A resource for both of you to read, discuss and think about.
For the past 45 years there has been a polarization around childbirth. Prior to that time and since the establishment of the obstetrical model of maternity care, a continuing debate has revolved around the role of midwives compared to obstetricians (and sometimes general practice doctors). The question continues to be asked ‘Who is the best birth provider for childbirth?’ Adjunctive to this discussion has been the promotion of either hospital or home (and sometimes Birth Center) as being the best place for mothers and babies during childbirth.
Needless to say, most people in modern cultures have one or more opinions about who the best birth professional is and where the best place to birth is. For you, where you birth or with whom will depend on your beliefs and your choices or lack of.
Earlier change:
But something changed in the late 1970s in the conversation about childbirth. This change has added a subjective dimension that unintentionally has put increased stresses on families and lead to the increase shame, blame and guilt in birth stories told today.
When the discussion revolved around the care provider or place of birth, there was still an unspoken but acknowledgement that women could have a positive birth whether with an obstetrician in hospital or at home with a midwife. While the spotlight remained on factors outside the woman, any pregnant woman could have either a good birth or not.
So what changed was the language and the belief. Since the 1970s the hub of the debate was whether a woman could achieve a natural birth or had a medical birth. A natural birth was then promoted as being a better birth and a medical birth was often defined as being close to abusive (‘full of unnecessary interventions’) and defiling to what is by it’s nature a most significant and special event … giving birth to a child.
Prior to the 1970s having a midwife or home birth was not a political action in many countries. For example, after WW2, when hospitals in Britain were full of soldiers, women birthed at home because there was no room in hospital.
In most countries where having a baby at home was accepted, death or injury could occur as well as a woman not coping well with the natural occurring pain of contractions.
In fact, the hospital was often the place of last resort during a birth and the medical practices that were practiced then are now obsolete. By the 1950s hospital births were increasing along with obstetrical care and standards of care that are now known as ‘medical interventions’
Questioning modern birth:
Women began to ask whether this ‘natural physiological’ process should be overlaid by so much medical care. Once this question was posed then there was a renewed debate about midwives versus obstetricians and home versus hospital births … and with that renewed dispute came this viewpoint that a ‘natural’ birth was the goal and a ‘medical’ birth was a failure.
Of course, natural birth advocates always stated that ‘if there was a medical reason’ that medical care was acceptable. Unfortunately no one ever defined the terms ‘natural’ or ‘medical’ or even ‘intervention’. (SEE WORDS).
The present day implication is that ‘natural’ birth is safe, relatively easy and something that instinctively happens without any need on a woman’s part to have any skills. She just needs to ‘choose’ to have a midwife and a home birth and therefore, it is assumed that she will have a positive birth.
Conversely, it is implied that if a woman lacks chose or has no medical need then having an obstetrician and hospital birth will set her up for a ‘cascade of interventions’ over which she will have no control and therefore she will be striped of the most important sense of empowerment that comes from having a natural birth.
This recent aspect of the political debate around childbirth has changed the playing field. Now, a positive birth is only connected to a ‘natural’ birth, preferably with an independent midwife and at home.
Seeing birth in this light has a profound impact on our societies.