Being realistic:
Compounding potential health risks that the medical profession is trying to prevent and the natural birth movement is trying to get into perspective, the word ‘suffering’ has been connected to childbirth. No one wants any woman or baby to suffer.
However, this word ‘suffering’ is usually not connected to a health problem leading to death or injury but to the natural occurring pain of childbirth and women’s inability to cope with contraction pain. (SEE CHILDBIRTH) This is why skills are so essential! Childbirth pain can be very well managed.
Probably you have never really thought about all of this but you need to. And if you have strong personal philosophical beliefs either way then you also need to think this through.
- If you are a strong proponent of medical care, do you really want to put your self or baby at risk by using medical interventions that do have potential risks IF you or your baby does not need them? Don’t you want to do everything you can, are able to do and willing to do so that both you and your baby are as safe as possible during this transition from pregnancy to being born?
For any human being who is born, you are much more likely to die at any other time in your life than from being born.
In reality dying or being injured for any baby being born ranks very, very low compared to all the other causes of eventual death or possible injury. It is much more likely any person once they are born will die from a heart attack, cancer, automobile accident, gun shot, being stabbed etc than from the process of being born.
Until the 20th century, once a child was born they were much more likely to die within the first 5 years of life than during the birth process. In fact there was an expectation that 25% of children would die before the age of five.
With the discovery of antibiotics and a worldwide immunization program many fewer children die early in life.
Check out your country’s statistics and you’ll discover that dying or being injured from being born is very infrequent unless there are some very unusual situations.
In reality, the process of giving birth prior to modern medicine was always much more risky to the mother than the child being born!
Prior to modern maternity care throughout the world in all cultures, the greatest dangers to women giving birth fell into three categories:
- She couldn’t get her baby out of her body. This puts both her and her baby at risk.
- She bleeds too much after birth.
- She has a post-natal infection.
Two of these common causes of death during birth changed with modern medicine. Few women bleed to death or die of post-natal infections.
The high rake of Caesarean is trying to deal with the third issue … a baby not being able to get out of a woman’s body.
In modern countries childbirth is much safer than in countries where this care is not available. But that begs the question really. Is birth so dangerous that the medical response should be at such a high level of response that presently exists? And it also begs the question as to whether death or injury at birth has any societal level of acceptance compared to other frequent causes. In other words, many modern societies seem to accept the high rate of disability and death due to poor diet, smoking, drinking yet seem to ‘blame’ the birth provider if there is a problem at birth.
This resource is NOT going to discuss this complex issue but you need to think about this. This will help you make decisions about the care you accept and receive.
- If you are a strong proponent of the natural birth philosophy do you really want to put your self or baby at risk by refusing medical care IF you or your baby does need them? Don’t you want to do everything you can, are able to do and willing to do so that both you and your baby are as safe as possible during this transition from pregnancy to being born?
In reality most births are life giving. Most babies are born alive even if they have birth defects. Most women give birth even if they tear their vagina badly or find the pain overwhelming.
Statistics absolutely support the reality that birth injury or death to either the mother or baby is much less frequent that almost anything that can happen in life. However, there is a HUGE focus on childbirth death being the worst type of death.
Now, this might not be true for you. Although losing a baby at birth or having a miscarriage may be absolutely tragic, would losing a 4 year old or 15 year old be less tragic? When asked this terribly important question, most families do accept how much more devastating it would be to lose a child who had they had gotten to know, cared for and loved for many years.
Humans, like all species, are emotionally and physically designed to accept death and injury … they are part of Life. However, in modern countries too often there is blame attached to them. Litigation and ‘risk aversion’ is part of modern societies and does not exist in traditional communities where death and injury are part of life.
Is this focus on trying to prevent all death and any injury at all cost the reason for the type of modern maternity care? If so, then you have to decide for yourselves when you believe modern medical care is essential.
If you had a sore throat would you go to the doctors, hospital or accept antibiotics? If you thought this sore throat might be an indication of meningitis what would you do? If you knew this sore throat was meningitis what would you do?
You have to go through this same process during your pregnancy and birth. If at any time you believe you or your child is truly at risk then you must decide whether your philosophy or religion is stronger than your willingness to use medical care.
Pregnancy and childbirth is always safe until it isn’t.
There’s more to this topic:
We can’t leave this topic here because we have to have a base line for understanding the potential likelihood for ‘problems’ that would make pregnancy and childbirth unsafe.
Let’s look at two groups of women. For this example, we’ll bring 1000 women to a meeting that starts at 8am and finishes at 10pm. None of these women are pregnant but all of childbearing age. Any number of these women will still have health issues. These health issues can be serious or not, some might become acute and need immediate health care and a few might require major surgery. Most of these health issues are and will remain chronic. Of course, we are going to exclude injuries for this group of women at this meeting.
Without thinking about this peculiar scenario we know that there will be quite a number of women with some form or other of one or more health concerns. Yet we also know that the probability of any of these women having a major health issue during this meeting is not high.
Life is essential safe even when there are health issues.
How many of these women would eventually die or be disabled due to the health issues they carry during this meeting is not clear but that could probably figured out. For example, if the whole group of women had migraines or menstrual problems the odds of any of them dying or being injured would be significantly less than if the group had liver or cervical cancer.
But for this group of women, they are just at this meeting as a fairly random grouping that is very common.
Let’s change one small thing about this group. Let’s put them all in labour starting at 8 am. What happens to this relatively random group?
Once a woman falls pregnant everything changes. Not only is her body put into increased stress, her baby’s innate health impacts on her body and this can lead to some health issues directly related to her baby’s well being. Also some of this woman’s previous health issues can be acerbated by pregnancy and then by childbirth. This is a reality and needs to be accepted.
We also know that one hundred percent of pregnant women will give birth. This can include a miscarriage or premature birth. The activity or process of a baby coming out of a body adds potential health risks. This is a reality that needs to be accepted.
So our group of 1000 women who are all in labour will have increased potential health issues for both herself and her baby. It is this reality that has driven the modern medical community to use so many assessments, monitoring and procedures.
Unfortunately too many women fear that any ‘problem’ can (SEE PAIN) suddenly arise in their pregnancy or birth situation. This is certainly the projection from the medical community. It’s called the ‘What if?’ But there are neither an infinite number of problems nor is any woman going to be subjected to every problem.
So, you need to do your research. What problems do you have? What problems does your baby have? You need to look at this throughout your pregnancy and birth and no doubt what you discover will lead you to the choices you make whether they are the choices you would like.
Health and birth
The natural birth movement rightly advocates good diet, stop smoking and drinking, exercise, education and choice as the basis for a healthy pregnancy and childbirth. There is absolutely NO doubt that poor diet, smoking, drinking and physical inertia has led to the majority of ‘life style’ health issues that can have a real negative impact on you and your baby’s health.
Let’s go back to this random group of women. We have put them all into labour but that doesn’t take into account maternity care today. Actually, more than 30% of these pregnant women would either not labour and go directly to a surgical birth or labour and have a surgical delivery. Of the remaining 70% close to 50% would use pain relief just for the pain even though there is no ‘problem.’
Very few of these women will have a spontaneous, natural birth AND that does not guarantee that both the woman and baby are without health issues or even have poor outcomes. And this is where the issue of birth as safe or unsafe really struggles with a resolution. It is both.
A woman’s life style, health issues in pregnancy, the baby’s wellbeing or childbirth situation is not directly related to her birth experience.
Any one woman who has done all the right things can still have health problems in pregnancy. For example her blood type might be incompatible with her baby, or she might develop metabolic toxemia. Her baby might have major health issues that are totally unrelated to how well she takes care of herself. For example, her baby might have genetically inherited health issues she didn’t even know about or her baby’s cord might get pinched during labour. During the birth she might also struggle with labour pain or have a tight birth canal or a big baby that is entering her pelvis in a less than ideal angle.
This means that any woman who is doing all the right things might have unexpected difficulties. (SEE UNEXPECTED)
Now let’s take another woman who is overweight, smokes, drinks, is acouch potato. She still might cruise through pregnancy with nothing more than a wee bit of indigestion and then pop a baby out with very little pain.
You might think that statistics show that healthier people have healthier babies, easier pregnancies and better births. You can do your own research about this. What Birthing Better focuses is on YOU. You are not a statistic.
Childbirth is a mystery. There is actually no way for you to know what your pregnancy or birth will be like. This is why pregnancy and childbirth is such a major transition in any woman’s life and the topic should not be reduced to simplicity. You might feel great or terrible during your pregnancy.
There are some things you cannot control and others you have heaps of influence over.
For example, there are lots of ways to treat morning sickness … ranging from dietary changes, conventional medicines and natural therapies or remedies. If they work great, what you choose is your business, if they don’t work then you have what you have.
What does this mean?
In New Zealand there is a common expression: ‘She’ll be right’. What a curious expression and what does it mean? This phrase …
- … can imply that there is nothing you can do or should do … ‘she’ll be right’.
- … can imply that if you have the appropriate skills then ‘she’ll be right’.
- … can imply that the outcome is always ok and ‘she’ll be right’.
- … can imply that the outcome will be ok and totally independent of whether you have skills or just let things be.
It’s such an interesting expression and one that elicit lots of conversation and it should. Discuss this together.
What are we left with?
So we are caught in this dilemma and paradox. Birth is both safe and full of potential health problems. Individually there may be much you can do to keep yourself healthy by using either conventional medicine or natural OR both! On the other hand you might have to deal with what you have and get on with having a baby.
Your Pink Kit skills are very specific in this dealing with one small yet important aspect of this complex issue.
Childbirth does become more problematic for both baby and mother if the birth does not proceed promptly.
This means that lingering, non-progressive births increases the stress on the baby. A baby must be born at some point whether it has health issues or not.
It is often these labours that stimulate both the use of medical pain relief and medically assisted births. This is where you have a huge amount of control and the purpose of your Pink Kit Package.
Whether you:
- labour and have a vaginal delivery
- labour and have a surgical delivery
- have a non-labouring surgical delivery …
… your job during pregnancy is to prepare your body to give birth, learn the birth and coaching skills so that you can always work with your baby’s efforts to be born then use your skills in the activity of giving birth.
Regardless of all other factors, if you do these three things you will feel more empowered, more involved, enjoy the process more and help your baby come out of your body and into your arms.
You can make your birth safer for yourself and baby even those health issues are part of your pregnancy and birth experience.
Maybe this doesn’t solve ALL problems but certainly means a great deal.
By becoming skilled during pregnancy to give birth, you can step through this debate.