natural childbirth - never possible?

yup me and my little ones wouldnt be here without medical intervention. dd was birth from hell & em c/section, ds was el c/section. I have an odd shaped pelvis. My gran persisted to tell me when dd was born that in 'her' day dd would have been cut out of me after I had died-grannies are lovely arent they.

monkey my friend had an undiagnosed breech baby, the hospital didnt know until her dds buttocks appeared-needless to say it wasnt a very pleasant experience for either of them & poor friend couldnt walk for a fortnight

I have no doubt that medical intervention can save the lives of babies - there simply is no doubt! But I have the same conviction that natural birth (ie with no drugs) is poosible. I had a water birth at home with my daughter with no medical assistance whatsoever.

One just has to be careful when deciding on where/how to give birth. I do beleive that a healthy woman has a very high chance of having a natural birth. One must also remember that environment can also influence whether or not intervension is needed.

Thanks Maryz - yes, does seem a bit of a coincidence for your family!

I'm with Maryz - my DS was also born with the same condition and without an emergancy c/s he would have died, so might I - in fact when my DH asked if everything would be alright - as he was banished from the theatre - he was told 'your wife will probably be OK' What annoys me is that I had asked for an elective c/section in the first place and was told it was totally unecessary & then ended up with an emergancy!!

MaryZ - sorry to ask you on this thread but haven't 'seen' you elsewhere recently - I believe on another thread you mentioned that one of your children had special needs, is this related to the saggital synostosis - if so, could you let me know if I should be looking out for anything. Sorry if this appears intrusive.

Why were you induced at 37 weeks? I know your waters had gone but was it a gush or a trickle????

Again this is a case of one OB doing it one way and another doing it another way!

I planned for a natural birth. I'd ordered my birthing stool, and was al revved up for dealing with it all 'naturally".....you can NEVER predict what is going to happen. My birthing stool had not even arrived when my waters broke at 37 weeks and unfortunately my birth had to be induced. It was bloody painful and I ended up having an epidural, after being all hippy and optimistic for the previous 8 months.

well I think it does matter - when you've been put through unnecessary procedures which not only make the process more painful but can often have long term - possibly lifelong consequences.

I'm learning alot from this thread too. Discussions like this really need to be viewed and listened to by midwives, ob.'s, and pedia.'s as much as mothers and mums-to-be. Sometimes they just aren't aware of our views (thru lack of time, maybe)and do things the way they were taught in text books.

I think Pupuce et al have interpreted the situation as I would. WRT countries like Indonesia, it's A/N care and low-tech intervention that could save the majority of lives. Hi-tech has its place, we all know that, and I feel that even if we have never required it, many of us are happy to know that it is available. It's unfortunate that sometimes hi-tech has come to be regarded as the norm.

Pupuce, I utterly agree with your comments... unnecessary intervention is outrageous and does seem to happen almost routinely. I won't repeat myself and bore you all with my 2nd birth story but it was (IMHO)made very much worse by the unnecessary intervention & bullying by the medics. However, I do have to say I've had two natural births but know that intervention is sometimes necessary and a lifesaver. People do forget that woman and babies can die in childbirth.

If that's true monkey then perhaps it explains why many women feel it is more comfortable to give birth on all fours.

The lying-on-the-back-clutch-your-knees scenario isn't natural for any mammal, is it? From what I understand it was designed solely for the benefit of those who want an easy view/easy access to 'help' the mother.

Also I have heard that many anatomical drawings are incorrect since they are taken from cadavers - gravity isn't having the same effect on organs in a body that lying down as it would on one that is upright.

I'm no expert - just an article in a Sunday paper! Buat, sorry - I'll be even more boring than you, olddragon!, we humans had our birthing equipment designed before we learnt to be upright, so it's pretty much the wrong shape. That's why giving birth alone is pretty much unheard of in any culture - midwives are a necessity to our survival, unlike other mamals, who don't seem to have so much trouble (and are probably also blissfully unaware! While knowledge is power, I wish I didn't know quite so much sometimes!

Probably also why us humans have so many other porblems like pph?? Dunno - like I said, I'm not an expert. I don't think I would have lost either of mine without medical intervention, but I know for certain I would have been in a lot more pain 7 fear - ds1 undiagnosed breech. Had e,mergency section. I guess in the 'old days' midwives were more skilled at delivering breeches. Unfortunately mine couldn't even spot it!

I agree pupuce. The availability of high tech medicine should not mean that it has to be applied. As you say in other indutrialised nations they don't have high c-section rates.

I've been reading a bok recently called 'Episiotomy - Challenging Obstetric Intervention' (yep someone has manage to write a whole book - 200 pages - on it!) which explores the history of episiotomy and why it became so routine.

I also agree though that we shouldn't walk round in rose-coloured specs believing that the way women gave birth thousands of years ago or do so in 'traditional' cultures is necessarily the best thing. There is a thread raging on UKMidwifery at the moment about female genital mutilation in Africa and the lack of care for women there who are outcasts from their tribes for whatever reason.

I wouldn't be here either, had huge pph with dd (10 litre blood transfusion, 10hrs under GA while they tried to stop it).

This is a really interesting thread. Suedonim you've really put things in perspective! I was born in the 60's sixteen weeks early and definately would not be here if it wasn't for medical intervention.

You do have to wonder about the reasons why some (industrialised) countries have much higher or lower rate of aneasthesia or cesareans....

There is no doubt that modern obstetrics are a life-saviour but they are also some time very arrogant as to what a woman should have regardeless of her wishes. I read (I think on the other natural birth thread) that one would prefer to listen and follow her OB's advice.... yes but his advice may be very different to that of his/her colleague.... because you follow your OB's advice does not mean you are necessaroily following the best advice. After all they have their views, opinion, experience of it.... 30% of all woemn OB in London would opt for an elective section.... what does THAT tell you?

I would not be here without medical invervention as my mother is RH -ve, I'm +ve. I was induced a month early and given exchange blood transfusions. Had I gone to term to be born "naturally" I suspect I would not be boring you now

I think it's very tempting to get sentimental about 'traditional cultures', whereas as S has pointed out the reality in many places is very different. It makes me very cross...

I was born by emergency ceasarian as my mum was placenta previa. Pre ultrasound days, and she only had one tiny spot of blood as a warning, but fortunately the consultant insisted she came in to hospital at 36 weeks. Her waters broke unexpectedly at 37, and I was born. She was told afterwards that even if the "flying squad" had raced to her house, she and I would both have died, so being in hospital saved us both.
Also my best friend has twins, one of whom spent first 6 months in hospital and had to have an op, without which she wouldn't be able to eat.

So yes, lets hear it for modern medicine!

About 4 days after DS was born (by c/s) I had a huge emotional reaction to the whole thing as it occurred to me that had it not been for intervention my DH would have come home from the hospital with no wife and no baby. It scared the hell out of me and made me feel very lucky that I lived in modern times. Also ... when DS was 4 weeks old he had a condition that meant a simple op to sort it out ... had we lived 50 years ago he would have starved slowly to death ... Again I had a massive emotional overload on that one ...
Thank God for modern medicine ...

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My Mum had pre-eclampsia with my elder sister and had to be induced, so I might well not have been here without that intervention. Then I had a horrendous 50 hour labour with ds - culminating in a very tricky ventouse where they had to turn him (in theatre so they could perform a c/s PDQ if necessary) after 4.5 hours in second stage. I rather suspect neither of us would have survived without the intervention. He wasn't small and I am, very.

I suspect that what is happening now, to some extent, is that we are no longer selecting against women who would not survive natural childbirth. In fact this could contribute to the increasing use of intervention, but it would be impossible to assess by how much.

My ds was born by emergency c-section after 40 hours of labor. I'm not sure he would be alive if it weren't for the c-section. I had a huge post partum haemmorage after the birth of my dd....I certainly wouldn't be alive if it weren't for modern intervention. Personally I think there is a nice medium between the old and the new. I chose to have as little intervention as possible in my births, but wouldn't have dreamt of having them at home without modern medical technology nearby.