"How Irresponsible!" Thoughts on unassisted home birth
Jun 30 '00
My sister just gave birth to a 9# 6oz. baby girl, at home, in her bathtub. Only family members were present, her husband, myself, our mother and our six (now seven) children. This was not an accident, she planned it that way. She chose to have an unassisted or "free" birth.
When she mentions the details of her unusual (and joyful) birth to people she gets a wide range of responses. Anywhere from, "Oh, how wonderful" to "Are you crazy?!" But the response I find most perplexing is, "How could you be so irresponsible?" Irresponsible? How is it exactly that an unassisted birth is an irresponsible act? Or, more precisely, what is it about going to the hospital that makes a woman responsible? I don't understand.
When my sister was pregnant the first time, ten years ago, she did the "responsible" thing. She saw her doctor for regular prenatal care, attended the hospital birth classes and planned for a "natural" childbirth. When labor set in, she went to the hospital and did as she was told, even when that meant getting an unwanted epidural, not pushing until the doctor arrived 45 minutes after her pushing urge set in and supplementing her newborn daughter's diet with formula despite her desire to breastfeed.
The next time my sister was expecting she again acted responsibly and went to her monthly prenatal visits. During one of those visits her blood pressure was elevated and her doctor told her she might have pre-eclampsia, a condition that occurs in somewhere between 2.6 - 0.5% of pregnancies (depending on where you live and whose research you're reading). It can be lethal, a fact my sister well knew as a dear friend of hers developed full-blown eclampsia and nearly died only 2 years before. Her doctor's off-hand advice to avoid salt and stay off her feet seemed impossible to follow (she was the mother of a toddler after all) so she asked a midwife friend of mine for some more insight.
Besides learning that both of her doctor's orders were dead wrong (salt is vital in pregnancy, so is exercise) she began to question other things she'd always assumed were true. Maybe her first child wasn't "saved" by the doctor's resuscitation efforts. Maybe the cord around her neck wasn't the cause of her distress as much as the fact that she was stuck waiting in the birth canal for 45 minutes before the doctor even showed up. Who was responsible for baby Jessica's brush with death? The nurses who told her to stop pushing over and over again as her body tried desperately to expel her distressed child? The tardy doctor? Or was it time to realize that by giving her power away to the hospital staff, she was in fact responsible for her own lack of responsibility?
When we walk into a hospital maternity ward we say, in effect, "My birth is now in your hands, not mine." If something goes wrong you can be assured that we will hold someone responsible for it, a doctor, a nurse, the hospital itself, someone will pay for any mistakes that are made that affect us or our children. This is how 95% of Americans approach birth "responsibly". This attitude could be easily explained if hospitals were havens for safe, healthy births. Unfortunately, neither the research on birth setting safety nor the glut of obstetric malpractice suits bears this conclusion out.
When we call a midwife to deliver our babies at home we put our births into her hands. The fact that midwives continue to attend homebirths at all is a testament to these women's enormous courage. Midwives are being tried all over this country for "crimes" that are committed in hospitals every day. One bad outcome can mean the end of a midwife's career or even her freedom. Families are destroyed, communities are torn apart, pregnant women lose their ability to choose professionally attended homebirths altogether.
Choosing to birth without a doctor or midwife in attendance is probably as personally responsible a choice as one can ever make. It means that you accept all the responsibility for your birth. It means that if something goes wrong there is no one to blame but yourself and your God/dess. When my sister planned her unassisted homebirth it was not a decision she took lightly. She continued her monthly and weekly prenatal visits with her care provider. She read all she could about childbirth and warning signs in labor and newborns. She made it clear to all of us that, should something happen, we were to call 911 without delay. She prepared herself, body, mind and spirit for a calm, gentle birth without the typical interventions of midwives and doctors. She received no internal exams, no drugs, no monitoring, no directions save those of her own body. No one told her when to push, how to sit or squat. She took total responsibility for her body, her birth and her child. Her reward for all that effort was a birth that empowered her, her family and both of our daughters in a way that most of us can only imagine.
Unusual? Yes. Unheard of? Perhaps. Dangerous? I suppose that depends on your definition of danger. But irresponsible? No, just the opposite I believe.
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Epinions.com ID:
Oceansong
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Member: Kya Rose
Location: Charlotte MI
Reviews written: 8
Trusted by: 10 members
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