When I read stories about women who opt to give birth at home allllll by themselves
-- no help from a midwife or a doctor or a staff of nurses -- I think
to myself, "can you blame them?" I know, I know, a lot of you are
thinking these people are just trying to be heroes or adhere to some
kind of radical hippie code that shuns any relationship with
established authority. Or you think they're narcissistic idiots who put
their own childbirth dreams above the health and safety of an innocent
child. Homebirth moms get that kind of talk too.
But I think all that's wrong. Quite wrong.
Pregnant
women in the U.S. are in this totally weird position where our
reproductive rights are, on both ends of the conception and pregnancy
chronology, narrowing quickly. State judges, with the eventual help of
the Supreme Court, are shrinking options on the early end of the
spectrum. Doctors, hospital administrators, and insurance companies and legislatures (who make midwifery a crime) are
taking away choices at the latter end.
Let's focus on the latter:
More
than one third of all childbirth in the U.S. results in surgery -- a
c-section. Some are, of course, necessary (but, like, 10 percent). A
tiny percentage are the "too posh to push" variety and not indicated,
but allowed (and hey, it's your choice, I won't stand in your way.).
More are the "once-a-c-section-always-a-c-section," variety and
then the rest, a significant number, could probably have been avoided
all
together.
It's the last two that, I think, push women to go the
DIY route. In loads of hospitals all over the country, VBACs have been
banned. Doctors and midwives are not allowed to do these vaginal births
after ceseareans because of some studies that say there is an increased
chance for uterine rupture in VBACs. Which may or may not be true, but
that chance of which they speak is actually quite small. So what do you
do? Avoid the hospital.
And
avoidable c-sections? There a loads of ways to decrease one's risk of
being pushed to have a c-section, but many can't be done in the
hospital. Get in a tub, move around, stay off IV fluids, don't get
hooked up to continuous fetal monitors, blah, blah, blah. They were in
the birth plan! But the pressure! Look at what the quoted doctor has to say:
"What women need to appreciate is that the few hours of labor are the
most dangerous time during the entire lifetime of the soon-to-be-born
child," said Dr. Frank Chervenak, Chairman of Obstetrics and Gynecology
at New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell. "Because of this, I would argue
... all soon-to-be born children have a right to access immediate
Caesarean delivery, and women who are denying this right are
irresponsible."
So what do you do in your next
pregnancy? That's right. Avoid the hospital and that attitude toward pregnancy and childbirth.
What about the
child? Well there are risks to childbirth and those risks play out in
different ways in each of the settings a woman might want to give birth
in. Don't think women and babies don't die after childbirth in
hospitals, which is NOT saying death in the hospital is certain and likely. Just like it's not certain and likely at home or unassisted.
What I'm trying to say is that
women/patients/clients want what they want. Because there are so many
possibilities. So many ways to do it right. So few ways that make it
wrong (smoking crack comes to mind -- but who am I to judge?) Yet
hospitals, midwives and doctors only allow for (without battles) a
certain range of them. And that's fine for them and their jobs. But not
fine for some women. So some women opt for birthing centers with
midwives or doctors, or homebirth with midwives or (the few remaining
homebirth) doctors. And some women opt to go it alone.
Unassisted birth is not for me, but like I said, who can blame them?
PS: Is it me or is that a fake belly on the woman in the picture? Just asking ...
Photo: ABC News
