Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Business of Being Born



I was watching the Today show this morning and Anne Curry was interviewing Ricki Lake (who looks great by the way) about a documentary she produced called The Business of Being Born about the American way of birth and how its changed and the flaws in the system and the benefits of using midwives and even Ricki's own homebirth. I was so excited to see someone addressing this important issue. I was unhappy to hear how bias and almost attacking Anne was in her questions to Ricki. Why is society so anti natural birth? Anyone who reads the statistics will realize that if you have a normal healthy pregnancy then homebirth is not as "risky" as the doctors and hospitals will have you believe.
We tried to have a natural birth in a hospital with our first son and were not fully supported in our decision to do so by the staff in spite of our "birth plan" and sadly ended in a c-section because my labor wasn't going according to their timeline. Every woman's body is different, every labor/delivery is different. Who are they to put a time limit on how each and every stage of labor should take on any given women? We did not want to have another experience like that and when we found out that we were pregnant again we prayed alot and found a Certified Nurse Midwife who was wonderful and supportive of our decision to have a home birth. There were mixed reviews from our friends and family. What a vastly different experience the homebirth was! I was much more relaxed and I was able to move around and eat and we used a labor tub to help me relax throughout the labor. I felt confident in myself and my body and empowered - I know God was holding me close to Him through the loving support of my husband, mother, doula and midwife. Anyway, I'll stop before I get too preachy.... needless to say, I am very passionate about women (at the very least) educating themselves before making decisions about their bodies, births and babies.

3 comments:

Big Doofus (Roger) said...

The interesting thing about this is that we, as Westerners, just assume that you have to do things a certain way. You give birth in a hospital and then you send your kids to a school. Now, I'm not legalistic about much of anything (that I know of). In fact, all three of our chillins were born in hospitals and we are planning on sending one of our kids to a school next year. However, it needs to be OK to make the best choice for your family.

jan said...

Don't get me started on this one! We had 3 hospital births and 1 homebirth. NOOOOOOO comparison. I'd take a homebirth over a hospital birth every time! It was amazing, wonderful, and sweet. I agree wholeheartedly with you Wani.
Judy

Unknown said...

Since our kids are older, this issue isn't on my mind, but I like the way you informed me and let me know it's out there. It reminds me so much about the debate over homeschooling...the decision to natural birth by going against the norm of having a baby in a hospital, and the decision to homeschool by going against the norm of sending your child to public school. So many parallels!