To think positive birth movement is a cult?

[auslass]

Recently I went along to a positive birth movement talk (mostly because they had free cake - don't get between a pregnant lady and carbs), and honestly I found the whole thing a bit cultish.

The women they had talking were all " no pain relief, I wanted to feel everything" heroes. And they had a midwife up talking about why everyone should be considering homebirths, and why we should all think about not having any drugs at all.

Is it just me or does just seem like another way of layering pressure on women? I want my pain relief and am sure of that, but when I brought up pain relief's place in PBM the midwife instantly explained all that could go wrong with pain relief. I get there a risks; but there are risks with no intervention births too right?

AIBU? Is it just me who thinks these groups have a responsibility to educate on all the options? Especially if they have midwives present?

If it’s a “positive birth movement” class then no, I don’t think it’s fair to expect them to cover all the options because their focus is on non intervention. It’d be like going to a vegan cooking class and asking them for meat based recipes.
BUT, normal birth education classes absolutely should cover all options. There are positives and negatives about pain relief. People should know the risks (and blessed benefits) so they can make an informed decision about what’s right for themselves.

I agree. I have always thought it’s at best cranky at worst Medieval.

I have never understood why women who are already beating themselves up and restricting themselves about pregnancy decide to insert a layer of self flagellatory woo when there’s no scientific underpinning whatsoever. Sometimes women are their own worst enemies.

I thought the point of the PBM was to empower women to have positive births, whatever shape or form that takes? Home birth/drug free birth isn't going to be for everyone. My first was a planned section and I found that very positive. When I read the PBM book (a couple of years ago) I think it did talk about how one intervention can lead to another but my most abiding memory of if it is that it's important for women to be an active, knowledgeable participant in their birth. I guess groups will vary depending on who's running them!

@greywoollyjumper I think it might depend on who is running it, your right it is about being an active participant and knowing the options. It was a bit much for me.

Hmm I sort of agree. I had one midwife come to speak about PBM class and refer to a ‘real birth’ as one with no intervention drugs etc. U got a bit pissed off at that as I felt like it was adding pressure to women and make those that had pain relief or c section feel like failures. She wasn’t happy when i questioned if my conception wasn’t ‘real’ either as I had ivf and a hell of a lot of drugs to help make my baby. 🤷‍♀️

The PBM covers all aspects, their topics usually change week by week. I've been to a few as I worked with the organiser, and it covers a whole range of options without being preachy. Maybe try another in a different area if you can, that one sounds inappropriate

I agree. I honestly think the people who push for natural births hate women. My birth was not beautiful or sensual, it was pure hell and no amount of lavender oil or yoga balls was going to change that.

I am honestly tired as well of reading about 'bonding'. Breastfeeding is 'bonding', skin to skin is 'bonding'. It's like if women don't spend 99% of their day attached to the baby, they're going to become psychopaths.

It's all just misogynistic bs dressed up as modern parenting, designed to keep women in their place and constantly in a state of guilt and pressure.

There's nothing wrong with any of those things if you want them, but the fact that it is so constantly pushed as the be all and end all is extremely frustrating.

Ina May Gaskin has a lot to answer for (and is a total psychopath herself.)

I was sucked in to wanting to natural birth...ended up with a c section and felt less of axwoman.
I advise all wimen...have as many drugs as you want...your child will NOT end up on heroin ( as some of these people believe).
Pricks.

I pretty much avoid discussing labour with anyone for this reason. As much as thia sounds like pressure added on, I have felt the same from people who did have pain relief during labour.

People love to push 'their way', regardless of which way that is.

I think just give birth how you want, ignore all the white noise of fear and just try to have as positive an experience as you can.

I agree. I think it’s a very good thing that these days there’s a lot more focus on informed consent and medical staff showing more respect for women’s body autonomy during pregnancy and birth. But the downside of it is that women are starting to feel pressure to experience giving birth as a wonderful, enjoyable instagramworthy experience. And let’s face it, it’s wonderful if that happens for some of us, but for most of us it’s bloody, painful and scary. I was so relieved mine was over and absolutely wouldn’t be looking forward to doing it again if I ever would get pregnant again.

I agree with dropyoursword, you went along to their talk and obviously their focus is going to be on what they see as the best method. You doing have to specify that in your birth preferences or ‘join the cult’.
Before getting pregnant I was set of full pain relief available, maybe an Elective c section to avoid the whole business all together. Then I did some reading on PBM and their style of being in control of your own birth and the statistics involved with higher risk of intervention after an epidural appealed to me. I ended up having the full no pain relief, homebirth and genuinely enjoying my labour.
The most useful thing they teach is how to focus on the positive of your birth whatever happens and to be able to go with the flow, but that doesn’t involve going into it expecting to have a negative experience, because that’s completely against the ethos.

greywoolly that may be right although without exceptional these groups manage to crowbar some natural childbirth propaganda in here.

Also why the obsessive focus on birth and the desire to outsource it to the woman? I get that it’s a potentially traumatic process that needs to be planned for.

But there’s something vaguely cultish in the number of people who provide birth related services anyway. This emphasis on “empowerment” actually has become an excuse for navel gazing over the one element of being a parent that mothers have absolutely no control over and then imbuing it with lots of dubious longer term significance. (Ie telling mothers of highly dubious and statistically insignificant cases where a woman had an epidural and her kid went on to be a junkie.)

I don't think it's a cult.

I had one traumatic production line hostpital birth with pethidine and endless anonymous staff screaming at me that left me with PND to the point of hallucination. Took me over a year to reover.

Followed by an amazing home/water birth with only gas and air that whilst immensely painful, remains one of the most euphoric and amazing highlights of my life.

Followed by an elective caesarean which was fine in itself but the lack of aftercare left me very vulnerable and in agony.

I'm nearly 39 and not likely to have any more, but I will say for those who have low risk pregnancies it would be wrong for midwives not to make them aware thay births like my second one are possible.

I've had three babies in the last five years and never even heard of this! It mustn't be especially wiretaps a 'movement' so I suppose I would just take from it anything you find useful (if that's nothing then so be it) and forget about it.

I do think this think about a natural birth being 'better' is damaging though. You have so little control over how labour is going to go. With my first it was incredibly fast, I was 10cm dilated when I got to hospital so it was too late for pain relief and he was born very quickly. On the ward the next day all the midwives were saying how 'brave' I was and 'that's the way to do it', when the truth was we were both in distress during the birth and I was utterly traumatised by it for months. It really bothered me as well that other women in the ward would hear thar and think they weren't as 'good' as me if they'd had an epidural or section, when that wasn't the case at all and I'd have rather had either of those.

You can still have a positive birth with all the drugs.

My third baby I never felt a contraction, I had an epidural then a syntocin drip. It was very medical but extremely positive.
Nothing went wrong and it was all textbook. What isn't positive about that?

I've had births with no meds. Positive.

If it's good it's good. If it's shit it's shit.

I think it's also the luck of the draw. To have a positive birth, you need good midwives, a nice environment, supportive doctors.

God knows, I did not have a good midwife, she acted like I was a pain in the arse throughout and like she couldn't wait for me to finish so she could go home. I was so positive going into my labour but as soon as I saw her, it was a nightmare. There is no way I was going to have a good birth with her there, she was just horrible.

I ended up having counselling I was so traumatised, I felt like it was all my fault that I ended up having a bad labour.

I guess it depends on your labour. I had pretty straight forward ones. No pain relief, born in water. My recovery and return home were within a couple of hours. Like me some women want that labour but seemed to get accused of being a martyr for that! I'm glad I was able to make an informed choice. Had I needed any intervention I'd have had it.

I agree OP. It's fine if people want / are able to have straightforward births where they can cope with the pain but many women do not. Having had a vb and an ELCS, I can honestly say the cs was much much better and even the recovery was quicker and smoother due to complications with the vb. But nobody wants to hear that because it doesn't fit in with the "natural is best" bollocks. I remember feeling very angry after my vb at how brutal the experience had been and actually couldn't believe I'd been told that I could "breathe through the pain" of it. It was far far more painful than anyone had ever let on. Be very firm about pain relief OP and get your birth partner onside to fight your corner for it! You wouldn't make an animal suffer the way pregnant and new mothers are left to suffer, it's barbaric.

@sometimeswinning I don't think you're a martyr but I do think that some women who have had the 'ideal' birth don't really think how they come across when they talk about it (not including you in that).

I know one women who always says stuff like 'it is really important that you try to relax as much as possible during birth' or 'if you get interventions, it's possible that it will harm the baby, I don't know why you'd risk that' or 'you need to speak up for yourself during labour to let the midwives know what you want.'

Stuff like that just comes across as very judgemental. I was traumatised by how painful and awful my labour was, then I feel like it's somehow my fault for not speaking up or for being too weak or not preparing enough.

I havent been to any classes but I read the book and, although it talks about the possible advantages of birth in a home/birth centre environment, there are also sections on c section, induction, pain relief and how you can have a positive birth with any of those too.

I attended positive birth movement groups throughout my pregnancy, it didn't feel cultish at all. The group leaders ranged from people who'd had home birth vbacs to elective cesareans, by way of emergency cesareans and 'normal' births. Us ladies went on to have various births. I was actually on ward with a lady from my group. I had a very large, long, complicated birth which ended in intervention (though not cesarean), the other lady had a wee little thing in about 2 hours, almost in the car park. Another lady had an emergency C-section after failure to progress and baby distress. We were all happy with our births because we'd had the tools to make our own decisions that were right for us.
Very few of our classes actually talked about labour itself, the ones that did covered all commonly occurring labours. All the leaders talked about their own experiences. But mostly we talked about being pregnant, sore boobs and hemorrhoids, bizarre cravings and useless partners, interfering mils and entitled friends.
Maybe I just had a particularly relaxed group but I've also read the book and that too covers all choices Inc. Elective Cs etc, and doesn't preach 'hero'.

I went to pregnancy yoga. To meet other mums and maintain some sort of level of pregnancy appropriate exercise. The woman who ran it was radical in her views and as it was my first baby I completed bought the lot, hook, line and sinker. We were led to believe that MVs and doctors want to medicalise birth and give interventions that were wholly unnecessary. We were encouraged to hire doulas and pain relief if any sort was looked down upon. Every week a mum came in with her newborn and told us about their birth experience. All of it seemed amazing and magical somehow.
I was due and another lady said to me, "have a mystical birth".
I had my baby, who in birth became very distressed and I needed an emergency CSection. I contacted the yoga teacher to say I could come in and tell my birth story but she said no, she only let people with positive birth stories come in so it didn't frighten the other women. She was part of the Positive Birth Movement and I absolutely think it's a cult

Midwives not MVs...

The "mystical birth" lady I say about two months later. She apologised for saying that and said her birth was so far away from what the yoga teacher talked about that she felt totally unprepared and quite traumatised. The yoga teacher was also an anti vaxxer and spent ages persuading us to not vaccinate our children

That’s such a shame you had that experience. I went to one that was positive birth I matter what form it takes. It was just people who had had a positive birth. What positive meant was left up to the woman to decide. So that included women who had opted for epidural and got one. It also included positive c sections, planned and emergency. The focus wasn’t on the type of birth or the interventions, it was focussed on how the woman felt about it.