Hypnobirthing and Homebirth Part III

Brent would like me to remind everyone that I am not trying to bash the way other people have given birth or choose to give birth in the future. Everyone needs to choose their own road. It took me having 3 babies before I really educated myself about the birth process and the different options I had relating to childbirth. It took some negative experiences for me to realize that nobody else knew my body better than I do, and that I needed to trust my body to do what it was meant to do. The following are the things I learned in the process and the opinions and conclusions I came to through lots of reading, talking with different women, pondering, and prayer.

I also need to now state that I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago, before my sister had her baby. So none of this was written in response to her birth experience. (By the way, she was AWESOME!)

I want to start by saying that I am not anti-hospital, nor am I anti-doctor, nor am I anti-western-medicine. I am grateful for all of these things, I just feel they have their place and that it should be a lot more limited than it currently is in our society. I have a niece and a nephew who would not be alive today without the amazing advances in modern medicine and the ability that skilled medical personnel now have in regards to saving the lives of micro-preemies.

I've had so many people ask why I had a homebirth. Some ask with disgust and contempt in their voices and others ask with obvious interest. One of my family members, upon finding out we were having a homebirth, said to another family member, "I hope her baby doesn't die." Now I'm fairly good at not getting offended too easily, but I couldn't help myself with that one. By this remark, this family member was implying that I was doing something dangerous.....that I was somehow putting my child at unnecessary risk in choosing a homebirth. That is what hurt and offended. Because anyone who knows me knows that I am nothing if not fiercely protective of my children.

The truth of the matter is that homebirths for low-risk pregnancies are JUST AS SAFE as hospital births for low-risk pregnancies. Here's one of the most comprehensive, unbiased studies done so far. It clearly shows that the outcomes are almost identical, if not BETTER for planned low-risk homebirths compared to low-risk hospital births. And here's another more recent study done in Canada that actually shows better outcomes in all areas with homebirth.

Homebirths are still a very touchy subject in America. Of course, anything not seen as "the norm" tends to be a touchy subject. And homebirths definitely aren't the norm, though I wish they were. One of the most frustrating things for me is that most women don't even know it's an option. And if they do happen to know a friend of a friend of a friend who had a homebirth, they usually don't feel like it's an option for them. Because "everybody" births in a hospital, right? That's where you're "supposed" to do it. But why is this?

Pregnancy and birth have just been handed over to the medical establishment. Women are no longer in control of their pregnancies and births. It started many, many years ago and has a very dark history. When women started having babies in hospitals, it was not a pretty sight. Women would be tied to their beds and have a mask placed over their faces. They'd be left alone on their urine-covered and soiled bedsheets. They'd be drugged up with morphine and put to sleep during labor. They'd also be given a drug to help them not remember anything. Women thought this was "empowering" because they could have their baby "pain free." Maybe they didn't understand that their babies were being ripped from their bodies with the help of forceps while they were completely unconscious. Because that doesn't seem too empowering to me.

I think that when things really went wrong was when we took birth out of the hands of women and their female helpers (midwives) and placed it in the hands of male doctors. Now really, I have no ill feelings toward male doctors. I have had quite a few over the years. I think they have their place, and most of the ones I had were fairly good at their jobs. The problem is, they're MEN! Why in the world would we turn such a womanly experience over to a bunch of male doctors? I really just don't get it.

We are one of the only countries in the world to have SURGEONS attending births. There really is no need for someone trained in cutting people open to be attending a normal, low-risk delivery. Their training is another area that I have a problem with. And I think it's one of the root causes of birth being so medicalized. Do you know of any OBGYNs who have been with a woman from the beginning of her labor clear through to the end? Have any of them even done it once? Let alone over and over and over again like midwives have. And even if they have, was it in a hospital with intervention upon intervention? I don't think most doctors today even know what "normal" birth looks like. They only know what medical birth looks like. They are trained to look for pathology and so often times they see it even when it's not there.

Midwives, on the other hand, are trained to care for the laboring mother and her new babe. They attend births from beginning to end. They know what early signs of complications to look for. They don't need to rely on machines to tell them what's happening. (Thank goodness, because half the time those machines get it all wrong anyway.) They get to know their patients beforehand. They know their personalities, their desires for birth, and they can help them achieve their desired outcome. On the other hand, doctors are trained to read machines and jump in and extract the baby at the first sign the machines give that something might possibly be going wrong (which it often does when a mother is confined to a bed, forbidden nourishment, given meds to make her contractions stronger, and drugged up so that she feels nothing).

It seems almost comical to me (if it weren't so horribly sad) that with all of the science we've allowed into childbirth, all the "medical advancements", that the US is STILL ranked as one of the worst for infant and maternal mortality and morbidity among industrialized nations. Doesn't this tell us something? Maybe Mother Nature does actually know what she's doing!

I just wish it wouldn't have taken me so long to figure that out. But like in other areas of my life at the time, I "went with the flow." I was a sheep following the herd. Even with Lady, after I'd learned that my body was completely capable of giving birth without the help of science, I still listened to all of the other sheep (however well-intentioned they were) and let the "what-ifs" creep in and persuade me to believe that I'd be safer at a hospital. And so she was born at the hospital. And I don't think even 10 minutes had passed after she was born that I looked at Brent and said, "We're doing this again. And it won't be here." And he looked at me and he knew and agreed.

Almost every procedure done at the hospital is all about CYA. For anyone unfamiliar with the acronym, it means "Covering Your.....Butt." A lot of the procedures they do are completely unnecessary in a lot of cases, and some are even harmful. Luckily some of them have been done away with, but not nearly as many as should be done away with. For instance, they no longer shave women's nether regions before birth. They no longer put you into "twilight sleep" while they rip your baby from your body. They no longer strap your legs and arms to the bed.

Unfortunately there are still many things they do that don't ALWAYS need to be done. Here are just a few things routinely done that, I feel, are more about CYA than they are about caring for mother and baby:

- IV placed in your arm as soon as you're admitted. This is "just in case" they need to give you drugs or fluids (since they won't let you get enough nutrition via your mouth).

- No food and little water (some hospitals still prefer ONLY ice chips to water....idiots) while in labor. This is "just in case" they need to put you under general anesthesia and cut your baby out of you. (Luckily there is RARELY need for general anesthesia these days.) Luckily it looks as though word is finally getting out that this is a bad idea. Midwives have known for a long time that the laboring woman needs nourishment to keep up her energy. I ate a Subway sandwich in the middle of my labor with June. And I drank SOOOO MUCH water. It helped immensely.

- Continual fetal monitoring. This is when they strap the monitor around your belly to keep track of the baby's heart rate. Seems like a good idea, right? But what it does is confine mom to the bed where she is completely uncomfortable and studies have shown that it really doesn't improve the outcome at all anyway. Just listening with the Doppler every now and again serves the same purpose without the negative effects on mom. (I will put the caveat that if mom is confined to a bed anyway because of an epidural, this probably isn't such a big deal and might even be a good thing since she's most likely also being given pitocin and the baby should DEFINITELY be more closely watched with pitocin-contractions since they are MUCH stronger than natural contractions.)

- Episiotomies. There are still a lot of doctors and hospitals that believe that these are necessary in most women. I had one of those idiot doctors when AJ was born. Now they've found that most times even if a women tears a bit, it heals much more quickly and comfortably than if she's cut.

- Taking baby immediately after s/he is born and rubbing him/her down with a towel. The vernix is actually quite good for baby's skin and should be allowed to be absorbed.

- Taking baby away from mom immediately after s/he is born to "check him/her over." This is completely unnecessary in most cases and, in my opinion, harmful to the mother-baby bond. The first thing that baby should see when s/he is born is the woman who carried him/her for the last 9 months. The Apgar test can be done with baby on mom's chest and there is absolutely no reason why weights/measurements should come before mom gets to meet baby and have time to start nursing and bonding. Also, whisking baby away to be suctioned out because of meconium (baby poop) in the amniotic fluid is also unnecessary. They did this with AJ and Roo. Had me scared to death because NICU nurses were in there to suction them out and they made me believe this was a serious thing. I came to find out later that it's really unnecessary to freak out like that and that meconium isn't something worth getting worked up over. It needs to be addressed, occasionally, but in most cases, isn't cause for alamrm. Again, it's all about CYA.

- Immediately clamping and cutting the cord. They've now found that leaving the cord attached is extremely beneficial to the baby. The cord blood is rich with nutrients and also oxygen which helps the baby with the transition of receiving oxygen via the lungs. There's no need for urgently getting the cord cut. Let the baby get all the nutrients s/he can! If baby is up on mom's chest where s/he should be, then there's no problem with leaving the cord intact for a long time. With June, even after the placenta came out, we still left the cord intact. I think it was well over an hour or so before we cut the cord. Here's a good article about it.

- Pulling the placenta out prematurely. I'm fairly sure that my doctors did this with my first 2 births. And I suffered the consequences. I tend to bleed a lot after birth anyway, but to have the doctors pull the placenta out before it's ready only makes things worse. So what do they do? They give you more pitocin to make the uterus contract harder again to try to stop the bleeding (that they caused). Anyone who's ever had pitocin given to them post-partum understands the pain. It was MUCH worse after the birth. I was crying it was so bad. And I hadn't cried during labor. There is no reason to pull the placenta out early. The only reason they do it is because the doctors don't have time to sit and wait for it. (At least they don't think they do.....remember how much more important their time is than yours?)

* I should note that it's also not best to leave the placenta in for a super-long time, but there are other ways of getting it to release.

* One more note is that if you do leave the placenta attached after it comes out, it should be held above the baby so that the blood doesn't flow from the baby to the placenta. We want all the blood to go into the baby, not the other way around. :)

- Baby's first bath. You may laugh, but really there's no reason to give the baby a bath in those first 24-48 hours. I think June was at least a couple of days old before we gave her her first bath. Lady's was a few hours before we left the hospital. I went with her. :) If there's meconium on their skin, it can easily be wiped off with a baby wipe.

- Vitamin K shot. What is this for? Here is what I found about it in doing research before June's birth.
"Vitamin K is a substance the body produces naturally for blood clotting and protects against hemorrhagic disease, which is extremely rare, but serious. Baby’s don’t produce vitamin K for a few days, but colostrum and breastmilk, although deficient in Vitamin K, contain factors which help the baby’s gut produce it’s own vitamin K. Be aware that the injection has been associated with rare childhood cancers, such as leukemia, in British studies due to the carcinogens Phenol contained in the shot . Signs of Hemorrhagic disease are bleeding out the orifices (nose, mouth, ears, bottom, etc.) When bleeding is noticed get a Vitamin K shot within 24 hours to remedy the disease."

post-edit: Like any other procedure, the risks and benefits of having the Vit K injection and NOT having the Vit K injection should be fully considered before making a choice. There are pros and cons to both sides.

*Note: It is necessary if you are going to have your son circumcised. And only then if it's done before he's about 8 days old. (There will be an entire post dedicated to this in the future.) ;)

- Hep B vaccine. Again, completely unnecessary. They don't trust mothers to tell them if they have Hep B, and even though a baby born to a mother without Hep B is really at zero risk of contracting it, someone somewhere along the way decided to give all babies this injection at the hospital. Stupid. (Vaccines are another future blog post.) There are some hospitals that no longer practice this because of the effects it's had on newborns, but there are a lot that still do.

- Eye gunk. (At least that's what I call it.) I actually didn't research this one before June's birth and I totally forgot to ask my midwife about it. Not until Brent's parents got all worried about the fact that she hadn't received the goop did I think to ask my midwife. She laughed and assured me June was just fine without it. Why? Because it's an antibiotic to prevent eye infections caused by the mother having gonorrhea or chlamydia. Since I have never had either of those STDs, June was safe. At the hospital, they don't trust mothers to tell them, or even to know for themselves if they've had either STD, so they just put the goop in every baby's eyes. Again, CYA. There are circumstances where it may be best to use the goop as added prevention, even if the mother doesn't have an STD. For example, if the mother is Group B Strep positive, she might choose to get the goop as an added measure of protection for the baby. Again, it's a choice that should be presented as such.

Some of these things may not seem like a very big deal to many of you, but added up, for me, it was too much to fight with. I didn't like being made to feel like a wacko when I refused unnecessary procedures. And the hospitals around here just don't have a great support system for mothers birthing naturally. And since I'm extremely low-risk, there really was no benefit to birthing at a hospital over birthing at home. And after my wonderful experience with June, I won't ever go back to a hospital unless there's a compelling reason.