..to not give a flying **** about having a 'natural' birth

[somewherewest]

OK I can understand the desire to avoid intervention if possible but I really really don't get the ideological fervour which some people seem to invest in 'natural' birth. I've been just been going through the handouts from the NCT antenatal course the DH and I are doing and the message basically seems to be "Your choices are important...but if you don't chose to have a 'natural' homebirth sustained only by breathing exercises and whale music and to breastfeed the DS until he's old enough to be bringing girlfriends home then YOUR CHOICES ARE BAD". I really, really do not get this horror of 'intervention'. Is it just that decades of organic yoghurt adverts have conditioned us to think that 'natural' must equal 'better' in every bloody situation, or am I being totally unreasonable?

I totally agree with you OP. I can understand that in theory too much intervention isn't desirable but there seems to be an assumption that any medical intervention at all is something to be avoided at any cost. I'm afraid I think this is basically 21st century puritanism: I simply can't see why opting for medical solutions that alleviate your pain can be a bad thing either for the mother or the baby. I'm sure that for those lucky few people who manage to do it without pain relief and with minimal pain its an incredible experience but I think a lot of women lie about it, frankly, and claim that it was an incredible experience when they hated it at the time. I also think its fairly sinister the degree to which this feeds through into both NCT and NHS antenatal classes: I remember being told at a class that some really random survey of about 10 people by some flaky research institute had found a supposed link between women who take pethidine in labour and those women's kids later having developed drug problems. It was an obvious grasping at straws in that it was basically the only research anyone had ever come up with that established that there was a downside to "intervention."
I went into labour with no illusions at all that I would need all the pain relief that the NHS could throw at me and I was absolutely right. There are a very small number of people who get through it without pain relief and without being brought down to earth with a bump. But they are a small minority. Stop letting the puritans make you feel bad about getting all the help you can.

Titty. I should have clarified that I meant those who champion natural births by deriding interventions such as CSs/epidurals/pain relief/monitoring of the baby. Not just those who champion natural births without negative comment on interventions. I accept my original point read wrongly.

"Well - maybe once you know that continuous monitoring when there is no clinical indication for it is linked to higher rates of c/s but no decrease in fetal compromise". I know many women whose continuous monitoring showed the baby was in distress. That, I think, is useful information, do you not??? Personally, I would rather know if my baby was in distress during labour and if it takes continuous monitoring to do it then, hell yes I'll take it.

I can't be bothered to address any more of your points as I feel a lot of what you write is total tosh and an insult to those who are only alive today (myself included) because of medical interventions. Cheers.