What is considered a natural birth?

[ComeAgain]

Does having ventouse or forceps count you out?

I wasn't aware that it's a competition where you can be counted in or out?

No, I wasn't either WW! Sorry, I really wasn't meaning to sound offensive. It's been on my mind because I had my DS 3 months ago, long labour which ended up in theatre and a ventouse delivery and since then I've had a lot of people say things to me in a pitying way along the lines of "I'm sure you'll get a natural birth next time". I'm not sure what to make of this. Absolutely nothing at all wrong with any manner of delivering a baby in my opinion so long as you get it out in one piece! But it has just made me curious to know what people mean by "a natural birth".

You see, I thought him coming out my fanjo was the natural way...

I reckon as long as you don't use the sunroof! [winl]

aargh!

In the real world natural birth means a baby coming out of your fanjo, yes.

In the competitive world of uber-birthing which half of mumsnet seem to inhabit it means no drugs, no instruments, no induction. Just you, the agonising pain, and maybe a bit of gas and air (never really understood what's nartual about that, but there you go).

(I had a forceps delivery and refer to it as an assisted delivery on the very few occasions that I'm required to go into it)

well natural birth is one thing living is another and there are plenty of us who would not be here if it hadn't been for the wonderful intervention of instruments and csections well thats not worth thinking about

I always thought natural birth meant vaginal birth without intervention, whether that intervention is forceps, epidural, entonox or whatever.

Why are people talking about it as if it's a competition

BTW, I think it's fairly obvious that the pain is natural!

P.S I would also assume that using methods such as breathing strategies, water, moving into different positions, visualisation, come under the 'natural birth' umbrella, as they don't involve any sort of drug.

BTW I'm just being factual here - this thread already seems to have taken the usual MN turn of some posters assuming that women who are pro-natural birth see it as some sort of competition.

IME many women just don't want the possible side effects or risks of drugs if it can be helped.

What Violethill said!

If it comes out of your vagina it's a natural birth, personally I would rather than cut me open before using forceps or ventouse down there but each to their own.

It should go without saying that birth isn't a competition, of course - but I think there is a slight problem with language here in that once you've defined one way of giving birth as 'natural', then all others are by implication 'unnatural.'

Which is always going to sound rather unpleasant and judgemental.

I think there's also a bit of an assumption that women who have either pain relief of intervention in a VB don't use breathing techniques or visualisation etc, when I just don't think that's true. Those techniques can be helpful in all sorts of situations (and not just birth).

I think the OP's question is fair, btw. I'm often a bit confused as to why gas and air is sometimes seen as 'drug free' birth (maybe just because it's been around for a long time, so we are more accepting of it?).

I do think polarising experiences in terms of 'natural' and 'unnatural' can be pretty unhelpful when surely the majority of women's birth experiences falls somewhere in between zero drugs/intervention and the highly medicalised.

As a sunroof lady myself I prefer the term "vaginal birth".

load of crap.

if you take so much as a paracetamol your birth hasn't been drug free and therefore you have had intervention therefore not natural.

you have a baby. you grew it from nothing. it came out. that's a bit bloody amazing. how it came out really doesn't matter.

Don't worry, soon the 'birth stories' competition will be forgotten and it will be on to the next round of 'how long did you breastfeed', then the purees/baby led weaning or heaven-forbid jars of baby food competition! It only gets worse... Just ignore the competitive mums and stick with the normal ones!

Hit the nail on the head there EG.

I would say a natural birth is one that doesn't involve any drug or intervention. I used G&A so I'd probably count me out....

A vaginal birth is where the baby comes out of your fanjo!

on the woodland floor amoung the leaves and the insects..

by definition, it is a spontaneous onset to labour, vaginal delivery, no augmentation/ induction or instruments used

basically no intervention or help to get labour going or the baby out

if you feel ok about your birth and how your baby arrived, then it is totally irrelevant what the circumstances or definition are of the birth

Never mind natural: have a look at what AIMS think the definition of normal birth should be: What is normal birth?, Defining and recording normal birth, "Normal" birth?.

Can anyone explain why giving birth in water is "natural"? I can understand why it might be a very positive and in many cases sensible thing to do, but natural? Is this really how we behave in the wild?

I would have thought that eating pain-killing plants is a far more natural behaviour for land-living mammals than sitting in a pool of water to give birth.
(the only mammals I know that give birth in water are whales and dolphins: even seals make a deliberate effort to come out of the water)

To me, "natural" is one of those words that don't actually mean anything in this particular context, but we just use them anyway because they have positive connotations. Precisely the kind of language use I try to discourage in my English students.

so drugs don't even come into it

unlike corrie it would seem

A natural birth is a vaginal birth I think. But some people could refering to painrelief also.

I think itsad ow women are made to feel over child birth, when it comes down to it birth is not something we can control. We can't make the baby 'notback to back' or limit the numbe of hours o ontractionhave or even change our pain treshold so why be cometative over it.

I had what I consider to be 3 natural births. (3 vaginal deliveries all without painrelief) of course I'm proud of giving birth, every woman should be! Its an amazing thing to do! But someone I know has had 2 emergency c-sections after failure to progress then baby being in distress. She has said to me that she wishes she could have done it properly and that all she wanted was a natural birth.

But her baby is here and safe, both times with her it could have been a very different story.

All this natural birth stuff has just added another pressure to modern mums IMO. Its fantastic if you have a smooth birth and delivery but its not what its all about, the product of pregnancy is a baby and as long as it arrives safely, pinka nd crying in your arms then who gives a toss what happens in the hours before?!

Sorry, my wireless keyboard isn't connecting properly! Its missing out letters.

Well said Disenchanted, I had failure to progress after 48 hours of induction then a csec because of feotal distress. For some reason I have been made to feel as though I didn't do it properly - well it wasn't the intention to get Pre-Eclampsia and therefore start that ball rolling I would have loved a "natural birth" or rather a vaginal birth (I like pain killers I will be honest - and if the pain is anything like the induction pain I had I can honestly say I would not have done it without pain relief).

I am now in competition to discover which of the pain relief methods I didn't use when having my dd, but the most important thing to me is that she is a happy and healthy little girl and I get to see her, I dread to think what would have happened had I not had the csec.

Surely the most important thing is to be a good mother rather than how the baby was born, am not convinced that my mother's generation still discuss how we came out.