There is a blog that I really like:
Peaceful Parenting
A few days ago there was an interesting article on
mammal births. It is kind of sad but makes you think. Reading it really makes me wish we could just turn back the clock 100 or so years on the way we do things. I know that we have made some improvements on living conditions and such but I think a lot of things were better off before, the way they are naturally. When we mess with nature, things rarely get better. I think that Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he created us. He created our bodies to work and do many amazing things. We are designed to grow, birth, and nurture little ones. Women's bodies work just fine and rarely do they need any help from medical advances and technology to birth their babies safe and well. In fact, the great irony is that when we try to make birth safer and better, we end up creating a lot of the problems that we were trying to avoid with the intervention in the first place (Example at the end of this post).
The article linked to above also reminded of a time when I was young and we had our Mama cat. That was her name because that's what she was, a Mama Cat. This cat had 2-3 litters of kittens every year for a very long time... I don't remember how many years but it was a lot, 8 maybe? It was always such an exciting time when she was getting closer to having her kittens. There were never any dates, timing, or monitoring. We would watch as her abdomen would swell and anxiously wait. When time was getting close or we noticed she was acting different, my Dad would put a cardboard box in a dark closet with towels in it for her to give birth. When she went into labor we would show her the box and leave her alone. A few times my Dad didn't get a box set up in time and she would choose her own dark closet or place under the bed to give birth. My Dad wasn't happy about this because birth isn't always supper clean. Anyway, I was always so excited for the new kittens. There was never any concern about placentas or bleeding or anything really. What happened would just happen and no one worried about it. Our mama cat didn't need to be taught how to give birth, it just happened. It is interesting that in early labor she would walk around a lot, pacing, looking for a dark, quiet, safe place to give birth. Later, she would go to that safe place and we would leave her also. I could hear her meow loudly and wonder if she was alright. She always was and there were never ever any complications or troubles. Her dark safe place is so very very different then our bright, stranger filled hospital rooms where most women give birth. She was such a good mama cat, nursing and caring for all her little babies. (If I were at my parents house I would find some pictures of our mama cat and her kittens, maybe I will add them later).
I wish I could go back in time and live in a society that does not fear birth or treat it as a disease that needs to be cured and managed, to a time before women needed a doctor to "deliver" her from the horrors of child birth, to live in a society where birth is honored and respected with beautiful rituals. I think we would be much better off. I don't have a time machine or money to travel to a less "advanced" country, so for now I will try to trust my self and my body that was created to work, and have faith that it will. I will try to share that trust and faith with others.
...And now this post is way supper long. Much longer then I ever intended.
I should add that I am very grateful for the technology that we had today and for the availability C-Sections. Heber was born by emergency C-section due to
cord prolapse. Without the C-section I don't think he would have survived as he wouldn't have been able to get any oxygen while I was pushing (although I'm not entirely sure about this). I can't say that I wish there wasn't the technology that allowed for this miracle. I just wish that interventions were save for true emergencies only and not constantly being used for some precautionary or preventative measure. It seems that way too often interventions are used and end up causing further problems like in my example below.
Example: Mom is past her due date, she is induced due to concerns that her baby will be too big, or the doctor will be out of town, or the baby is under stress, or an million other concerns. For some reason we think this artificial induction will be better but what really happens is either 1. The induction fails. Mother doesn't dilate because she wasn't ready to go into labor, but because the doctor artificially broke her water, the baby is stressed and now must be born via C-Section which interferes with bonding, breastfeeding, has high risk of infections and a hundred other possible complications, baby is small for date and has problems breathing because the baby wasn't ready t be born yet.... etc. or 2. The induction works but the contractions caused by artificial pitocin are much stronger then once cause by natural oxytocin and put both mother and baby under a great deal of stress. Baby's hart rate begins to decline due to the stress and it is decided that the baby needs to be bore via emergency C-Section which interferes with bonding, breastfeeding, has high risk of infections and a hundred other possible complications, baby is small for date and has problems breathing.... etc.
All of this could have been avoided if they would have just waited and let the mother go into labor when she was ready. ARGG this is so frustrating to me.
