A: Fear mongering from the press and medical establishment. Lack of options. Difficulty connecting with natural birth support networks.
Nine essential elements to achieving the birth you desire:
- A deep conviction in your ability to birth
- At least one person who shares this conviction to support you through the entire journey
- Birthing with practitioners who are committed to birth rights, compassionate and normal birth and motherbaby-friendly standards of practice
- Taking responsibility for your physical and psychological well-being and preparing yourself
- Avoiding birth conversations with people who don't share your conviction
- An ability to sort through or tune out all the conflicting and fear-based information and advice which bombards pregnant women
- An ability to say NO
- An ability to explore the unconventional
- Patience
3 comments:
I can't stand that people are now conditioned to fear the pain of birth.
People look at me like I am crazy when I say the best part of labour is the birth part. Sure, it hurts, but you just have to keep your eye on the prize. Pushing feels GOOD. I loved pushing out my babies. The pain was for something so amazing and wonderful--and the endorphins that kick in when you don't have an epidural are so unreal. I was high all day after I had my girl. I didn't get that high after my boy, but I did spend the day in a happy, tired fog.
So, long story short, let me be the first to tell you:
Giving birth feels GREAT!
I'd go with definitely being able to say NO. especially if you want to give birth in a hospital.
After experiencing homebirth, I don't know why on earth any sane woman would WANT to have a hospital birth, but maybe some people like the idea of giving birth in a place like that.
Oh, and just trusting the fact that we're the result of millions of generations of women who successfully gave birth. If it weren't built into our design, we wouldn't be here. Logical, really! :-)
Great post.
I think it's also that so few women know anything at all about the process these days. You talk to most friends and family and you don't get the gory details.. just drama about getting to the hospital and whether it was natural or caesarian. The rest isn't talked about, so we're left to find that out through books (facts!), TV (birth = screaming) and medical professionals (who by and large tend to be the scaremongers).
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