Natural Childbirth

It all depends on how you look on 'pain' ... how you deal with it internally, how you work with it rather than against - like, feeling the power of your own labours and riding the waves rather than feeling like a victim and like you'd have to avoid pain by all means - changes the whole thing.

Keep in mind the 'pain' you maybe experience is all natural and will disappear as soon as the baby found its way out. Breathing and relaxing is vital.

Both my kids were born home (the second birth was breech delivery) with a doula as assistant. The only 'medicine' I had been taking was Bach flowers.

Go with whatever you feel whole with ... Happy time to you and your baby !

 

pain turns me into a helpless, wailing baby. i'm utterly pathetic.

 

^^^ this.

without sounding ridiculous ... the pain of childbirth can be very empowering .... there, i said it. it sounds ridiculous, yet it's true. nature knows what it's doing.

 

i would deffinatly recommend natural childbirth..i did and it was beautiful as my body knew exactly what to do...however if i could do over i would not birth in a hospital...i was birthraped there and they tryed to coach me in pushing(how ridiculous)...i didnt have pain in labour just lots of pressure so im not sure about all that, but yeah i deffinatly reccomend natural,womens bodies are made for birthing. ...also i havnt read all posts so sorry if i repeating some stuff

 

what a GORGEOUS statue! sorry off topic, but i had to say. i love it.

"birthraped?"

 

i love it too its absolutly beautiful.

yeah birthraped .... its when they do things to you without your consent or if you tell them to stop and they dont..in my case a midwife asked to do a vaginal exam i said yes but when she started it hurt too much so i said no iv changed my mind she kept goin i said stop she kept going i was screaming at her to stop then she said "almost done" and rammed her fingers in me so hard i screamed (i was trying to pull away from her) at her to stop again then my partner told her to stop and she finally did..thats a type of birth rape and unfortunatly its not a rare thing..happenes to tons and tons of women...but because its a dr or midwife or professional doing it they may not think they can speak up or that they dont have a choice...it needs to end.

 

that's horrible. it's not legal, either.

 

I'm pregnant. Now what's the likelihood of this whole episiotomy deal going down? *Shudders*

 

Just stay calm through the birth and an episiotomy is not necessary, talk to your doctor/midwife though. I had three huge kids (my smallest was 9lb 6 oz, my largest was 10lb!) No episiotomy. It can be done, my last (smallest) baby the doctor wanted to do the cutting and I told him I would kick him in the face if he did! my husband backed me up!

 

OMG Hun that is horrible !!! I am so sorry you went threw that!!
I cant imagine how you felt.
Alot of women that give birth in the Hospital talk about simular experinces.
When my friend had her baby boy the nurses were acting very nasty towards her.
I seen so much stuff on discovery health on Natural at home birth and its soo amazing I honestly could not see myself doing it anyother way.
This one episode I watched a women gave birth in the ocean.
Recently I seen this thing on free birthing and that was just so interesting. Its amazing that it is illegal in the U.K. And how alot people look down on it.

 

My wife had both our children at home. It may sound contradictory, but we both felt it was safer at home than risk unneeded intervention, and the hospital trying to force medication on our child. Even if you plan to have it at home, you should visit a hospital as a backup and make sure you know your rights about what medical intervention you can refuse. It's important to know what they will do and to let them know what you want at the hospital.

Our first child was over 50 hours of labor. There was a point where things were not progressing, and we thought we might have to transfer. The midwives were great and did a great job. The one thing my wife regrets is trying to push before she was ready. Your body will normally let you know when it's time to push and you really won't be able to stop it.

Our second (5 months old now) was much faster....a little too fast. He was crowning in our rented water birth pool before the midwife got there, and was born about 20 minutes after she arrived. The second midwife didn't even make it until after the birth. I was ready to catch and trying to stay calm, but it was definitely a little scary. It would have been fine though. Woman have been giving birth for a long time without much trouble.

My mother had 4 natural (in the hospital.)

My sister had here first in the hospital and had a terrible experience. They wouldn't allow her to take the baby home because they thought there was something wrong....there was not. One of the better doctors in the hospital told them to just take the baby and get out of there as fast as possible eventually, and they did. He is fine and in his freshman year in college. His two sisters were born at home with no trouble.

It's all a personal choice. I think it's fine to have a child in the hospital, and an epidural may make the experience much better for some. You won't feel the contractions much or be able to push, so you won't have to worry about that...it's much more passive.

ACOG (which is relatively conservative) says there are way too many C-sections than there should. It's at least partly because doctors get worried and overreact to protect themselves.

I think regardless of what anyone does, they should really do a lot of research and take a birthing class from someone who backs their information with research. (Maybe not at a hospital.) The research usually shows that doctors at hospitals tend to over do it and make things easier and safer for themselves rather than the patient.

An episiotomy is a great example. Studies show that women heal better without an episiotomy. However, it makes things easier for the doctor, so it is generally done in the hospital. You will be told that it is better because it controls the tearing, and doctors may sincerely believe that, but scientific research has shown the opposite.

 

I just noticed episiotomy on wikipedia had the correct information about how it really makes things worse and that it's done a lot less now....that's encouraging.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episiotomy

 

WIKI- is user editted,anyone can edit a wiki page it is NOT the best sorce of info.

BUT.

epi are 90 percent unnecessary-and done far far far more often than they should be... that doesn't mean it is always wrong and ALWAYS unnecessary

I had talked with my dr about it and she waited till the last possible second to try an episiotomy-because she knew I didn't want one-
However in MY particular case- my daughters head was trying to come out of my damn clit- and ripped up my outer labia (BADLY- and it is STILL permenantly scarred and disfigured) if my doctor would not have cut me-and pushed my daughters head down towards the cut it could very well have messed my more of my vagina,and even my urinarty tract-maybe ,maybe not-
but I am glad my doctor risked it, I am also glad she waited to be sure that was the right corse of action and didn't just slice me before I started pushing like far too many Drs do
... oh, and the epi cut- got a few stitches and healed up easily- compared to the labia cut which I ended up back at my ob and was told there was no way to repair... so, it isn't quite true that
they make healing harder. I am scared to think what could have happened if my dr wasn't there encouraging her head to come down lower-

I do think a midwife (in a homebirth setting)in my case would have done the same or similar to get the head lower and to try to avoid the damage to my labia.
I am still to this day not certain if the epi was too little too late at the point it was done(I often think it was- but hubby -who had the better vantage point assures me otherwise)- but I am damn thankful MY doctor did it JUST IN CASE it could save me from lifelong physical problems related to childbirth.

 

You're right. Wiki can have bad info, and episiotomies may be needed in some cases.

Here's a better references (which cites medical sources) that show that you did the right thing:
http://www.aolhealth.com/decision-point/should-i-plan-to-have-an-episiotomy

And ACOG's Recommendation:
http://www.acog.org/from_home/publications/press_releases/nr03-31-06-2.cfm

I especially wouldn't want anyone to second guess what they choose, even if they took a very different approach and decide to have a scheduled C-section for what ever reason. Many of my friends and relatives have taken anesthesia and most had hospital births, and had wonderful experiences.

I'm glad that episiotomies aren't done routinely like I thought, and are only used when necessary, like in your case.

 

I'm going to be trying for a baby in a few years time, I'm torn over what to do in the birthing issue, I want to birth at home, my DH wants me to birth at a hospital.

*sigh*

 

Maybe you could meet in the middle with a birthcenter/midwife birth(florida has a lot of those and the school of midwiffery I don't know about your area tho)- instead of at home or hospital ?

TBH I would be scared to homebirth a 1st child(and was) hindsight if I had it to do over I would have done a homebirth,if I had another kid definatly-but with a 1ST kid,not having given birth before and not knowing what my body would do I was a bit more comfortable at the birthcenter.

 

perhaps a different birthing position could have helped you avoid that complication altogether. i'm assuming they had you in the standard one.

 

who ,me? I was able to move into any position I wanted, I squatted on the bed for awhile(at that phase of the delevry- for hours I walked-ounce on a birthing ball ect) and then leaned/laid(or more fell LOL ) further back to push.
The issue was where her head was coming out and we did try to move it down,reposition her,but like i said it might have been too little too late by that point,it all happened very fast suddenly.TBH I don't think anyone realized i was tearing as bad as I was until i already had started to tear.
Like I said/and the article clever-name posted showed- it is NOT common for there to be tearing like that- but it does happen and there are a few cases were an epi can help.