Comments on: Desperate Midwives – “The Business of Being Born”

By: B. Wilde

B. Wilde — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 04:05:17 +0000

I so agree with your perspective that parents should take the time to educate themselves so that they make an informed decision that is right for the mom, their baby and their circumstances. We have 5 children and spent a great deal of time looking into the various options. I feel very fortuante that the choices we made ended up being the right ones for us. Who knows, maybe they wouldn’t be though for someone else. It’s such an individual decision and it does require research and acquired knowledge. Thanks so much for offering this. I would have appreciated it had I come across your post years ago.

By: Shannon

Shannon — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:33:50 +0000

Great info! I had no idea about the infant mortality rate. I had to have a c-section with my 3rd after the first 2 drug free. Why a woman would elect a c-section, I’m not quite sure. It took me a lot longer to bounce back and be 100% not to mention much more painful afterwards!

Shannon
Vogue Mum
Rock Star Maternity
Domestic Engineer’s Union

By: Sophia Nelson

Sophia Nelson — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:00:37 +0000

I gave birth to 3 wonderful children, all came in less than 15 minutes, and I experienced no pain at all.

As a matter of fact it was quite joyful!

I created the Zero Pain Child Birth Blueprint. You can read about it here:

http://www.scottchopchop.com/zpb

or here

http://sites.google.com/site/zeropainchildbirth/

Sophia Nelson

By: Dan

Dan — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:05:28 +0000

Both my kids were delivered by midwifes without us ever seeing a doctor, and both without any pain medication at all.

But it was nice knowing we were in the hospital and those things were available to us.

By: 21st Century Dad

21st Century Dad — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:42:55 +0000

@Israeli Mom: Yes, a natural childbirth is preferable, but the lives and well-being of the baby and mother trump is the #1 priority. The doctor’s choice to go with the justified C-section was the real heroic action.
Graphic as your story may be, it’s reality. It’s a reality we all have to face if we’re going to have children.

By: Israeli Mom

Israeli Mom — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:20:18 +0000

Let me start by saying I’m a HUGE advocate of natural birth and breastfeeding. I so wanted to go through that experience, and yet both my boys were C-section deliveries. In my case, I was amazingly fortunate to be in a hospital and with a doctor on hand, so while I am all for natural birth, I also know that we should be grateful to modern medicine for saving the lives of many moms and babies who do need the intervention. I mean, in 1900 90% of births may have been at home, but how many of these moms and babies didn’t make it, compared to today?

My first baby was a breech. Try as we did, and we did, we couldn’t get the little one to get into place head first. I still wanted to try natural birth, even at home, believe it or not. My doctor, who is supportive of natural births, said that he would prefer to avoid “heroics” and to keep it safe, highly recommends a planned C-section. Well, I sure am glad I took his advice. Turned out that -
a. the reason Ron never turned was that he had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck three and half times.
b. on top of that, I had a rare complication called “placenta accreta” which meant the placenta had to be scraped from my uterus bit by bit.
This was the kind of birth that would have ended in the death of both baby and mother in a home delivery. Had we tried natural birth, we would have ended up doing an emergency C-section with potential damage to the baby as well as 50% chance of me losing the uterus.

This isn’t to scare anyone into going for an un-needed C-section. I still think that with birth and child raising, especially in the early stages, the more natural you stay, the better. We tried natural birth with our second baby, although in a hospital (there was a risk of a scarred uterus, so they wanted the OR ready next-by). I spent 14 hours of labor with no painkillers whatsoever, and I actually enjoyed in in a twisted sort of way lol. The doctor was getting anxious, but still let me go ahead with it till the very last moment. As the baby wouldn’t come down the birth canal, we went in for a C-section. Turned out his head was twisted the wrong way, and he couldn’t come out the natural way. By the time they operated, my uterus walls were paper thin, and the doctor just touched it with a finger and is burst open – yikes!

Hope I wasn’t too graphic, and sorry about the long comment!