Understanding Unassisted Childbirth
Ensuring a Safe Home Birth
Unassisted childbirth is when a woman gives birth either alone or with only her partner and children present. While the alarmists say that do-it-yourself birthing is dangerous, advocates of the practice say it's a perfectly relaxed process that simply follows the body's natural intelligence. Laura Shanley, author of Unassisted Childbirth, says the only reason most childbirths are painful is because most women have been taught to fear the birth process. Here, she tells us how she overcame her own fear of childbirth, unassisted.
There is so much fear in this culture about childbirth that it dominates women's lives and affects their pregnancies, births and parenting in general. For me, it was liberating on many levels to give birth unassisted.
To see that my body really can be trusted not to betray me opened the door to other possibilities and experiences in my life that I don't think I would have had the courage to take on if I hadn't overcome my fear of childbirth.
When I was about six years old, I asked my mother how babies came into the world, and she explained that when you give birth, they cut you -- she told me about the episiotomy. I don't think my mother was trying to frighten me, but I decided right then that I was never going to have children.
In television and movies, birth is always presented as this dangerous, painful, medical event. No one presents the act of giving birth itself as pleasurable, spiritual or empowering.
Unassisted Birth
All of my children have been born unassisted, and I would say it has been a wonderful challenge. Particularly when my third child was born. My first image of her face was when she was still inside the water bag. The water bag broke and she slid into my hands, and it was this feeling of pure connection with another human being. It was pure bliss.
Because I grew up with a lot of fear about childbirth, I never even planned on having children, let alone doing it unassisted. Then I met my husband David. He had been studying the evolution of the self-consciousness, and how many of our psychological problems can be traced back to a traumatic birth. He was also reading a book called Childbirth Without Fear by Grantly Dick-Read.
That book was written in the 1940s and it talked about how birth should give women a feeling of exaltation. Dick-Read found that the majority of problems in birth are caused by fear.
When you're afraid, you trigger the fight/flight response, which is meant to save your life when you're in a dangerous situation. If you don't want to be giving birth, you basically shut down labor. Blood and oxygen flow away from the uterus and into the arms and legs so you can fight the perceived danger or run away from it.
The more we looked into it, the more we saw how much of a factor outside intervention is. When you go to a hospital and someone is continually checking you, measuring you, testing you, it interferes with you psychologically. In the hospital, any variation is defined as a complication.
A Safe Home Birth
David hasn't even been with me for all our children's births. The first time, he caught the baby. With the other ones, I just happened to be in the room by myself. It's not illegal to catch your own baby, although there are women who have been told so by their local health departments. Doctors really don't have the statistics to back up their claim that freebirthing is dangerous.
I think doctors are threatened by unassisted birth for financial reasons. There's a film called Pregnant in America, and in a trailer for the film, author Joseph Chilton Pearce says that 66 per cent of all hospital revenue comes from childbirth. When women talk about doing it themselves, it's certainly a threat to the present medical system. Other doctors just truly believe that childbirth is inherently dangerous, and so they see themselves as saving women from their own bodies.
There's no form of childbirth that will ensure success 100 per cent of the time, but our success rates really are good, and that may be why the movement is gaining popularity. Women are seeing that if they don't interfere physically or psychologically, there is an intelligence there that can be trusted.
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Comments
I agree wholeheartedly with your philosophies on body wisdom.
I oppose unassisted births for reasons other than fear of natural processes, ignorance or for being "uneducated".
It's true, I'm under educated. I don't hold a PHD or a doctorate but I am a woman of experience who never takes the word of someone else at face value just because they are an expert. I am the best expert regarding my own body, and I believe that everyone has the ability to be their own expert on their own selves.
I have manifested miracles within my own body and am fully conscious of the power of transformation within my cellular being.
With that said,
I've been watching the incidence of abandoned infants in Canada and elsewhere.
These were all unassisted births by definition.
How do you track who's being born to who in cases of unassisted births?
Our mother's midwife arrived with all the paperwork and stuff for registration, made it easy.
Which is great for my little sister, and others like her.
But this is a system based on trust. Trust that everyone who has an unassisted birth will keep their babies and register them. Trust that these babies won't somehow end up on the black market.
Even though I was born in a hospital I was not registered correctly. I have serious doubts about why that was.
In my 30's I discovered the information on my birth records do not match my name, date of birth or my parents names.
This has nothing to do with free births but it may give you a bit of background as to my concern.
If I had not been born in a hospital, I fear I would have absolutely no records of being born, of being Canadian, of my identity.
As it is, I have not felt secure in my personal identity since I've discovered this info.
I have reason to fear, I was an exploited child. I was born, and switched hands many times in and out of the system, I was exploited for my entire childhood, which was understandably short.
Black Market Babies are already a growing problem world wide and I do fear, I fear that unassisted birth's while perfectly beautiful experiences for some families will provide unscrupulous people too much cover to operate behind.
Over at my blog Hazel8500 I chronicle missing lives. I've recently started a new blog due to the demand of one particular topic, the murder of a cultish figure by one of his many babies mamma's. Now this couple crossed Canada and went around the world abducting followers children, switching babies, and creating fraudulent birth documents for several children.
I know these are two extreme cases and not reflective of everyone who chooses to have unassisted births. But these extreme things do happen, and when they happen, they create a lifetime of unmeasurable misery for the children.
If you have a way to reduce this fear of mine, if you have a way to assuage my concerns about black market access to infants I would love to hear it, because I do believe the birthing industry is in a horrible, horrible state at the moment.
I have always respected alternatives, I just can't get behind anything until i am sure, the needs of the children are taken care of first.
Thanks
Hazel.
Wow - those are excellent points to consider, Hazel. I would never have thought of them myself. Thank you for sharing your experience and enlightening us all about the potential for identity issues with free-birthing.
Thank you Trina.
I really appreciate the author's final words in the story, respecting that every body should choose what they're comfortable with.
I think in North America, the option or alternative of having a free-birth is wonderful, because there's a fall-back (the medical system) in case something goes terribly wrong.
The terribly wrong part, isn't due to one system or another - so i think we're quite lucky to approach 'freebirth' very differently from births in third-world or developing countries, where you could also consider that free-birth, but with much higher mortality rates.
I'm some sure women feel safer being in a hospital, and there must be a huge comfort factor giving birth at home...
If I were a woman giving birth, i think i'd like a bit of both!
Interestingly enough, one of the best places for a mother to get some illness or exposed to some illness is in a hospital. Same applies for a vulnerable new-born baby.
Hospitals are not unknown for "fear" marketting. Their business and financial stability hinges on our sense that we can not deal with our own health issues on our own but that we need them to tell us answers and to prescribe cure-all drugs.
My 1st two kids were born in a hospital. I won't go into a discussion of all the things which went wrong in that process.
The 2nd two were born at home with ladies of the community assisting my wife.
My wife has concluded that she'll never return to the hospital for a birth ( unless, of course, there's some emergency conditions which indicate otherwise ).
Sadly, so many in our cultures have accepted the "gotta go to the hospital" and/or "gotta go to the Doc" mentality that the hospital marketers want us to believe.
There are indeed times when putting our life and health MUST be put into the capable hands of a medical professional.
Until then, tho I believe a woman giving birth would be prudent to have knowledgeable people present ( ie: other women who've given birth or mid wives ), I don't support any concept that a woman MUST have a "medical professional" present @ time of birth, whether in the hospital or any other agreeable place.
As for registration of babies, WHY ? What business is it of anyone else if a woman has a baby ? The Income Tax Revenue office ? We've got enough governmental meddling going on in our lives. Why not give a child the opportunity to be free of it for as long as possible.
To the author of this article thank you for opening up the channels of communication on this issue. I to see no need for hospitals to give birth. Animals around the world do it every day as many races of humans do to. Hospitals are for the sick dying or dead, not for new life. Personally I was born in a morgue but thats another issue and story ..
I have six children, my first birth was horrendous. She was born after an induction and finally an epidural. I was being threatened with a c section and I demanded an epidural instead and she was born 15 minutes later. I dilated 8cm in that time.
First births are hard the body is not used to being stretched like an elastic band, women are not prepared for it, they are taught to breathe but no simple pilates like exercises that can help the body open and stretch and be supple during the birth and pregnancy.
They are not taught howe to relax and go with the movements, what mechanisms inside the body screw the baby down with each contraction, and then lets go allowing the body to relax. They are not taught that contractions build up in waves to a peak and then subside slightly to build up again, quicker harder and faster.
The body instead fights it and doesn't dilate. Nowadays every first birth thats a bit touchy and doesn't dilate has C section screamed at them and they are rushed gladly into surgery to have the most unnatural births.
The body doesn't do it with a c section, contractions don't finish with the birth of a child, the body continues to contract at a lesser pace. The afterbirth or placenta is contracted out then everytime a woman feeds her baby her body contracts more pushing more blood and lining out and contracting the uterus back into place
C Section INTERFERES with that natural process. Choosing to not breast feed at least for those first few weeks also interferes with that process.
Birth should be as natural as possible with the whole family present to watch. My second daughter was born in the sac, she was out on the table for a few minutes in the sac with everyone crowded around in awe at something they had never seen before, a nurse actually got itno trouble for not breaking my waters.. wth? this woke me up to natural births and I was angry that they even thought to break my waters at all, which they do to speed up the process but what it does is stops the natural lubricated sac from surrounding the baby in the birth canal, making it easier and calmer for both mum and bub.
I went home after four hours and was so relaxed at home with her. My next son was the same, I went straight home after his birth and was annoyed that I had to be there.
I was especially annoyed when they later came out to my farm to get his heel prick test. I said no I didn't want him going through it and they said it HAD to be done. They waffled on about some obscure never heard of disease..now why dont they test for everything.. because that heel prick test is sent straight to a central DNA database in the nations capital. Thats why they identify young children so quickly these days. But they won't tell you that.
Then for my next children I avoided hospitals until the last minute and went straight home afterwards to cook dinner. My children settled in to a comfortable routine faster as part of the family and no post natal depression or loneliness settled in. I bonded with my kids better and we all bonded as a family.
and yes why should a childs birth be registered.. see thats what family bibles used to be for....
Uh...Margaret - you were born in a morgue? That is quite another story, and I think now you must tell us!!
Heather Wallace
senior editor
Orato.com
Yeah.. pretty sad story all around and certainly made me more aware when having my own tribe
It's done you can find the story here
I Was Born In A Morgue
great story
fear should be the key the hospitals are using
but can the story of the lactating husband also be believed
someone please help
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