Is Birth Really All About the Baby?
Mom and baby BOTH matter
In following several of the posts over the past few weeks about different birth choices, I’ve noticed a number of different attitudes. One predominant one was: “The birth is all about the baby.” That is, that it shouldn’t matter what the mother wants or how she feels; the only important factor is having a healthy baby.
While I agree that this is key, and certainly the most important factor in any birth, I’m not sure it should be the only consideration. Most births are not emergencies, and there is room for more than just “get the baby out safely” sort of thinking. Why does this matter so much? And what would it look like if everything was ‘all about the baby,’ not just the birth?
Let’s take this argument, that the baby’s health and safety matters most of all to greater lengths. Let’s say that the baby’s health and safety is the only factor that truly matters throughout the entire pregnancy. Anyone who is pro-choice is going to have an immediate problem with this line of thinking, although that’s not even what I mean. Still, something to consider.
Supposing that you want to be pregnant, though…every single decision that you make has to be for the baby’s benefit. If your job is too high-stress…quit, cut back, or move to a different position. You must eat a perfect diet — no junk food ever. And it doesn’t matter if you have morning sickness: the baby’s health is paramount, so you must eat everything that is good for you and take your prenatal vitamins, even if it makes you sick. This isn’t about how you feel at all; this is only about what the baby needs.
Throughout your pregnancy, you must be careful to keep your stress level minimized by any means necessary. That could mean quitting your job, hiring a housekeeper or nanny, whatever you need to do. Anytime you feel at all tired, you must lie down and sleep. Other responsibilities don’t matter. If you’re depressed and just want to go out and have coffee and eat a chocolate cookie, you can’t — that’s not healthy for you, and you can’t do that to the baby. You can’t drink any alcohol or smoke cigarettes even once, even if you were a chain smoker and nightly drinker before pregnancy. There’s no research proving that it’s really safe for the baby, and plenty to suggest it may not be.
Do you see how ridiculous this really is?
There may be certain behaviors and certain circumstances in which the baby’s safety does outweigh your own. For example, if you require bedrest because you have had pre-term labor threaten. It doesn’t matter if you’re bored; it’s clearly in your baby’s best interests that you stay on bedrest! (Not that there aren’t things you can/should do to help stave off boredom, but ending bedrest against medical orders isn’t one of them.) If your baby’s in trouble, yes, s/he comes first! But under ordinary circumstances, you don’t need to be that strict.
The truth is, there are two people involved in pregnancy, labor, and birth: baby and mom. It’s important, throughout, to consider the needs of both as much as possible. Again, if a health risk is involved — baby’s safety trumps mom’s comfort. But barring problems, it is crucial to consider both.
Pregnancy is a huge event in a woman’s life. It is an enormous mental, physical, and emotional undertaking. A woman is subject to 9 months of morning sickness, soreness, being woken by baby (from moving, needing to pee, etc.), and various other discomforts. She’s also subject to all the hormonal shifts, the mood swings, weight gain, and more. In labor, she has to deal with the pain and exhaustion. Women go through it because it’s worth it to bring a new child into the world. But that doesn’t mean that a woman’s needs should, at any point, be ignored!
A woman needs support to get through her pregnancy. She needs friends, family, and caregivers who can listen to her as she’s experiencing these physical and emotional symptoms. She needs to balance all the decisions she makes — on what to eat, whether or not to drink, which vitamins to take (if any), where and how to birth her baby, and so on — based on what she feels is best for her and her baby.
Rest assured that all women (or, well, the vast majority) are choosing based on what is best both for themselves and their babies. They’re not taking any decisions lightly, no matter which ones they make. They believe that what they have chosen is best for both of them!
It’s not unlike, say, a mother who chooses to formula feed because she cannot stand the idea of breastfeeding or breastfeeding doesn’t work out so well (and is causing her stress). Although there are some stigmas attached to this, most moms will say, “You need to do what’s best for both of you. If you are stressed and upset all the time, that’s not good for the baby either.”
The same is true throughout the pregnancy and birth process. If one chocolate cupcake and a conversation with a friend reduces mom’s stress level, then let her have it…so long as that’s not the only thing she eats! If mom is going to be stressed at the hospital and freaking out (and can find a safe, qualified midwife), then she should be at home. Or, if mom would be too nervous at home, then she should be in the hospital.
We cannot say that “mom doesn’t matter.” We cannot say that a mom who is making a different choice is “selfish” and only after her own interests. Because, it’s true, moms do consider their own feelings, comfort, health, and safety — as they should! But they don’t do this at the expense of their baby’s health and safety. They aim to strike a balance between mom and baby’s needs.
And I don’t know a single mom who, if their baby was in danger at any point, would put their own comfort or needs above their baby’s.
Birth is a huge, huge event in a woman’s life. And how it goes impacts her for life…and her baby, too, as well as their bond. A mom is not selfish for wanting the experience that is best suited to her, whatever that is. Baby won’t have active memories of birth…but mom will. And baby is affected by mom’s mood, attitude, if she experiences postpartum depression, and so on. Choosing the birth that is right for her (as well as safe for her baby) is crucially important.
The final thought is simple: pregnancy and birth are about two people, and neither can (literally) be separated from the other. All decisions that are made must be best for both people involved.
What do you think? Is birth really all about the baby?
Top image by Jessicafm
Working in a hospital setting as a labour and delivery nurse, I would find that staff would continually “lose” their focus on mom, shifting their focus more to baby eg; how baby is responding to the labour/delivery etc.
It isn’t simply all about the baby or all about the mom, it is about the family. It’s imperative to keep the focus family centered.
As someone who lost a baby to a cord accident, I’m going to say that what moms really need to consider is which factors are just icing on the cake (or cupcake in this case) and which are critical.
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And in fact, while I think it is a continuum of thought and discussion, the way that you’re equating eating a cupcake while pregnant to choosing your delivery attendant and location is a problem. Some things are really unlikely to kill your baby – the odd glass of wine, some extra chocolate and so on. Some things really can, like ignoring being GBS+ or failing to take high blood pressure seriously.
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With homebirth, I would never do it but I recognize that other women are going to make other choices. However, I think it is really, really important that they be both aware and prepared for the fact that their baby may /need/ – even very last minute in the case of a transfer – something else. I think it is very important that they have expert guidance that is focused on good health for mother and baby and not driven by ideology or solely focused on what the client wants. And having been in a labour emergency, I can guarantee that the emergency most of the time does not look anything like you think it will.
Thank you, Thank You, Thank You for this article!!! All my “new age” baby obsessed friend look at me like I am crazy. I drink Coke, coffee, not to mention take my meds I was taking before. I want a hospital birth, with doctors, nurses and DRUGS, lots and lots of DRUGS!!!! I don’t want to watch him coming out or god for bid, feel the head. EEWWWWWW I want my baby wiped off and cleaned up before they bring him over to me. If I could be put under and still have a vaginal delivery, then brought back with a nice clean baby I would do it in a heart beat!!!
I absolutely support every woman’s choice to find their own balance in this issue.. What really caught me off guard was the line about smoking and drinking??
“You can’t drink any alcohol or smoke cigarettes even once, even if you were a chain smoker and nightly drinker before pregnancy. There’s no research proving that it’s really safe for the baby, and plenty to suggest it may not be.”
Maybe I am misreading this–and believe me, I know 1 cigarette or 1 drink probably won’t cause a miscarriage–but, to me, the way this was written presents the issue a little TOO lightly! I also understand the research on alcoholic beverages during pregnancy isn’t very deep–mainly because most mothers choose to NOT subject their developing fetuses to such substances–but it doesn’t take a genius to realize alcohol and cigarettes is NOT a safe, healthy choice.
I’ve raised a family member’s child whose mother “cut back” on her pack-a-day smoking because she chose to please HERSELF over her growing fetus.. That little guy had severe, painful colic for MONTHS (did I mention I was FIFTEEN when I was up with him all.. night..long??), CONSTANT lung problems that required many hospitalizations and nightly nebulizer treatments, bad lung allergies, bad asthma, problems gaining weight, etc. He’s now 7-years-old and still has a bad immune system, even with a healthy diet and active lifestyle..
Please be more aware of how you are wording things in these massively viewed articles.
“It’s important . . . to consider the needs of both as much as possible. . . . if a health risk is involved—baby’s safety trumps mom’s comfort.” I agree! The baby’s need to be born in the place with the most resources to ensure her safe delivery trumps the mom’s “need” for, say, a water birth at home. Hospital birth is safer than homebirth. If there were even a .1% chance that my baby would be more likely to be born alive and healthy in a hospital (and the chances are actually greater than that), I think I could give up my dream of warm breezes and an east-facing window. Yes, the mother’s state of mind is important, but a lot of that is her choice. “If mom is going to be stressed at the hospital and freaking out,” then she needs to educate herself on the advantages of hospital birth, use her relaxation techniques, and maybe even “put on her big girl panties.” (She’ll have to take them off to give birth, though.) I happen to believe women are strong enough to rise to the occasion.
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“Rest assured that all women . . . are choosing based on what is best both for themselves and their babies.” You can’t always have both. Some women are making unsafe choices because they are misinformed; some are just hoping they won’t end up in that percentage of bad homebirth outcomes. Why would any mother gamble on her baby’s well-being for the possibility of having “an amazing, tropical birth”?
I FIRMY BEILIEVE THAT IF A WOMEN CHOOSES TO GET PREGNANT AND HAVE A BABY, THEN HER RIGHTS ARE TO THE BABY, PERIOD. TO MAKE A POINT OF ALL THE NORMS THAT COME WITH A PREGNACY, SUCH AS STRETCH MAKRKS, MORNING SICKNESS, ECT., THAT IS THE PRICE I WOULD GLADLY PAY FOR MY CHILD, YOU DARE SAY THAT A BABY DOESNT REMEMBER BIRTH? MY CHILD SURE DOES.. WHERE DID YOU GET YOUR INFORMATION FROM? IF YOU WANT TO BE AN EUQAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST ON HOW A MOTHER IS MSITREATED DURING HER PREGNANCY, THEN CLEARLY YOU R NOT MOTHER MATERIAL… MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT OF ALL YOUR DISCOMFORTS AND WHAT YOU WOULD HAVE TO GIVE UP BEFORE HAVING UNPROTECTED SEX, OR PLANNING TO HAVE A BABY, EITHER OR.. WHATEVER YOUR CASE WAS, OF COURSE ITS ALL ABOUT THE BABY, YOU OR THAT BABIY’S ONLY LIFE LINE, IT CAN’T TELL YOU, HEY, PLZ DONT SMOKE THAT CIGERETTE, OR CAN YOU LAY OFF THE JUICE IT GIVS ME HEARTBURN.. I MEAN, THIS IS YOUR CHILD FOREVER, AND YOU DARE COMPLAIN ABOUT A LITTLE DISCOMFORT FOR A MERE NINE MONTHS??? GET A LIFE AND GROW UP SISTER… GOD CHOSE YOU TO HAVE THIS BABY, DONT EVER THINK THAT YOU HAD ANY SAY SO IN THE MATTER, SO STEP UP AND SHUT UP.. TAKE CARE OF YOUR BABY DURING YOUR PREGNANCYIES MOTHERS, THAT IS YOUR ONLY RESPONSIBILTY FOR 9 MOTHS, IF YOU CAN”T HANDLE IT, CLOSE YOUR LEGS!!! OOH AND HAVE A HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!! KISS YOUR BABY FOR ME!!! XOOXOXOOOXOOX