Chronicles of Chaos
Birth Thoughts
I’m reading Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Birth statistics in a sort of unsuccessful attempt to learn more about the lowering birth rates for boys since the 1970s and the potential environmental connection.
As happens, I’m going one way and I end up somewhere else–thinking about birth in general. I hear stories about changes in care for women giving birth, like medical residents getting no experience delivering babies because 50 percent of the hospital’s deliveries are cesarean sections.
The CDC Preliminary Data for 2006 (the most recent) reports:
The cesarean delivery rate rose again in 2006, to 31.1 percent of all births, a 3 percent increase from 2005 and a new record high. The percentage of all births delivered by cesarean has climbed 50 percent over the last decade.
I also find in the CDC Final Birth Data for 2005 (the most recent year for a final report) that “the rate of induction of labor rose 5 percent in 2005, to 22.3 percent. This level has more than doubled since 1990 (9.5 percent).”
When I look at these CDC statistics, I jump to the belief that parents aren’t supported enough through pregnancy and giving birth. It’s the same way I feel when I hear about maternity nurses pushing first time moms to give the Hep B shot to their day old newborns.
Medical interventions save lives. My concern is how and when they’re applied–what’s really best for moms and newborns, if medicine is on their side, or working from some public health approach that overlooks individual cases.
My first pregnancy I planned for a hospital birth–even though hospitals terrify me (from watching my grandmother wither away through cancer treatments or a past life trauma, I can’t be sure). After the hospital tour, Michael and I looked at each other and asked, Do we really need all that? I hoped for no drugs, for my sake as much as the baby. Needles, IVs, machines that hum and beep, it all frightens me.
As my pregnancy progressed, I researched home birth and found a nurse midwife. We planned for her to come to our house and escort us to the hospital, where she would protect me from all things hospital-y. In an unexpected turn of events, the night I went into labor she delivered Amelia (who, being Amelia, had the whole thing planned out her own way) at home.
I remember the point during labor when I was mooing like a cow (and believing I was still going to the hospital), I yelled at Michael, I think I want those drugs.
But at home, there were no drugs. Michael offered to get the meditation tape I listened to pre-pregnancy for back pain. As he searched for the tape (which I would throw in his face if he dared hand to me), it hit me–there’s no going back, the only way out is through the pain.
Everything suddenly got easier. My body hurt, but my mind stopped looking for answers. I started managing the situation, instead of resisting.
I credit prenatal yoga, research, knowing myself and finding caregivers who were a good match for me. For my personality, that was the best combination. When I read the CDC statistics, my hope is that all women have a chance to find those answers, to ask their questions. And my concern is that they may not.
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