My Birth Philosophy

I want to have a natural birth

 

more specifically, a water birth at home with no pain medicine, IVs, or machines that I have to be hooked up to. The main reason that I wanted to have a birth like this is I loved hearing about Meghann's home birth and seeing the pictures. 

Reasons I don't want to give birth in a hospital:
1. I don't believe giving birth is a medical procedure, it's a natural body process just like conception. (My body could make the baby, grow the baby, and can move the baby out) 2. I don't want drugs or vaccines to be administered to me or my baby against my will (there is no placenta barrier. Everything that I get the baby gets)
3. I believe that if I'm in a relaxed, comfortable environment, my body will do what it's made to do naturally. Labor isn't a medical emergency or something that needs to be "treated".
4. I want to be the first one, besides whoever catches the baby, to hold him/her.

BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL OF THAT PAIN?

*disclaimer: Don't assume I've lost my mind. Hear me out.

1. I believe that labor can be, and was intended to be, pain-free. (In a normal, healthy mother and baby.)

2. Physiologically, there is no reason for a mother giving birth naturally and without complication, to experience pain. We have no problem with "dumb" animals not experiencing pain during their deliveries, we believe that for them a smooth, pain-free labor is just nature at work. But aren't we a part of nature too?

3. Spiritually, I believed that I could experience a pain-free labor because pain in labor is a part of the "curse" put upon women in Genesis. But I know that when Jesus came He said we were "free from the curse of sin" which means that as a believer in Him, this no longer applies to me. And another thing-I think this curse was mental and not physical at all. It was a curse of fear-that women who chose to live a life separate from God, a life of fear and darkness, would have fear in childbirth which would then result in pain. I will explain how in a moment. (Also, I am NOT saying that anyone who had pain in childbirth is living under a curse or that they are separate from God. I believe understanding that we are free from this curse is a gift from God that everyone can accept for themselves and since most people aren't taught that this gift is available to them, how can they know?)

4. F-T-P (Fear, Tension, Pain) Theory: This is the idea-If you are afraid about something, your muscles involuntarily tense up (in preparation to fight or flight) which can result in unnecessary pain. A good example of this would be a car crash with a drunk driver. It has been proven that intoxicated (or even sleeping) drivers whose muscles and mind are in a more relaxed state, suffer less injury in a collision than drivers who see the danger and involuntarily tense up in anticipation of the impact. A personal example of this for me would be roller coasters. The whole time that I'm on one (which is not very often) , I'm convinced that I'm going to die and my muscles are tightly drawn, ready to defend my life. Well, at the end of the day, I feel like I've been hit by a car, whereas my friends who have learned to relax and enjoy the rollercoasters, leave the park with faces beaming saying things like "I can't wait to come back!" At those moments all I want to do is throw up. How can something that was so traumatic for me be considered enjoyable by someone else? The answer: mindset. I got on the ride thinking that I was going to die, while my friends got on the ride anticipating joy and a great experience.

5. The "Roller Coaster" delivery room-when you think about labor, what do you anticipate? We've all heard the horror stories, we've all seen the movies of women screaming in agonizing pain, we've all been told it is going to hurt like nothing you've ever felt before, etc. So how do we approach this rollercoaster? (labor) Terrified. Scared beyond measure. And so what do our muscles do when we think it's our turn to experience the terror? They tense up so tightly that they cannot do what they are meant to do naturally-which results in pain for the mother and sometimes even "Failure-To-Progress" which means the body has halted labor. (Which coincidentally, is the same acronym for the Fear-Tension-Pain Theory) Doesn't this make sense though? If you were standing in a long line and watching the people in front of you disappear behind a black curtain, and all you could hear were screams of agony and begging for it to stop, when there was one person left in front of you, wouldn't you be a terrified basket case? Your muscles would be so tense, you would be ready to fight or flight, when at the moment, there is no real present danger. Only the anticipation of danger. When you stepped past the curtain and into the room to find that there was only a single person there with a pencil and a stack of papers, who asked you to take a test, you wouldn't be able to function, much less pass the test. Fear is powerful people.

6. Inside the Body-Scientifically, it goes something like this: when the mind senses danger, it goes into fight or flight mode which we know is designed to save our lives, and it halts certain bodily functions like digestion, closes arteries to organs that are not essential for defense (hint: the uterus is not considered essential for defense) in preparation to save your life. It has been observe in the wild that animals in labor who perceive danger will halt their labor until they feel safe again. Well just show a cow a typical birth scene in any movie and see if their minds don't associate labor with danger when it's time to deliver. In fact, you may have to drug that cow, cut her open, and pull the baby out with forceps because her body's natural functions have just shut down.

 

Conclusion:
So, In a nutshell, we are told our whole lives that labor is hard and painful and scary and we believe that and so it becomes. But what if we didn't know that labor was supposed to be awful? What if we just thought of it as a natural body function and when the time came, let our bodies do what they were (literally) made to do? Is it too late to rethink labor, and decide for ourselves that our bodies are capable of birthing without pain? I don't think it's too late.

 

~A new idea of birth :Think back on birth and all of your ideas about it, then imagine erasing them from your mind. I am going to tell you what your delivery is going to look like, feel like, be like. On the day of your delivery, you will go about your day in a normal way, and then you begin to feel some pressure on your abdomen. You feel within your body that things are beginning to move along so you get in a comfortable environment/position and start to relax. Your water breaks, you cervix dilates naturally, and you feel a tightening in your uterus as your baby moves down. You keep breathing and relaxing, then pop! Your little miracle. Your bundle of joy. You did it. Your body is so cool it is even designed to release endorphins during labor, but your body can only do this if it's relaxed and you aren't fearfully anticipating pain. So this is my birth philosophy. I hold no judgment over anyone who chooses to birth their babies in a different way, I just want women to know that their is an alternative, and that they can choose to have a pain-free birth.