Childbirth choices!

Elsewhere, I came upon a discussion of childbirth choices.

I’ll admit that when I had my first child I was a breastfeeding fanatic. I was also very much opposed to hospital births because I felt that I had been badly treated in the hospital and railroaded into an unnecessary C-section with my first birth.

Well, I’ve mellowed.

I still think breastfeeding is the best and women should be encouraged to breastfeed, but my emphasis is more on education and encouragement. Nursing is in some ways a lost art. We didn’t grow up seeing our mom’s breastfeeding babies, so it’s just not something that comes to us as naturally as it should. My own determination to breastfeed came from my mother, who felt deep regret at NOT being able to nurse my sister and me. Upon listening to my mom’s story however, I don’t think it was that she couldn’t have nursed us, but that the information she was given about nursing was WRONG. Nursing newborns can’t go that long without nursing! I’d also like to see less stigma on nursing toddlers. The world norm for nursing is something like 4 years. So I think the best approach is encouragement, support, and education for moms when it comes to breastfeeding.

I feel the same way about birth, especially natural childbirth and homebirth. Someone said that having a natural childbirth was like having a natural tooth extraction! Who would want to. Well, I ‘ve had BOTH and I can testify that natural childbirth is NOTHING like having a tooth extracted. It’s just that watching birth on t.v. we don’t really know how an unmedicated mom acts because we’re so use to seeing moms with epidurals. That said, natural childbirth isn’t always easy to achieve, especially if the baby is large or posterior. I’d like to see doulas become more widely used. Mine really helped me a lot with my first VBAC. I also wish other methods of dealing with contractions like self-hypnosis were encouraged. I’d also like to see mom’s encouraged to stand or squat during pushing. It’s amazing how that cuts down on the pushing phase of birth. All three of my natural births were with me standing or squating while my first birth had me on my back for hours pushing, only to end up with a C-section.

I’d also like to see homebirth and birthing centers get more support. Statistically they are safe alternatives to hospital births. They’d be even safer if hospitals and OBs could cooperate and work with these moms instead of stigmatizing them.

I found this interesting link about homebirth and natural births. Readers might enjoy it!

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