..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?

NN No worries

What I don't understand is the distrust of medical professionals - mainly obstetricians - that so many natural birth advocates have. There is an assumption that intervention is done for intervention's sake by some evil, Victorian-style male obstetrician who wants to chop your bits up out of sadism (). In no other medical field is there such a distrust of surgeons and clinicians.

An intervention-free birth would obviously be the preference for most people but when the shit hits the fan, you'll never be more glad to be in a hospital setting. I could have jumped up and hugged the gynaecologist at the hospital when I finally saw her during my MC (if I hadn't been in so much pain). It was a relief to feel like I was in safe hands.

"I think people who advocate home birth and natural birth must just be lucky enough to never have been in severe pain or trauma in their lives"

Actually a lot of women who opt for homebirth do so after a previous traumatic birth at hospital.

"Anyone who has ever had a serious illness / accident knows the value of expert medical care at the right time"

As do women who have their babies at home.

If you opt for a homebirth, you're not opting out of the chance to have medical care should you need it.

But most women don't need medical care in childbirth.

FWIW - I found childbirth, both at home and in hospital, hideously painful. I couldn't have coped with it, as you were expected to do with your miscarriage, without the skilled support and kindness of a midwife or other health care professional.

But that's what made a homebirth so good for me: skilled midwifery support, and the knowledge of back-up medical care if I needed it.

I know quite a few doctors and many of them dread obstetrics because they feel they can't win - on the one hand they know that a lot of women want a birth without intervention and they don't want to be accused of intervening unnecessarily. On the other hand, they are aware of the dire consequences of not intervening when necessary. Obstetrics is the most litigated area of medicine and doctors know that, when things go wrong, the consequences can be catastrophic. Mrs zimmerman - doctors do fear law suits which are usually taken against them when babies are born severely brain injured because they didn't intervene. Virtually all the huge payouts to parents of brain damaged children have been because a CS wasn't carried out or wasn't carried out soon enough. The idea of all these predatory doctors prowling around labour wards waiting to jump in and perform unnecessary interventions is just crap.

Thank goodness for intervention is what I say. Without it neither my dd or I would likely be here. Thank goodness for pain relief (except stupid gas and air! hah! and TENS machines - piffle!) and epi's, spinal block the lot! My experience of birth and it wasn't a great start to having a family. NCT didn't really prepare me for what might happen in my birth situation. Neither did the knitted boob at the NCT breast feeding session! I have come to the conclusion you need to do what is right for you. Not everyones birth sitaution is the same and we do not all conform to fit in with forms and regulations. You don't win any medals for going 'au naturel' and if you had a tooth out you'd have some form of pain relief, hence my philosophy that child birth would hurt a teensy bit more than an achy tooth. But if you want to try without, then I am in awe of anyone who does it. My birth plan went out the window and it was found a few days later crumpled in my bag and not one thing went the way I thought it would! I am thankful for options as I ended up having a CAT1 EMCS. However, intervention when you have no idea what is going on can be quite traumatising. From my experience, most people use NCT to meet people in the area who are having babies at the same time. Very hard to do if you have worked full time and it is your first pregnancy. Therefore I take NCT philosophy with a pinch of salt.

OP You've hit the nail on the head about my feelings on birth with the title of your post. "Natural" birth is something I have no desire to experience as I have an aversion to pain and figure we may as well take advantage of modern medicine. In fact I didn't try to become pregnant till I had enough money to pay for a CS as there was no way I wanted to have a baby any other way. As it happens I had both my children by CS on the NHS. Due to my very strong preference for CS I avoided NCT. I hate how women are made to feel guilty about choosing a cs and am evangelical about them.

Upsylazy with respect, it is NOT crap. Several of my friends have had unnecessary interventions forced - yes literally forced - on them right at the end of a perfectly normal labour with no red flags suggesting they would be needed. Pethidine injected, episiotomies performed, being forced to lie flat on their back on a bed. For the doctors' convenience. And because of those things happening, there were other complications so forceps became necessary. In one case, the baby was permanently scarred and the mother lost a lot of blood.

In my prime - totally agree with you.

After my EMCS someone in my family said to me "Next time you should really try to do it naturally just so that you know what it's like". I did bite my tongue and not told her she should have a go at having a CS, so she can compare, too.

She wasn't an NCT person, though. I haven't had any dealings with them, but have heard equally stupid remarks like the above a lot, online and offline.

The only thing I'd personally recommend is to keep an open mind. If you want to have a go without pain meds, please do. But don't feel bad about asking for some (or taking them when they are offered to you without asking), when you feel you need them. And don't be scared that they would make it worse. If that's the only reason not to take them, than you probably do need them.

Sorry, but why would you not want an episiotomy?

my distrust of the medical professionals is based on the fact that they see the complications, the horror stories first hand and if that is pretty much all the see day in day out that is going to have a huge effect on the way they treat all women in labour. many of them would be the first to choose medication and intervention based on what they have seen and experienced. i'm thinking of the consultants and doctors, not the midwives.

labour is not an illness or a disease that i needed to go into hospital to deal with or treat or medicate myself for. it was a natural process my body went through.

somewherewest You read NCT literature and get one impression, I get another. You're obviously reading what you want to read and forming your own impressions based on what you want to assume is implied. that doesn't mean natural birth is bad or something to be avoided. there are plenty of women who can claim they and their baby would not be here because of medical intervention but it works both ways - there are plenty of of women and babies who have died as a result of unneccesary medical intervention. that is why intervention can be an obstacle to overcome.

"What I don't understand is the distrust of medical professionals - mainly obstetricians - that so many natural birth advocates have. There is an assumption that intervention is done for intervention's sake by some evil, Victorian-style male obstetrician who wants to chop your bits up out of sadism ('don't let the doctors near you - with their knives!!!'). In no other medical field is there such a distrust of surgeons and clinicians"

Possibly because obstetrics has such a shocking history when it comes to doctors indulging in unproven and damaging practices to the detriment of women and babies.

Routine episiotomies? Routine use of forceps? Routine use of lithotomy positions in birth? Routine CEFM? Evidence that emergency c/s rates go up during normal office hours?

Honestly - do some reading about the history of obstetrics over the past century. The scales will fall from your eyes.

This is a good place to start:

here

By the way - would like to add a disclaimer: doctors overwhelmingly do what they believe to be in the best interests of mothers and babies. I think natural birth advocates often acknowledge this. But they are right to question the record of obstetric intervention in the West - which has done a great deal of avoidable harm to women, as well as saving a lot of lives.

Upsylazy I think it's probably not only the fear of being sued, but just that delivering a dead or braindead baby probably is something they'd really avoid if they can, even if they didn't get sued

I dont give a toss about 'natural birth' either.

But I didnt want to go to hospital. I was desperate to stay at home so had to accept that HB = no epidural.

I am no hippy earth mother type. I just fecking hate hospitals.

If I were asked for my opinion I could only go by my experiences of my births so I would have to say the less drugs, the less intervention = the quicker the recovery.

But I realise that my four births do not equal a scientific study

"Can't you just do the free, less biased NHS one?"

If I'd have only done the one day NHS course I'd have known very little about pain relief, intervention and the pros and cons. Hope it has improved but in 2005 the NHS one was pretty poor in comparison to NCT.

I am no hippy earth mother type. I just fecking hate hospitals.

I loved the hospital and felt I would be much more comfortable giving birth there, having had a look round, than at home.

The best thing at the NCT classes first time round was 4 recent mums coming in to talk about their birth experiences and how they were getting on with feeding/sleeping etc.

Yabu

In most cases, childbirth is not a medical emergency neither id being pregnant. Yes pregnant women should be supported and monitored but part of the issue is that is done in the same place as ill people. I am pregnant, not ill.
Someone (OP, maybe?) said that maternal death rates in childbirth have fallen dramatically - yes but not just for reasons of instrumental birth and CS. I had read somewhere that when doctors became involved in childbirth, death rates went up. Then they finally realised they needed to wash their hands fuckwits and rates went down. Ok I over simplify but it's something like that.

It sounds like some people have a chip on their shoulder about drug/intervention free because they've opted not to go for it. They need to ask themselves why they care and have to shout so loud. I see/hear a lot more women talking about that than I do women talking about their "natural births"

insomnia I have very specific reasons for hating hospitals. I would never feel comfortable in one. The most I could do is tolerate one and that would take an awful lot of energy.

I didn't go to NCT classes but I watched some of the Bounty pack dvd's and read the leaflets. At no points was I made to feel a failure had I used an epidural and/or had a CS. I don't understand the OP's comments. It is nothing but advice and you choose to take it or not.

YANBU Natural is not always best. There are so many complications that can arise. However all these interventions have risks so I can see both sides.

Personally I will not do childbirth without an epidural. I have a low pain threshold. I tried it naturally the first time round and couldn't cope. The second time I knew an epidural was the only option for me and to hell with breathing exercises and whale songs.

Anyone who judges has no empathy and is too thick to understand how we all differ in our response to pain.

Why does it have to be an epidural on one hand vs whale music on the other?

Creative listening? How else should I take the comment that was made to me?

At no point have I said I am against natural birth. It's what I wanted myself when I had dd and I think it's fantastic when it works. I would just like recognition that some times intervention really is necessary and not just because the mother hasn't tried.

Why would you not want an episiotomy? Well, if you needed an episiotomy, ie were about to sustain a 4th degree tear, then there aren't many people who would say no. But a routine episiotomy, one to save the MW or the doctor an extra five minutes, no thanks. The recovery is not very pleasant and it has been shown that natural tears heal better. But hey, if you don't mind someone cutting your fanny with massive scissors for their convenience, be my guest.

I suspect however, that there's a lot of creative listening going on by people who are hostile to the belief put forward by the NCT

Creative Listening.... love the term.

I don't think people start out hostile though, at that stage you are desperate for facts and help, and then the realisation dawns that this is yet another bunch of people with an agenda. Seems to me ftom this thread that some NCT practitioners are more ideological than others, they may have a quality issue?