon the mother and the baby, as well as the overall impact of the birthing experience, when they suggest intervention with drugs or early membrane rupture simply because a labor may be slow. They need to rethink Hippocrates' very old, but still relevant, dictum on avoiding 'meddlesome interference.' The very word obstetrics stems from the Latin obstare meaning 'to stand by.' It is sometimes difficult for medical care providers, accustomed to directing and playing an active role in birthing, to adjust to waiting and 'standing by' until they are needed." ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Sep 24, 2012
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Oct 04, 2012
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Paperback
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| 1594770670
| 9781594770678
| 1594770670
| 4.15
| 901
| Oct 01, 1991
| Aug 09, 2005
|
it was amazing
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A lot of the information in this book was not new to me due to how much I have already read, but it would be new to the average American person. I lik
A lot of the information in this book was not new to me due to how much I have already read, but it would be new to the average American person. I like that the book is indexed, making it very easy for you to read what is significant for you. I also liked rereading what I had already learned, because it strengthens the new position I am taking, to hear the same information reported by a completely different source. If you read the book before watching the DVD, there is no new information on the DVD. If you have never seen birth though (real birth not faked birth from a movie or sitcom), then it is a really good idea to watch the DVD to get a better idea of what it is really like. (Although as a warning, a lot of the women felt more comfortable birthing completely naked. It is, of course, not sexual in nature—she's very busy giving birth and just felt more comfortable that way, and it definitely makes it easy for the baby to have skin-to-skin contact and nurse immediately.) I've read some reviews on here where women wrote that the author made it seem like C-sections and doctors are evil. That is not the vibe I received from the book. What I gathered from the book is that she believes doctors and C-sections are very necessary but unfortunately overused. The American C-section rate is somewhere over 30% of births. The rest of modernized countries are at more like 10 or 15%. And in the four countries that lose the fewest babies, only 30% of births are overseen by a doctor (and a high percentage of those are seen by a doctor and midwife), and the other 70% are overseen only by a midwife. In the US, the vast majority of births are overseen by a doctor—and we have more mothers and babies die than they do. To me, I understood that she thinks OBs are important for the high risk cases where a specialized surgeon is needed, but for all other pregnant women (low risk, healthy women) there is just no need for them, and in some cases, having an OB present and following the hospital model of birth can make a woman go from low risk to high risk, due to the unnatural conditions surrounding her labor and the medical interventions used. My main goal in having Americans read this book is to realize that there are other options available to families for childbirth. Too often I hear women say (and indeed I said it as well) "all I want is a healthy baby." While we all do want healthy babies, no one teaches women that most babies will be healthy when birthed naturally and that when you give all of your freedom over to the hospital and OB you lose out on an experience that can be life changing. Women who give birth naturally obviously report that birth was hard, but they usually also describe it as amazing or empowering or incredible. They can move immediately. Their babies are more alert. Their babies are never taken from them and can nurse immediately. The mothers are not weak from being denied food and drink during the hardest physical activity they've ever undergone. The mothers have full movement of their body with no side effects from drugs. And their babies are born with no drugs in their systems. "This gentle book beautifully conveys the magic, wonder, and excitement of birth as it can be—when women approach it as a natural process they can trust, and when practitioners remember to honor its sacredness." My opinion: How often do you hear American women talking like that? That birth can be magical and exciting and something that their body was specifically created to do? Or do you usually hear "I have a scheduled C-section, because the baby is too big" or "I am so scared" or "I don't think I can handle the pain." American women are not taught how to handle the power of their bodies. Medical practitioners are not trained to "enable women to make truly informed choices by providing full information about the risks of interventions or about the potential benefits for women giving birth on their own with the support of low-tech aids like doulas, massage, eating and drinking during labor, walking, immersion in water." "The United States offers the most technically advanced obstetrical care in the world. Ninety-eight percent of all births in the United States take place in hospitals, and the majority of them are attended by physicians. Yet when this country is compared worldwide, it ranks only thirty-first in maternal and infant mortality and morbidity rates, with 6.63 newborn deaths for every 1,000 live births. (Mortality reflects the number of deaths and morbidity reflects the number of illnesses associated with birth.) Every single European nation has better maternal and infant outcomes than the United States. As of 2004 one of the safest countries in the world in which to have a baby was Sweden, with only 2.7 deaths per 1,000 births. The majority of the industrialized nations that have good statistics have one thing in common that the United States lacks—midwives, and lots of them, who see birth as normal and natural and are the gatekeepers for all pregnant women." All the emphases are mine. "Many doctors throughout the world feel that if birth is allowed to proceed normally, at least 75 percent of the time it will take place without any complications that require intervention. But in hospitals in United States, interventions are routinely used in more than 90 percent of all births." "Before describing the important elements of gentle birth, I want to point out that these are merely suggestions. Gentle birth is not a method or set of rules that must be followed. Rather, it is an approach to birth that incorporates a woman's own values and beliefs. Every birth is a powerful experience—sometimes painful, always transformational. Each birth is as unique as the woman giving birth and the baby being born." "When women realize that their bodies really know how to give birth and that their babies know how to be born, they gain confidence." My opinion: How can women accept that their body knew how to create a baby out of a tiny little embryo and then turn around and not believe that their body will know how to birth the same baby that it created? "A gentle birth takes place when a woman is supported by the people she chooses to be with during this most intimate time. She needs to be loved and nurtured by those around her so she can feel comfortable and secure enough to follow her natural instincts. A birthing woman must be trusted so she can in turn trust herself, her body, her partner, her baby, and this process of giving birth. Her intuition must be respected. During a natural gentle birth, a woman feels and sense the power of birth and uses this energy to transform every part of her own being. A gentle birth is not rushed. The baby emerges at its own pace and in its own time, and is received into the hands of those who love and recognize it for the divine gift that it is." "Hospitals have made remarkable changes, especially in decor, and adopted policies which make integrating natural birth options easier, but most institutions continue to treat birth as a potential dangerous, life-threatening medical problem rather than a naturally occurring life process." "For many years women have accepted the myth that their bodies are inadequate to birth their babies without a physician's directions and interventions. Women are encouraged to doubt their bodies' wisdom, their physical strength, and their intuition. In labor and birth a woman waits for the doctor to tell her when to "push" and accepts that an episiotomy may be best or that childbirth is unbearable without pain medication." "For U.S. midwife-attended births the mortality rate drops to 2.1 deaths per 1,000 live births as compared to the overall U.S. figure of 6.3 deaths per 1,000 live births." (The 6.63 number before was infant mortality and morbidity; this 6.3 is just mortality.) "Eighty-five percent of birthing women in the United States are considered low-risk as they enter the hospital, but 100 percent of women receive at least one intervention in labor. The sad fact is that the majority of cesareans are the result of being in the hospital." "The results of this two-year study showed that the infant death rate in hospitals was 12 per 1,000 live births, whereas the death rate for planned, attended home births was 4 per 1,000 live births. The infant death rate in unplanned or unattended home births soared to 120 per 1,000." When planned and attended by a doctor or midwife, home births are safer. Obviously, planning and the experience of the attending care giver is vital. Japan is the third safest country in the world for babies to be born in; their infant mortality rate is 3.28 per 1,000 live births. "For every 250 midwives in Japan there is just one obstetrician." "Every first mother I meet or speak with thinks that God should have designed pregnancy to last only thirty-eight weeks instead of a possible forty-two or more. . . . I reassure women every day that babies are born on their birthdays, not their due dates, and that the average first pregnancy lasts forty-one weeks and three days." "Until recently, very little was known about how natural labors actually begin. Scientists knew that the release of oxytocin resulted in both uterine contractions and milk production. Pioneering research by scientists at Cornell University, Oxford in the United Kingdom, and the University of Auckland, New Zealand, confirms that a hormone is released from the baby's brain to initiate labor. Two hormones, corticol and adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), reach peak levels in the fetal bloodstream just before birth. . . . When the baby is ready for birth, a special part of its brain signals the fetal pituitary gland to secrete more cortisol." So inducing makes it so the baby is not allowed to signal when he or she is ready to come. It forces him or her out before that time. And I am not saying there are never legitimate reasons to induce; I am merely trying to show that it should be done for a legitimate reason and not just convenience. It is definitely overdone. "In the 1970s and 1980s it was rare to see an induction just for a pregnancy that was past forty-two weeks. . . . Induction is now the norm." "We now have proof that elective inductions lead to twice as many cesareans as do labors that start on their own (including those with large babies)." "The FDA removed its approval of Pitocin for the elective induction of labor in 1978." (It is still approved for medically necessary induction.) I'm not going to type them here, because I'm sure you can find them on the internet, but before making your birthing choices, you should look up the risks associated with the use of Pitocin for mother and baby. The midst of labor is not the best time for a woman to be making decisions that she has not been previously educated on. "The Physicians' Desk Reference lists all drugs manufactured in the United States and describes the possible side effects. Under each of the anesthetic agents commonly used for epidurals for women in labor, the Physicians' Desk Reference plainly states that there are no long-term studies on the effects of these drugs on the fetus. Nor have there been any long-term studies on the impact of these dugs on the child's life." I am not saying that epidurals are evil. I just think they should be the last form of pain relief offered, rather than the first or only. Many women would be surprised to discover how much better they feel just by walking around, changing positions, getting in the shower, or getting in a tub. "It is a woman's right to choose whether or not she wants drugs for pain relief; however, the general consensus in the United States is that most women need drugs to withstand the pain of childbirth. Unfortunately, many women have not been encouraged to experience their labor and birth without drugs but instead have been told that pain medication will make it bearable. It is not uncommon to hear women who may only be a few months pregnant already declaring that they will get an epidural as soon as they arrive at the hospital because they fear the pain of labor will be too great. In turn, out of a misguided sense of kindness, doctors and nurses who genuinely believe that drugs comfort a woman in labor and ease her pain are likely to encourage that woman to make use of the availability of drugs." "A typical hospital scenario during a slow labor is to administer Pitocin, a synthetic version of oxytocin, which a laboring woman's body produces naturally. Pitocin is given in order to speed up and intensify contractions. Natural oxytocin is accompanied by a panoply of pain-neutralizing endorphins, absent in the synthetic version. So Pitocin interferes with the body's ability to cope with pain. Thus, when women are given Pitocin, they are often offered a painkiller or an epidural as well." "In 1975 the American Academy of Pediatrics announced that there is no absolute medical indication for routine circumcision, yet it is still practiced today upon non-consenting and unwitting male babies." "There is a saying that simplifies the difference between the midwives model of care and the medical model: 'Midwives see birth as a miracle, and only mess with it if there's trouble. Obstetricians see birth as trouble, and if they don't mess with it, it's a miracle.' There are physicians who practice the midwives model of care and there are, unfortunately, midwives who don't practice it. Physicians and midwives who do follow the midwives model of care embrace a noninterventionist approach to childbearing that lets nature take its course during labor and birth." "Besides 'eating for two,' research shows that 'sleeping for two' helps reduce stress levels. A report suggested that the length and quality of sleep in the last month of pregnancy even affected the length of labor and the outcome. Women who slept fewer than seven hours a night had a much greater incidence of cesarean births." ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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not set
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Aug 24, 2012
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Aug 27, 2012
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Paperback
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| 1558327185
| 9781558327184
| 1558327185
| 4.35
| 2,849
| May 15, 2018
| Mar 17, 2011
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it was amazing
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For those attempting a natural birth in a hospital, this is definitely a "must read." There were new ideas in this book that I had not already encount
For those attempting a natural birth in a hospital, this is definitely a "must read." There were new ideas in this book that I had not already encountered, and I appreciated that. There was also repetition of ideas I had already read, but that is also appreciated, because it reinforces them, helps me remember them, and gives them more weight. The author lays everything out in a very accessible way, going step by step through it all. Her sources are also cited in the back, which I greatly appreciate. And this book has an index, which makes it very easy to find exactly what you are looking for when you aren't reading it straight all the way through. I thought the author did a very good job of not attacking doctors, but rather showing them as products of our culture, their educational process, the commonality of litigation, and the power of insurance companies. Pretty much all doctors, one assumes, become doctors because they care about people and keeping them safe. Something else that differentiates this book from others is that the author is first and foremost an anthropologist. She has a doctorate in medical anthropology, and she is a professor of anthropology at Eastern Michigan University. She is also a doula. Most of the pregnancy/labor/birth books that I have read are written by obstetricians or midwives, so I found the anthropological point of view to be very interesting. I also really liked that while she did stress that for the majority of birthing women, interventions are unnecessary, she also provided a lot of information on when it would be necessary and how to proceed from there. This can help a woman who does have to accept some interventions know which ones are actually necessary and which are not. The first two excerpts are from the foreword (written by Timothy R. B. Johnson) rather than the actual book. (And the emphasis on the second one is mine.) "Pregnant women seem to be turning away from childbirth education and turning toward epidural anesthesia. 'I learned everything I need from a video,' some say, whether it was a reality TV show or a professionally prepared education video. Patients are getting more information than ever before, in many new ways, but how are they processing the information? . . . It is time once again for women to educate themselves. . . . Readers can use this book to bring about constructive, positive changes that will improve women's birth experiences while making sure that safety is paramount." "I always try to remember and teach that childbirth is a natural process that with little or no intervention normally turns out well. But nature does not assure a perfect or even a good outcome. . . . We are lucky in the United States that birth has become so safe that we can now focus on the quality of the birth experience." "Why do American women so seldom experience natural hospital birth? Why can't American women endure the pain of labor? While many birth researchers blame doctors and a century of medicalized childbirth, I have a different idea. I answer this question as an anthropologist. Two aspects of our culture seem particularly vital. The first is structural. We all live with constraints imposed on us by the structures of our health-care system, the insurance business, and laws regarding liability. (Obstetricians are the most-sued doctors in the United States. Russian doctors and midwives are paid by the government; Russia has virtually no insurance companies; and none of the Russian doctors whom I interviewed had ever been sued by a patient.) The second aspect is related to our cultural values: Simply put, our culture does not honor birth pain. Here in the United States and Canada, our culture doesn't teach us that birth pain leads to something valuable. Our society fails to recognize the merit of most pain, not just birth pain, and we go to great lengths to avoid unpleasant feelings. So many North American women have experienced the pain of labor, and then an epidural, that our collective memory about birth is now full of hurt but is missing the feelings of ecstasy and success that natural birth provides. In Russia, by contrast, suffering is considered an admirable pathway to becoming a better person. Russians from all walks of life can speak eloquently about positive transformation through pain. Russia is not unique. Most other cultures in the world provide a lifelong message to girls and women that the physical labor of birth is not just valuable, it is heroic. To embrace the pain of labor, we must reclaim its value." [Emphasis is mine.] "Women merit the right to choose hospital birth without having to sacrifice the body's natural process." [Emphasis mine.] And I found this definition useful, because "natural birth" does mean different things to different people. "For the vast majority of women, a natural birth means giving birth spontaneously (without induction), at one's own pace (without drugs to increase the speed), and under one's own power (without anesthetics). Most women alive today would be able to give birth safely without any medical support. For very few babies and even fewer women, medical intervention is necessary during the birth process. For these women, natural birth means the most natural birth possible. When intervention is unavoidable, the task is to identify the minimum level of intervention necessary. A woman's commitment to natural birth does not end because she faces an emergency complication. It simply changes." "How does the mind-body connection affect birth? The encouraging truth is that our minds can lead the way to a satisfying healthy birth. The flip side, though, is that fear can stop, slow, or complicate labor. A feeling of safety, calm, and acceptance will accelerate and simplify your labor. This may sound strange or unprovable. Yet it is a scientific fact. Your hormones control your labor, and your feelings control your hormones. Though many hormones are involved in the complicated dance of labor, the most two important ones to know about are adrenaline and oxytocin." "The writer Reinekke Lengelle interviewed Dr. Michel Odent about the normal physiology of birth. In the 1960s and 1970s, Dr. Odent developed the maternity unit at a hospital in Pithiviers, France, where he pioneered the use of birthing pools in hospitals. Lengelle writes: 'The needs of a woman in labor are pretty basic, and during his lecture and workshop Dr. Odent summed them up several times: privacy, safety, warmth, and darkness. These needs are pretty much what she requires to get to sleep and what will reduce the activity of the neocortex of the brain.'" "Here is a fact that may surprise you: Obstetricians may never see a single natural birth during medical training, and some may never see more than a handful in their entire careers. If an obstetrician's practice averages a 10-percent natural-birth rate, which is higher than many, this means that 90 percent of the births the doctor attends are medically managed. Few obstetricians have been with a woman in labor from beginning to end, over the many hours often needed for progression from 1 to 10 centimeters and then pushing out the baby. Obstetricians' training focuses on the moment of delivery, surgery, and serious complications. Because of this emphasis, obstetricians may have few personal encounters with long natural labors." "Whereas medical-school students must attend a minimum number of births with interventions such as c-sections, epidurals, forceps, vacuum deliveries, and episiotomies, there is no requirement that these doctors attend even a single natural birth. What this means is that doctors have in-depth knowledge of how to measure a cervix and extract a baby with surgical tools, but they may have only theoretical knowledge of natural labor." [Emphasis mine.] "A birth story by a famous birth activist is instructive here. In 2001 I had the pleasure of taking a train ride with an anthropologist and author Robbie Davis-Floyd. On our journey she told me about her two children's births. After her first labor ended in a c-section for 'failure to progress,' she was certain that the problem was not her body but her caregivers' lack of patience. She believed that the second time around she would again face a long labor. . . . This time she found midwives who were willing to wait through a long labor without calling it a failure. . . . [For her second birth,] After three days of labor, she gave birth naturally to a healthy baby." "Hypnosis for birth is not an altered state in which a hypnotist controls your actions. Rather, it is a method of achieving extremely deep relaxation, similar to the way you feel as you are going to sleep or when you are intensely concentrated on an enjoyable task, like putting together a puzzle or reading a novel." "What is labor like? My short answer . . . is that my labors were intense. They were painful. And they were the most satisfying things I have ever done. I can honestly say that I enjoy giving birth. Not because I have a high tolerance for pain. I welcome the physical sensations of labor because they make me feel more alive than anything else I have ever experienced. Like a marathon runner, I am proud that I made it to the finish line. That sense of accomplishment and knowledge of what my body can do are worth every minute of pain." "The best pain-management technique you can use in early labor is pretending you're not in labor. Although it makes sense to alert your partner and possibly your caregiver, you will do best to save all your attention for active labor. How will you know when you've reached this stage? It will be when you can no longer talk to anyone except in monosyllables between contractions. In my experience, this sign is unmistakable. Whether labor is fast or slow, when a woman has trouble concentrating on a conversation between contractions, she has moved beyond early labor." "How long does labor last for most women? As you have no doubt garnered from stories of family and friends, the normal range is wide. A 2-hour labor is normal, and so is a 28-hour labor. A study by Sandra K. Cesario found normal labor (with no pharmaceutical augmentation) to range from 1.9 to 34 hours." "Your demonstration of personal commitment, more than your medical knowledge, will likely be the make-it-or-break-it factor when you are dealing with a caregiver who disagrees with you. You are never going to convince a caregiver who has developed a different style of handling childbirth that you are right. You can, however, convince your caregiver that you deeply desire something different and that his support matters to you." "Your body and your baby will birth best at their own pace. Your baby has little regard for whether the doctor is about to leave your floor for surgery; your uterus does not care whether the woman next door is about to deliver. Your pace is your pace." [Emphasis mine.] "The time-tested techniques that our great-grandmothers used are numerous. If one does not work, you can try another. Techniques include conscious relaxation, visualization, breathing, physical movement (changing positions), using water, eating for energy, letting your emotions flow freely, and hearing word of reassurance. When you feel pain in your back, you can also try counter-pressure and hip squeezing to relieve pain. ...more |
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Aug 21, 2012
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| 1999
| Aug 01, 1999
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it was amazing
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First, this book is exceptionally researched, and in the back of the book (taking up over one hundred pages!), you can find literature summaries, a bi
First, this book is exceptionally researched, and in the back of the book (taking up over one hundred pages!), you can find literature summaries, a bibliography, charts, and an index. It was very impressive. I enjoyed that while she admitted a few times in the book that she obviously has her own opinion, the vast majority of the book is merely a retelling of the intensive research she has conducted. And while some books will only list pros to medical interventions at childbirth and others will list only cons to medical interventions and are totally crunchy, this author included all possible pros and cons to medical interventions and natural practices. I really felt like neither side was over looked. Some parts of it were a little repetitive, but the author said that was intentional, so an inquisitive reader would not have to read the entire book cover-to-cover when looking for certain information. You can turn to the chapter and know that all of the related information will be there. So obviously some parts of birth are related to multiple other parts of birth, and that is where there was a little repetition. It never became annoying though in my opinion. You have to read or hear something multiple times before you remember it, so it was reinforcing for me. While she was very even handed, she did have the general opinion that while obstetric interventions are no doubt necessary, she feels that they are overused among low risk women and babies. Keep in mind when you read the quotes that were important or interesting to me that they may not give you an even view of the book. I didn't choose my quotes to show both sides. I just chose the ones I want to remember. This quote is found in the opening of the book. It is from Midwifery and Childbirth in America by Judith Pence Rooks: "We can no longer say that a great deal of American obstetric practice goes forth without adequate research. It is now more accurate to say that many interventions are used routinely or frequently in spite of research that has clearly shown that the procedure is being used inappropriately in this country." This quote is also found on one of the opening pages. It is from A Good Birth, A Safe Birth: Choosing and Having the Childbirth Experience You Want written by Diana Korte and Roberta Scaer: "If you don't know your options, you don't have any." "Cesarean section is the most common major surgery performed in this country. Every year in the United States one in five—nearly one million—pregnant women have a cesarean section, despite the health risks, pain, recovery time, and expense. The consensus of the medical literature is that half of these operations were not needed." [And I will add that this book was written in 1999. In 2012, America's cesarean rate is closer to one in three women.] "Doctors now use electronic fetal monitoring, a machine that records the baby's heart rate in conjunction when the mother's contractions, on four out of five laboring women. The percentage has risen steadily in the face of a stream of studies showing that its use doesn't improve babies' health. In fact, its routine use threatens the mother's health by increasing the odds of forceps or vacuum extraction deliveries and cesarean section." "Most women who have a cesarean section automatically have them for subsequent babies. Reams of data show that vaginal birth after cesarean is safer for mothers, has advantages for babies, and will work for nearly three-quarters of women." "Obstetricians are also influenced by the broader culture in that it is believed that technology is superior to nature and machines are more reliable than people. This explains why they will not back off from technologies that have proven to be failures except to replace them with the next new and untested expensive technology that comes down the road. It also explains why not intervening has the burden of proving itself rather than the other way around." "I have had to be selective in the data I presented, but I think I have included enough to make my case. For most chapters, I read two to three times the number of papers as appear in the bibliography and appendix reference lists. One tactic for dismissing a work like mine is to say that you can find a study to support any position, but that does not apply here. The data uniformly failed to support common obstetric practice for most of the topics I researched." "When a research project at a Chicago lowered the cesarean rate from 18 percent to 12 percent between 1985 and 1987, the hospital involved lost $1 million in revenues. The need to fill hospital beds provides strong financial motives to perform cesarean." "Studies consistently show that for-profit hospitals have higher cesarean rate than non-profits, HMO-owned hospitals, or county hospitals. Private obstetricians also have higher cesarean rates compared with obstetricians caring for clinic patients, although low-income women have the higher medical risk." "Over a decade ago [this book was written in 1999], the World Health Organization concluded that since countries with some of the lowest perinatal mortality rates in the world had cesarean section rates of less than 10 percent, there was no justification for any region to have a cesarean rate more than 10 to 15 percent." "Some years ago, faced with a cesarean rate approaching 25 percent, the U.S. government set the goal of achieving a 15 percent national cesarean rate by the year 2000. Ironically, in 1979, the National Institute of Health viewed a 15 percent rate with such alarm that it convened a panel of experts to develop recommendations on how to lower it." [In August 2012, the National Center for Health Statistics released the U.S. national cesarean rate for 2010: 32.8%.] "Cesareans cause more maternal deaths than does vaginal birth. A 1989 analysis in Great Britain revealed that women were 550 percent more likely to die of an elective cesarean section than a vaginal birth (9 versus 2 per 100,000). A Dutch study found that between 1983 and 1992, C-sections caused 700 perfect more deaths than vaginal births did (28 versus 4 per 100,000). Obviously, some factors that lead to C-section also threaten the mother's life. However, the British study compared elective cesarean, where there was no medical indication for the surgery, to vaginal birth to minimize that possibility, and the Dutch study investigated the exact cause of death." "Inducing labor is intrinsically ironic. It works best when least needed and often fails when needed the most. It also causes the very problems it was intended to prevent. Despite common perception, obstetricians can't just switch labor on at will. Starting and intensifying labor involves a complex cascade of feedback mechanisms that mutually reinforce and limit each other." ". . . doctors induce labor when they are concerned about the baby's condition, which brings us to the other irony: Induction causes the problems it was intended to prevent. Induced labors are much harder on the baby than natural labor. For one thing, it takes greater contraction pressures over a longer time to get a labor going and keep it going than are generally needed for spontaneous labor." "There are problems with the due date itself. You may be surprised to learn that the conventional forty-week pregnancy length is completely arbitrary. It was established by a German obstetrician in the early 1800s. He simply declared that a pregnancy should last ten moon months, that is, ten months of four weeks each. However, when researchers in a 1990 study followed a group of healthy, white women, they discovered that pregnancy in first-time mothers averaged eight days longer than this, and the average was three days longer in women with prior births." "In addition, ultrasonography, the current standard for assigning due dates, does not reliably establish due dates. Even in the first trimester, the date is plus or minus five days. This means the actual due date falls within a ten-day window. Sonograms done later in pregnancy are even less accurate." "As a medical journal editorial commented, 'When the requisite randomized controlled trials were finally done, the consensus was striking: routine electronic fetal monitoring confers no demonstrable benefit to the fetus, yet poses a significantly increased risk of operative delivery (e.g., cesarean delivery or forceps) for the woman. Even for high-risk fetuses, evidence of the benefit of electronic monitoring . . . is lacking. After two decades of use, electronic fetal monitoring has not been shown to be superior to intermittent [listening].'" "Labor will hurt. Probably a lot. But whether this is negative is another matter. Pain and suffering differ, as anyone who engages in activities demanding strength and endurance can tell you. A laboring woman can be in a great deal of pain, yet feel loved and supported and exhilarated by the power of the creative forces flowing through her body and her ability to meet labor's challenges." "It is also unclear to what extent obstetric practitioners cause some of the problems believed to be inevitable or frequent results of childbirth by the way they manage the pushing phase of labor and the birth itself." "Lying flat on the back, the standard pushing position until recently—and probably still standard in some hospitals—puts about ten pounds' worth of baby and uterus on top of the major maternal blood vessels serving the uterus and placenta." "Studies show that the usual instructions to hold the breath and push 'as long and hard as you can' and not to take more than a quick breath between pushes cause symptoms of fetal distress. Left to their own devices, women don't push like that. They grunt and groan, and when they hold their breaths, they hold it for no longer than six seconds. They usually take several breaths between pushes. Studies show that spontaneous pushing does not adversely affect the baby. It may take a little longer to push out the baby, but despite this, babies are born better oxygenated." "Data also suggests that giving birth in an upright position, which is how women in every traditional culture do it, preserves the perineum from tears." "When researchers compared outcomes for all U.S. women cared for by nurse midwives in 1991 with outcomes of similar women managed by doctors, they found, among other benefits of midwifery care, that one-third fewer babies died during the first week of life. As the authors of an analysis comparing birth outcomes of midwives and obstetricians comment, 'In all economically developed countries except Holland, maternity care has come to be organised so as to give full effect to the theory that childbirth is always safer if it takes place under the management of obstetricians in a hospital. . . . It is a remarkable fact that obstetricians have never at any time had valid evidence to support the theory they have so successfully propagated.'" "Because midwifery care is superior to medical management for low- and moderate-risk women, obstetricians should not control midwives or labor and delivery policies. In a maternity-care system that makes sense, such as Holland's, midwives and family physicians would care for pregnant women, and at their discretion they would consult with or refer to obstetricians those women who developed complications. This, of course, is the arrangement in all other instances of generalists and specialists." "Research disproves the argument that the fact that obstetricians handle high-risk cases accounts for differences in procedure and medication rates. For one thing, midwives don't just take care of low-risk women. Hospital-based midwives, at least, care for women with risk profiles comparable to—and for some factors worse than—the national average. For another, when you compare low-risk women managed by obstetricians with low-risk women cared for by midwives or family practitioners, the midwives and family practitioners consistently come out behind on intervention rates." "No study has ever shown that out-of-hospital births resulted in worse outcomes provided women were prescreened for risk factors and had a planned out-of-hospital birth with a trained attendant. And while individual studies may be too small to show significant differences in the occurrence of adverse outcomes because such outcomes are exceedingly rare in healthy women, collectively they affirm the safety of out-of-hospital birth. Moreover, the Netherlands, where home birth never disappeared and nearly one-third of women continue to have their babies at home today, has excellent outcome statistics for mothers and babies. The British, at least, have recognized this fact. In 1992, the House of Commons Health Select Committee published a report that concluded, 'The policy of encouraging all woman to give birth in hospitals cannot be justified on grounds of safety. . . . Women should be given . . . an opportunity for choice, . . . including the option, previously denied to them, of having their babies at home, or in small maternity units.'" ...more |
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| 0553381156
| 4.36
| 31,868
| 2003
| Mar 04, 2003
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it was amazing
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This book could change your life. Seriously. At least if you are an average American/Canadian woman who has been raised to believe that childbirth is
This book could change your life. Seriously. At least if you are an average American/Canadian woman who has been raised to believe that childbirth is a dangerous procedure that requires specialists to be present to save your life and your baby's life. This book introduced me to a completely different childbirthing culture that I had previously been completely ignorant of, and I found it fascinating and empowering. It has changed my entire perception of delivery to discover that there are many people out there (indeed most other countries in the world—modern or primitive) who believe that childbirth is actually not dangerous, that women's bodies were made to give birth to babies and completely capable of it, and that specialists (doctors/surgeons) are only necessary (and when necessary, critically so) for the small percentage of women who have high risk pregnancies. So I do not believe that obstetricians are evil or out to hurt me. I believe that they have been trained to identify problems and solve those problems. And I believe that sometimes that model leads them to intervene when it isn't necessary, and then often those interventions actually lead to problems. Fortunately, they know how to solve those problems, but inadvertently their initial intervention may have caused their eventual necessity. I am grateful to the obstetricians who have saved lives and genuinely care, but I believe that they are not necessary for a low risk birth. I think that every pregnant woman (or woman who will be pregnant some day) should learn as much as possible about childbirth, because in the heat of the moment at the hospital, it is too late to learn the repercussions of the decisions you are required to make or that will be made for you. This book was written by a midwifing pioneer, Ina May Gaskin. In a culture where midwifery was all but extinct, she was pivotal in its revival, and she is pretty amazing. This is her second book about giving birth, the first being Spiritual Midwifery, and she begins the book by sharing birth stories, and then she finishes the book by explaining how she achieves the results she achieves and many other details about giving birth. So many of my friends are afraid of giving birth, and when I'm pregnant, I am often asked if I'm scared of giving birth. But Ina May has the belief that delivery should not be scary but awesome, and she tells you why. These first quotes are from the birthing stories. I'm including the ones that inspire me or that have tips I'll want to try. "So there I was, half-reclining on Jim's chest and really geared up to push away. This is the good part, I was thinking. And it surely was. Pushing was HARD work. Don't get me wrong: It was so rewarding and fulfilling, I can't explain it. It seemed like slow going until the head crowned, and I had to concentrate so hard, I couldn't even look up at the mirror Deborah was holding. After the crowning, a little more s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g and pushing, Shannah's head was both. After Shannah's head was born, the rest of her came out in one push, and there she was in all her glory! Of course, we got to hold her immediately. I felt accomplishment, wonder, thrill, and relief." (Mary Ann Curran) "I guess the most important thing I figured out was that your attitude and how you approach your birth is of the upmost importance. In other words, it is important to face each birth like a bull, with full force, no fear or hesitation, with the attitude that you can do this and you aren't going to hold back. This is your opportunity to remember your power as a woman, inhibitions not allowed. Those contractions are power surges, and each one gets the baby closer to birth. Your baby feels your strength and also your fears. This midwives helped me so much with this and kept reminding me of my strength." (Barbara Wolcott) "Deborah suggested that I take a deep breath and then 'blow raspberries' through my lips. Ina May said this was a good idea, because there was no way my cervix could stay tight while I was doing this." (Suzi Mitchell) "It really hurt when Ina May put her hand inside me to hook her finger under Liza's armpit [the baby's shoulders were stuck—shoulder dystocia]. Now that I think of it, that was the only real pain I felt. The rest were just powerful movements that my body knew how to do. Breathing really helped me. I was in a trance state most of the time, with my eyes closed. Even after Liza's shoulders were unhooked, I still had to push three or four times to get her body out. This surprised me, because I thought she would just slip out like a wet seal. After I delivered, I turned over and saw her lying in her daddy's arms. I forgot everything that had happened in the last thirty-six hours and all kinds of energy flowed into me. When everyone had gone and my husband fell asleep, Liza and I just gazed at each other in awe. We both knew this was just the beginning." (Karrie Dundas) "Presently Ina May asked me if I was pushing whether I felt like it or not. I honestly didn't know. I was locked into an endurance contest. She suggested I breathe and relax through the first part of a rush, then hold my breath and let the contractions lead me. It was wonderful advice. Now I knew what to do and so did my body. As soon as I held my breath, an overwhelming power came over me. Progress was still slow, but I felt that I was adding my strength to a natural force that made things happen." (Nancy Presley) "I didn't start medical school with a lot of fear about birth. My mother talked about it birth being hard work—painful, yes, but an intensely physical experience with a tremendous reward when the work was done. I loved to hear her tell my birth story and those of my sister and brother. When she was pregnant with us, she refused to listen to the terrifying stories other women wanted to tell. My mother chose to be ignorant about birth or being in fear. She instilled faith in me that birth must be normal if there are this many people on the planet. It did not make sense to me that pregnancy and birth were taught in the same context as all those diseases that we learned in medical school. Medicine concerns itself with the diagnosis and treatment of disease. As far as I could tell, it is not about health promotion, it is not about disease prevention, and it is not about empowering people to improve their overall well-being. Slowly it dawned on me that the detection of pathology and its treatment form is the dominant algorithm in medicine." (Heidi Rinehart, MD) "My back really ached with each contraction, way down low in my sacrum. It helped to have someone rub or press there during each contraction. Sometimes I sat on a chair with my forehead against Rudy's or Pamela's stomach and sometimes I stood hanging from Rudy's neck. . . . Groaning and grunting helped a lot too. I never could have labored in bed on my side with a fetal monitor on; it was too intense and I couldn't have coped if I hadn't been able to move around a lot." "When the labor was strong, it was overwhelming in its power. There was pain in my back that was hard to cope with, but I knew that the pain wasn't harming me in any way. The scary part was the power. It felt like I was running along a railroad track and a steam locomotive was bearing down on me, and I was about to be run over. I didn't realize at the time that unleashing that power made the labor progress and that I was in no danger of 'being run over.' Afterward Carol [her midwife] and I talked about it. She described the sensation more accurately: It feels like you're riding on the front of a steam locomotive going 150 miles per hour. You're not going to fall off and get run over, but the ride requires that you have faith and surrender to the power of it." (Heidi Rinehart, MD) The rest is from Ina May; the birth stories are over. "Contrary to myth, for instance, intrinsic physical characteristics only rarely interfere with the capacity to give birth. In other words, your pelvis is probably big enough for vaginal birth. Nearly every woman's is. Mental attitudes and emotions, on the other hand, interfere with the ability to give birth far more than is generally understood." "Years later I was in Edinburgh, Scotland, addressing an audience of midwives and mothers. I had just related the story about my friend whose cervix had opened when she wished aloud that it would. A woman in back of the meeting hall caught my attention with her animated facial expression as she listened to this story. She wanted to talk about her experience during her labor with her first baby. She had been sitting on her bed in the first stage of labor (during which the cervix is opening), encircled in her husband's arms. He whispered in her ear, 'You're marvelous!' and she was sure that she felt her cervix open when she heard his words. 'Please say that again!' she told him. He repeated the words, and she again felt her cervix open. 'I know you're going to think I'm crazy,' she said, addressing both him and her midwife, 'but would you just keep saying that?' Her husband, joined by her midwife, kept up the chant. Soon, her cervix was completely dilated, and she pushed her baby out. I think everyone in that room felt blessed to have heard this wonderful story of the possibilities when female and male energy combine in a powerful and graceful way. What I love about stories the most is the power they have to teach us of the possibilities that might not occur to us without them. What can be more liberating to an expectant father than to know that his loving words to his partner may give her strength and energy to make her birth crossing easier—even to the point where sometimes it ventures into ecstasy?" "I was fascinated to learn that most doctors once knew that an unwelcome or upsetting presence could stall labor. They knew it the same way that farmers knew about the birthing behaviors of animals—it was common knowledge, accumulated through observation, that was passed down from one generation to another. But when the pool of home-birth knowledge dried up, knowledge that was once common became rare or even extinct. The fact is that most doctors are no longer in a good position to note that their own presence in the birth room or their hurried manner can often retard labor. We must remember that the mind/body phenomenon described in the nineteenth-century textbooks is no less true now than it was then. The problem is that doctors today often assume that something mysterious and unidentified has gone wrong with labor or that the woman's body is somehow 'inadequate'—what I call the 'woman's body as a lemon' assumption. For a variety of reasons, a lot of women have also come to believe that nature has made a serious mistake with their bodies. This belief has become so strong in many that they give in to pharmaceutical or surgical treatments when patience and recognition of the normality and harmlessness of the situation would make for better health for them and their babies and less surgery and technological intervention in birth. Most women need encouragement and companionship more than they need drugs. Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body." "Curious about how many women I could find who had orgasmic experiences in labor or birth, I decided to conduct a small survey among some close friends. Of 151 women, I found thirty-two who reported experiencing at least one orgasmic birth. That is twenty-one percent—considerably higher than I expected." "Birth pain is different from other pain. The women at The Farm know that birth usually hurts—at least the first time you do it—but they know it as a different kind of pain from the pain of injury. When you are injured and feel pain, its message is 'Run away!' or 'Fight! You are being damaged!' This is survival information. The pain of labor and birth has an entirely different message. It says: 'Relax your pelvic muscles. Let go. Surrender. Go with the flow. Don't fight this. It's bigger than you.' This is far different from the message of 'Protect yourself!' or 'Run away!' that accompanies injury. Yet many women react to labor pain in the same way they react to the kind of pain they experience when wounded. They think of medicating it and see no gain from experiencing labor without medication. They don't know that a change of position, of attitude, of atmosphere in the birth room, and a host of other factors can utterly change the inner sensations of labor. They usually aren't aware of the extent to which you can ease your own tense reaction by declining to think in terms of 'uterine contractions' and thinking instead of 'interesting sensations that require all of your attention.' "Some have characterized giving birth without painkilling drugs as some sort of 'extreme sport.' Women who choose natural birth have been derided as martyrs or superwomen exhibiting some demented female version of machismo. This is caricature, not reality. In fact, many women who choose to labor without medication do so because they fear the consequences of unnecessary interventions." "Please realize that I'm not promising you an orgasm or a completely painless labor if you refuse pain medication in labor. No one can make such promises. I just know that when I was facing my childbearing years, I wanted to be aware of all of the possibilities of women's responses to labor." "Michel Odent, the well-known French physician, has contributed greatly to our understanding of the physiology of birth by explaining the function of the human brain in labor and birth. He distinguishes between the neocortex—the newer, rational part of the brain, which plays a role in abstract thought—and the primitive brain, which governs instincts. The primitive brain, or brain stem, is also considered to be a gland that releases hormones. All female mammals, including humans, release a certain number of hormones such as oxytocin, endorphins, and prolactin in the process of giving birth. Stimulation of the neocortex, on the other hand, can actually interfere with the birth process by inhibiting the action of the primitive brain in hormone release." "Understanding the true process of labor and birth becomes easier when we learn that the opening of the womb (the cervix) and the vagina are also sphincters. In many ways they function like other sphincters of the human body. They perform normal bodily functions. Labor is obviously hard and intense work (hence, its English name). It demands all of the mother's attention and may require hours of work, sweat, and heavy breathing. Still, it remains a normal physiological process that human and all other mammalian females have experiences for as long as we have existed. To understand this physical process, it is necessary to understand how sphincters work." "Optimum functioning of our various sphincters is easier to obtain when we understand how to better accommodate our thoughts to the needs of our bottoms. I often say that our bottom parts function best when our top part—our minds—are either grateful or amused at the antics or activities of our bottoms. It is amazing how much better our bottoms work when we think of them with humor and affection rather than with terror, revulsion, or, worst of all, look away from them in shame. For certainly, we can't turn our backs on our bottoms." "The techno-medical model of care has been dominant for a century in North America. By the 1920s the United States and Canada had become the first societies in human history to do away with midwifery. . . . Even though midwifery is legal in the United States and Canada, midwives still attend fewer than ten percent of all births in each country. These percentages are far below those of the nations of western Europe and the rest of the world, where midwives attend the vast majority of all births. More than seventy percent of babies born in the countries with the lowest rates of maternal and newborn deaths are born with only midwives—no physicians—in the birth room. In Germany, a federal law ensures that a midwife must be in attendance at every birth—even in cases when an obstetrician must perform a cesarean section or an instrumental delivery." "Wherever you intend to give birth, it is good to know that most women in labor need to be able to change position and move around freely. Movement greatly helps cervical dilation during the early part of labor and helps bring the baby into the most advantageous position for passage through the pelvis. Don't be surprised if you feel restless during the first stage of labor. You may want to sit on your partner's lap, a birth stool, a birth ball, or the toilet. If your movement is not hampered by intravenous lines, electronic fetal monitoring, and most forms of epidural anesthesia, you will generally have an easier time assuming the positions that favor cervical dilation and, when that is complete, descent of your baby. " "In less complicated times that our own, extended families nurtured new mothers for the first few weeks following birth. . . . Nowadays, with family members scattered far and wide, hordes of new mothers face a loneliness they have never felt before at a time when they carry the responsibility for caring for a new life. Sometimes women are surprised at how low they can feel only a few days after experiencing the joy and excitement of birth. Sleep-deprived, full of hormones, uncertain about their ability to breastfeed, many feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities of mothering. Maternity care in the Netherlands is designed with the unique recognition of the benefits of mothering mothers during the first eight days following the birth. Special maternity home-care assitants called kraamverzorgnde are available to all new mothers at all economic levels for reasonable hourly rates (partly subsidized by Dutch taxpayers). These assistants attend the birth with the midwife or family doctor, visit the home of the new parents and look after mother and baby, provide health education, clean, prepare meals, walk the dog, baby-sit for toddlers, get the older children off to school, and give breastfeeding support and consultation." ...more |
Notes are private!
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Aug 09, 2012
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Aug 20, 2012
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Paperback
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