Is wanting a natrual birth unrealistic? Is it all down to luck?

[digggers]

my own experience and the experience of friends really makes me wonder about this. There's no ryhme or reason, it's just so random.

Are people who prepare for and experience the birth they want just lucky? Is childbirth something you can prepare for and influence? Or is an open mind and a thankfulness that in our country we have medical help on hand the best approach? Or should all medical help be viewed with distrust!

Foxytocin - it's a bit disheartening how many times this information needs repeating!

It is probably down to personality-if you like control and are keen on detail then my way won't suit you! I couldn't take over a year to plan a wedding-I managed it all in 8 weeks.I also refuse to even think about Christmas until late November. Therefore I wouldn't say I had the answers for others. The important thing is not to beat yourself up if it doesn't go according to plan. I quite like the way that we can't control nature.

pisces moon - trying to optimise your chances of a normal birth is not about trying to control 'nature'; it's the opposite in fact. It's about choosing a birth environment and a type of care that accommodates the normal physiological process of labour, instead of (as so often happens now) obstructing it.

If things go wrong because of an intractable physical problem with you and/or the baby then hurrah for medical science.

But UNTIL that happens birth usually needs to be relatively undisturbed as far as possible to allow nature to do its work.

Interesting!

So to optimise your chances of a natrual
birth you should be at home, away from the possible negative influences of the protocol led medicalised birth system?

But to optimise your chances of not being one of the ones that nature intended wouldn't be able to give birth without help you should be in hospital?

So actually we have it perfect in this country, we're very lucky. We access to information about natrual birthing techniques, that selina lays out, at our fingers tips. We have the option to choose what information we study and practice in advance. We have options in our choices as to where we choose to give birth, depending on our state of health and state of mind. And we always have the option to access medical help if neccessary at the last minute regardless.

I think we're pretty damn lucky

"I think we're pretty damn lucky"

We are, we are!

But we'd be even luckier if we had enough midwives to go around!

It is probably down to personality-if you like control and are keen on detail then my way won't suit you

Hmmm. I also planned my wedding in a few weeks, have never booked a holiday more than 2 weeks in advance and used to do xmas shopping in Boots on xmas eve (in the days before the internet saved me from having to do it at all). I have no interest whatsoever in "control" or "detail" for their own sake, only when they confer a benefit of some sort. I imagine that the same can be said for many other people who would argue in favour of preparing well for childbirth.

There's two main reasons why I would advocate preparing for birth:

1. Weddings, holidays and xmas don't matter as much in the grand scheme of things as the life and health of a woman and her baby. I didn't plan my wedding in detail because as long as we came out legally married, I didn't care about the rest of it. I cared about almost every aspect of pregnancy and birth.

1. You can influence your chances of having a positive birth with minimal physical and mental damage to you and the baby.

If one person is lucky enough to sail through birth problem-free, without any preparation, that's great. However, it has pretty much no relevance to outcomes that the broader population of pregnant women are likely to experience.

To say birth outcomes are entirely down to luck is either to deliberately ignore a huge amount of research and evidence to the contrary, or to misunderstand the concept of risk/chance/luck.

A short post from me.

I have had 4 natural births, 2 water, 2 on dry land, all in hospital.

Keep an open mind - try, try, try not to be scared - keep your mind fixed on the prize.

Worked for me. :)

togarama, I agree with you to an extent. However, there is only so much you can prepare for labour and the rest is down to your body and physiology.

Tittybangbang, the medical profession is more risk adverse and protocol driven and that means LESS interventions done just because its a friday and the consultant wants all the babies out before his saturday round of golf (which is what happens in other countries that are less protocol and more consultant or ward sister driven!) - NOT the other way around

it acutally means MWs don't want to do risky interventions unless there is a medical need that outweighs the risk, even if you want the intervention. Same for docs. So really its MUCH easier to get your choice of a natural birth unless there is a medical need for intervention, than choosing interventions electively. These days you have to fight for planned epidurals and CSs if they are choices and not medical needs.

I had to beg beg beg to be transferred from the MW led unit and kept being pushed for a natural birth and fobbed off "just try the pool first" etc

No - not so. Doctors never get blamed for doing a c/s, only for NOT doing one!

You can't argue that natural birth is more prevalent now if you look at the FACTS. I agree that there is more ENTHUSIASM for normal birth among birth professionals, but it's not translating into an increase in it at an institutional level.

It is much, much, much harder now to get a natural (ie no c/s,ventouse, forceps etc) birth in the UK than it was 20 years ago. And yet the stillbirth rate has hardly fallen in that time, despite a near doubling in the c/s rate.

Intervention rates have risen remorselessly, so that in some hospitals only a small MINORITY of women will give birth without induction, augmentation, continuous monitoring, episiotomy, ventouse, forceps or c/s. There are commentators who've made the point that if the c/s rate carries on going up at the same rate then by 2020 the MAJORITY of births in some UK hospitals will be by c/s.

goingdown!

I think all mothers want a pain free natural experience but life isnt like that. ive had 2 totally different experiences so for me its a matter of luck. Dont focus too much on the birth its just a few hours (or a couple of days) you have a whole life to enjoy with your child so spend time planning that journey instead

This thread reminds me of after-dinner discussions with my mum who is an intelligent, well-educated and well-read, lovely person but just refuses on principle to examine evidence or think logically.

You could prove to her in all kinds of different ways that 2+2=4 and she'd still not only insist the answer was really "violet" but that I'd actually been arguing all along that the answer was 5.

I think it's all about weighing up risks and a big problem is not knowing in advance whether you are one of the few people for whom a natural/homebirth could potentially be very dangerous.

I think we can all agree that there is a certain percentage of people (however small) that will experience a dangerous and possibly life threatening complication during labour.

So even if we are going with the theory that everyone else can achieve a natural labour if they follow certain advice - the mere possibility that you might be unknowingly risking your own and your baby's life is enough to discourage a lot of women from doing that.

Most would much rather be safe (with a possibly less pleasant overall birth experience) than take that small risk.

If only there was a better way of screening and predicting this kind of thing.

"Most would much rather be safe (with a possibly less pleasant overall birth experience) than take that small risk

Look - just as many babies die in hospital as die during home births - they just die for different reasons. Your labour is more likely to become dysfunctional in hospital, with all the attendant risks for you and your baby. Yes there is medical care more immediately to hand, but then it's more likely to be needed!

If this wasn't the case you'd have much higher rates of infant deaths associated with home birth than associated with hospital births, when actually you don't. It balances out. There are risks where ever you give birth but there is no additional risk to having your baby at home.

OK?

def only half way in control but we do have options to optimise the health of the baby

Titty - of course you're not going to have medical intervention if you run for the hills and refuse to go to the place where the medical people are, and stay at home.

To argue that HB are better on the basis of lack of medical intervention is spurious.

You may well need the medical care offered in a hospital - most of us do even if we have knitted our birth plan from lentils and live yoghurt, and have stayed fit and active for the entire pregnancy, and are in 'the zone' whilst in labour.

Having a birthplan can sometimes blind you to the reality of your baby's birth. A birth plan is a shopping list of your fantastic bluesky desires.

If your babe isn't interested in being born the way you intend it to be born, you gotta admit defeat and acknowledge that babies don't read birth plans, they carve them out of your own body.

Having a birth that went well includes a live birth and a functioning mother, no matter how many machines that went ping were wheeled in, or no matter what songs the whales were singing.

WRT infant mortality, I suppose it comes down to the fact that you'll have to live with the guilt if you are unlucky enough to have a dead baby. I know I'd prefer to be in hospital if there were complications and my babe died. I would think of myself as a pigheaded ignorant sanctimonious shit if I refused to go into a hospital and allowed my babe to die at home, if I could have sought out medical help to save him or her, even if the outcome was the same.

So yes babies die in childbirth, but if mine did die, I would prefer the guilt of having the babe die in a hospital, with all hands on deck, employing their expertise and the machine that goes ping, rather than my own home with the whales singing, and me just watching it happen in inept horror.

The shit can hit the fan very quickly, even with a healthy fit mother, and a NT babe, and I know where I would rather be to help that babe take its first breath.

How would you feel if your baby died due to an issue specific to being in hospital rather than at home? Eg infection? Or suffered as a result of intervention due to the cascade of intervention which is specific to hospital, not home? Eg injured by forceps?

Because I would feel awful. In fact I am sure any parent feels terrible if their baby doesn't survive birth as a healthy child, no matter where they're born. I don't believe there's such a thing as a 'hierarchy' of grief.

The fact remains that home and MLU births are just as safe, with far lower chances of interventions, when compared with hospital, when like for like is compared. Fact. And btw, Its not compulsory to listen to whale music when labouring naturally! I would have driven myself mad doing that! My main concern was avoiding invasive pain relief and interventions to give my baby the best chance of being born naturally. Not a guaranteed natural birth- but the best chance.

"Titty - of course you're not going to have medical intervention if you run for the hills and refuse to go to the place where the medical people are, and stay at home.

To argue that HB are better on the basis of lack of medical intervention is spurious."

Oooh, it's just like groundhog day!

I think the thing that leaps out of your post for me Zazen is that it's written by someone who has absolutely no formal or informal knowledge or experience of how homebirths are managed.

Would you like to offer some proof that women having homebirths who eventually end up needing c/s, instrumental deliveries,a blood transfusion, or perineal repair in theatre (to name just a few major complications which occur in all births, not just hospital births) are refusing transfer and are just staying at home and sorting their medical problems out themselves? And, um, what do you see the midwives at homebirths doing? Sitting knitting while their client or her baby dies?

Seriously - just step away from the keyboard when it comes to getting involved in arguments about things you very clearly know nothing about. You're humiliating yourself.

(or are you engaging in a bit of naughty trolling? One of those drunk 'let's stir up a hornet's nest' efforts..... )

j"I would think of myself as a pigheaded ignorant sanctimonious shit"

"and the machine that goes ping, rather than my own home with the whales singing, and me just watching it happen in inept horror".

Thought I'd C+P those again. Bet you were really proud of your turn of phrase last night. Now that you've sobered up are you blushing in embarrassment of having confused 'planned homebirth' with 'unassisted birth'?

I don't think that should descend into hospital v home. The important thing is that we have choice and there isn't the assumption that one is better, when it is merely better for you.
I daresay I am odd but I find hospitals fascinating places and since, luckily, I have hardly any experience I like to go in when well and healthy. I also like the fact that if nature doesn't take it's course all the high tec is on hand. Most importantly I have nothing else to do except concentrate on the new baby-something that is far more difficult at home.
People will think that I am bonkers-but that doesn't matter-it suits me. There is no reason why others should feel the same.
I think that it is great that we are all different and there isn't the way.
Where I do think it is upsetting is that if someone has a definite plan in mind and it doesn't work out they feel a failure and feel they missed out or even have difficulty bonding. They were just unlucky.
We are so used to organising things the way that we want them organised that it is difficult to accept anything else. The important thing is to have a healthy baby.

I really want to have a home birth but I really, really wish I didn't have to expend so much mental energy defending myself from internal and external critics and doom-mongers.

Preparing to have DC1 is hard enough without a constant 'yes but what if... background theme running.

I feel like I am being expected and set up to fail: my belief that my healthy body can give birth normally and naturally with privacy and gentle non-intrusive support like other mammals is constantly under attack from negative voices in my head.

I want to get back to believing I can do it.

Perhaps I should stop reading threads like this and answering people honestly when they ask me where I am having the baby.
:(
There's being prepared and there's being scared: I acknowledge I can't control what happens, and yes, I may end up transfering - but I want to believe and trust that I have a very good chance of having a normal, healthy labour because I am a normal, healthy woman carrying a normal, healthy baby.

If I go into this not believing I can do it, I might as well give up and go to hospital from the start.

I found the trick is to be very definite Miffster (not on home birth as I didn't want one-but other aspects)if you waver you get all the doubts, doom and gloom but if you are polite,friendly and sure -they keep it to themselves. (unfortunately I can't guarantee it works).

"A birth plan is a shopping list of your fantastic bluesky desires."I'd like to disagree wiyth this.
In the birth plans I encourage people to write, we talk throuigh the best case scenario, to the worst. From their ideal, through everything they don't want to happen.
Its about staying empowered, about taking responsibility for your body and your baby and acting as a mature adult to make informed choices, rather than blindly staying at home, or going into hospital.
Many people here are talking about dead babies, but what about all the other forms of damage? The biggest thread on here at the mo is the birth trauma thread, I see more women who have PTSD after their births, or PND that they beleive was triggered by the birth. Women who struggled to bond with their babies, to feed their babies, women whose relationships have suffered, or broken down.
Women whose births remind them of abuse they have suffered in the past or rape (estimated o be 1 in 4 to 1 in 10 of all women).
Women have a right to have the type of care that can prevent damage like this happening to them, and to be angry if it does happen, because I truly beleive much of it can be prevented, when I listen to women's raumatic birth stories I ioften feel that much of what happened was preventable, and I work with them o make sure their next birth is different, not always their ideal, but not emotionally and spiritually damaging.
Speaking up and searching out good care, talking to obstetricians and midwives to make real informed choices empowers women, a birth experience where you feel you made choices and did everything in your power to protect yourself and your baby in my experience usualy leave women feeling at peace about their births and able to move \on confidently into motherhood and in the relationship with heir babies father as a strong and competent woman, rather than a traumatised woman, and this matters, to them and their children.
(More info at www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/healing_trauma.asp)
I wrote a poem about this type of birth, which I will post here, but let me first say this,
It doesn't have to be like this!

It wasn?t supposed to be like this
(c) Selina Nylander 2010

You thought, you would open up beautifully-like a flower does
warm spring air spreading your petals, slowly.

You thought, you would open up gently like an anemone,
red fronds unfurling with smooth salty ripples.

Not submit to this, four hourly ritual,
Spreading your legs wide, for relentless gloved fingers to press, into, you.
Assessing your readiness; your worthiness-
Like that boy at your fourteenth birthday party, after spinning the bottle.
You could taste your Mothers stolen vodka in your throat when he fingered you-
Biting your lip, trying not to cry out so the others would hear.

You thought, you would be wading into a deep pool of milk and honey
Like an initiate of Diana, with women anointing your head,
And fanning you with palm fronds.

You thought the Universe would be moving through you,
You?re Man kneeling in worship at your feet-
With you birthing the world anew

Not strapped down,
With them crowding round and shouting that you are useless, that you aren?t trying
-that your baby is going to die if you don?t push harder.
And the student midwife is cutting you, and the senior midwife is cutting you again
And the surgeons are hovering, and your Man?s eyes are looking on with horror,
And your baby is limp and grey and quiet?

Even after she starts to cry, her eyes are screwed tightly shut,
And she is over with the medics, not on your belly like you thought
And they are stitching you up, and you are crying, and he is crying,

And you didn?t think it would be like this.

I think that is the worst case scenario selina! It seems dire-I think that you are talking about a life/death situation rather than a normal birth.

You mean the poem?
Well its also about how you feel during a labour, having people shouting at you in labour is quite common. Having an episiotomy is also relatively common, and a baby born with a low apgar or shocked does tend to look blue/grey (I'm not trying to imply this is a life/death scenario) just that there are all kinds of 'health' and ways of feeling 'safe'
As a Doula, its the continuous emotional support that is often missing in birth scenarios, its easy to think the worst case scenarion, when you have no idea what's going on and what is 'normal' to see at a birth (I've had Dad's thinking their baby is dead when they were born blueish, not realising they pink up once they start beathing)
S