Why I Chose Natural Childbirth

Many people have asked me what made me decide to do natural childbirth. 

So I decided I would do a post explaining my decision.

Some of the questions I get are:
Did it hurt?
-well it didnt feel good but it wasnt nearly as bad as I imagined it. It was completely manageable.
Are you crazy?
-no I am completely sane. Ha. And women in other countries (such as New Zealand) dont even consider going to the hospital for birth simply because...they arent sick.
Would you do it again?
-most definitely.

First of all, I would have never even though of natural childbirth if it hadn't been for my sister-in-law Kyle.
(Read her blog here)
She started talking about natural birth when she was pregnant with Judah, her first.

At the time, my idea of birth was let the doctor tell me everything I was supposed to do. Go into the hospital and just do what the doctor told me. In my head bringing a baby into the world wasnt my job...it would be the doctor delivering. I never even thought about reading about birth before hand.

Kyle advocated that our bodies were meant to do it naturally and suggested documentaries for me to watch.

Two documentaries that I really enjoyed and would suggest every pregnant women watch were The Business of Being Born and Pregnant in America.

Watching these were my starting point of studying childbirth.

The basics that I learned were:

1) Epidurals have both moderate and extreme risks.

a) The risks to the mother are: hypotension, urinary retention, postpartum bladder dysfunction, uncontrollable shivering, itching, nausea, vomiting, postpartum backache, maternal fever, spinal headache, incompetent or nonexistant pain relief, emotional detatchment, postpartum feelings of regret or loss, inability to move about freely on your own, loss of perineal sensation and sexual function, convulsions, respiratory paralysis, cardiac arrest, allergic shock, nerve injury, Epidural abscess, and maternal death.

2) The risks to the baby are:
a) Fetal distress, abnormal heart rate, drowsiness at birth, poor sucking reflex, poor muscle strength and tone in the first hours.
3) The effects on labor are:
a) prolonged first stage of labor, increase malpresentation of  baby's head, increase need of pitocin, prolonged second stage of labor, decrease of the ability to push effectively, increase liklihood of forceps or vacuum, increased liklihood of need for episiotomy, and increase liklihood for c-section.

So I realized that with the epidural there is a constant battle throughout labor. The battle of getting the epidural which slows contractions and the speeding up contractions with pitocin. The pitocin causes stronger, more painful contractions and then you need more epidural. And it just continues.

Not only are the pitocin contractions more painful but they also cause more distress to baby because they are so strong.

The medicine also blocks the natural release of hormones that help mother and baby bond right at birth and blocks one amazing natural high.

These things were enough to convince me that the birth I wanted was an unmedicated, intervention free birth.

The c-section rate in America is 31%. That means that 1 out of every 3 women have a c-section. What scares me is that some of these are even upon request and not necessary. I believe this is out of fear. We as American women have been told that we cant do birth. That it is a process that a doctor needs to do for you and the fact of the matter is that is just not true. We were created to bare children and we are great at it! Obviously there are some instances when intervention is necessary and thank God we do have doctors, hospitals, and medicene for that...but it is not something that is always needed.

The cure for fear is knowledge.

You can give birth to your baby naturally.

So spread the word.