This is a freewrite after this prompt
Canal
Birth canal - that is what comes to my mind.
Birthing, having, and raising children has occupied many years of my life.
When I first got pregnant, I didn't think too much about birth and where I would go. I just assumed it would be the hospital. Then I started educating myself and found out how brutal hospitals are to moms. Wire them up to monitor, break the water early and on and on.
Then, I heard more than one horror story of a baby wanting to come out and the nurse making the mom push her legs together - or even worth, use a strap to bring the legs together because the doctor wasn't there yet.
I was horrified!
The drugs are given to moms with a spinal tap. In the spinal cord!!! People! The spinal cord!! Know what happens when something is a bit off?
My mind was blown and suddenly, it didn't seem such a good idea to have a baby.
But too late at that point.
Luckily I found and became friends with some people who had had a homebirth. Then, it was truly in the Hippie realm and there weren't birthing centers.
The midwives were lay-midwives and risked their liberty by helping women to have the birth they wanted and deserved.
Homebirth wasn't illegal per se but helping someone having one was considered practicing medicine without a license. And later, the midwife assistant at whose house I had my first babe (long story) ended up in jail for just that.
Ina Mae Gaskin had revived the art of midwifery. She helped women to take their power back and make birth a natural life event again - not a disease which needs to be treated.
Don't get me wrong. I am happy that we have hospitals and people trained to deal with emergencies. That is good to have if there is an emergency.
But throughout my years of being a home-birthing advocate and activist and a La Leche League Leader, I have heard many many birth stories.
I have seen women in mourning because they ended up with a cesarean. Often, when listening to their stories, you knew when the interference happened that resulted in their baby ending up emerging through a big incision instead of through the birth canal.
I was lucky enough to have had three homebirth with my children.
Having attended several home birth and also some hospital birth, I have no doubt about what I prefer.
I do have a video from my last birth which I made some ignorant men watch. But it is a VHS and I have no idea where it is now...
Don't worry - I won't post it here when I find it. LOL.
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I didn't know doctors do such a thing. This is so disgusting. Thank you for educating me about it. I'm happy for you that you had home birthing for your three children. And that I read your article. You're doing great great job. Also, I want to know the long story that you mentioned. Post it sometime. :)
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They don't do that anymore. And that is a good thing. but those are tales I heard when I was first pregnant which is 37 years ago now.
Most hospitals are much better now. They have midwives on staff and so forth. Still, the clock is ticking once you get into the hospital. Most have rules that a woman is only allowed to be in labor for x amount of time before they start to try to speed up labor. And often, those speeding up methods end up causing a cesarian.
Of course, many couples go to the hospital without educating themselves about what all can be offered to them and what the consequences are.
This is a huge topic. And there are some wonderful hospitals with home-like birthing rooms and lots of great care - and then, we have doctors who schedule cesareans to fit their schedule (and pregnant couples who do that as well).
I only can speak to what is happening in the US - but for the most part, what kind of care you get depends greatly on how educated you are about the topic and how much money you have.
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Okay, that's very informative. Thanks for adding to.y knowledge. :)
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I wanted so much to take part of this Free write and probably the only reason why I did not was because I would have tried to write something like yours, but i have not had the pleasure / displeasure of this experience. I am in training to be a Doula and will possibly become a MIdwife in the future. Thank you so much for sharing your personal experience and I totally agree, most of my friends were told they had to have a C section and it was just scheduled, and don't get me started about the spinal tap. So commonplace. I love love love the part about the VHS. So funny!! xx
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Thank you!! Love doulas! so important in this time when moms have no support!!
It would be totally cool if you write with us!! The beauty is that you can go with your writing wherever you want! One of my friends is into weight loss (she used to be super obese) and somehow, she gets every prompt to be about weight loss somehow :)
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That just made me laugh so hard, loud and long! I have tears in my eyes now. Thank you for the encouragement and I will try, tomorrow. I will probably panic and have a brain fart but I will definitely try! :)
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The whole purpose of the freewrite is to shut down the critical mind and just write - even if only a grocery list comes out or you write over and over : I don't know what to write. usually, something pops in the mind...
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yeah, i've read a few of yours and gems ... gems ... gems ...
"grocery list" nooooo hahahaahaha
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It's interesting that birth was what came to your mind with the word canal. My mother's an OB-GYN, and in her 33 years of practice she has managed to maintain a perfect record. Knock on wood. She has even operated on different generations (she aided the mother give birth to her child, and when the child grew up, she aided that one to give birth to her own child) I have nothing against, home birth (I'm an acupuncturist and a big supporter of naturopathy) but I feel like most hospitals get a bad rep because of a few worst cases.
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I think that there are many wonderful doctors in the world. And every country is so different too. I am not sure, do you live in the US? I grew up in Germany and when I was there, and I believe now as well, midwives were taking care of the birthing moms and doctors would get called in when there was a need for a medical intervention.
The horror stories of legs being bound together were from a long time ago - thankfully. But there is still a lot of cesareans today. It got a lot better for a while and then, things went a bit downhill again.
Partly, doctors and hospitals are concerned to get suit and often over treat and such because of that very real concern.
And people are not educated about their choices - but always happy to blame someone else if things go wrong.
I am glad that your mom is helping so many women to have a good birth experience.
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I live in the Philippines, born and raised. That's why I didn't know about the freewrites being a common thing in school because we never had those writing exercises ;) Sometimes a CS operation is needed though, especially for bridged babies, larger ones or other oddities. I do think that the anaesthetics used is a bit overkill, and I know of a lot who have opted out because of it.
I would argue that doctors and hospitals can't be generalized like that. But, there are some who do over treat. I assure you there's internal debate among the medical community regarding this. Not all doctors agree with how others prescribe treatment. I would say that it's more based on the attitude of a person and not specifically the medical training.
Also, you might find it cool that I've done acupuncture as an alternative to anaesthetics. I've used it for a correction of a prolapse uterus and other gynecological procedures.
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I thought that you are from the Philippines but wasn't sure. And it is very cool that you have used acupuncture as an alternative to anesthetics. I am sure that could be a good alternative to the epidurals which are very common here and are dangerous in my opinion.
As I said, I am glad that we have hospitals and well-trained doctors and I 100% agree with you that cesareans can be lifesavers for both, the mother and the child. In the US, one out of three babies is born by cesarean and I believe that that is a crazy high number.
You might find this article interesting.
https://www.consumerreports.org/c-section/your-biggest-c-section-risk-may-be-your-hospital/
I grew up in Germany and had friends who had babies. It was the normal thing to go to a hospital and there were midwives taking care of the birthing moms. Doctors were only needed if there was a complication.
And the maternity ward was even in a different building - or rather, area of town than the main hospital.
There is so much to say about this. The sad story is that the US does not have a good record when it comes to taking care of moms. We have the highest maternal death rate in a developed country and that is shameful.
https://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/528098789/u-s-has-the-worst-rate-of-maternal-deaths-in-the-developed-world
Healthcare is very much a business here and for each dollar spend for healthcare, not that much goes to take care of people. A lot of that is profit going into the pockets of insurances, the pharmaceutical industry and more.
I am pretty sure if I had stayed in Germany, the idea of a homebirth would never have occurred to me. But here and especially at the time when I had my babies, it felt a lot safer to me than going to the hospital.
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Nice writing, Marianne. I've always wanted kids, and lately I've been wondering - what if I got pregnant, what would I do? (not in the sense of would i keep it, cause that's obvious, but in the sense that there are so many things I don't know)
I've always been more inclined to a home birth, but I think it's scary - what if things go wrong? This post has been somewhat reassuring. Thank you.
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If you think that you want to get pregnant, now is a good time to get educated and think about your choices. there is a book out I used to recommend and I am pretty sure it still gets updated. It is called A good Birth is a Safe Birth
You probably can find it used or get it in the library. Even if they don't have an updated version - the basic idea is to know what you want and choose the place you feel safe at. That can be your home, a birthing center, or a hospital.
Thanks for reading!
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Thank you. I'm not going to have a baby right now (but then again, who knows, you can never be 100%sure) but I agree it's very important reading up on these things, so that I can be prepared when I do become a mother ;)
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I have friends, she is a big dutch girl, she must weigh about 100+ kg. And he a little Chinese man. Both very good looking, and very nice ! Iknow them practically my whole life. She filmed the birth of her 2 children, and every year during coffee and cake we watch it, now allready for 24 years !! I missed a few though... lol
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That is a great tradition!! Now, I want to find my birth tape and watch it!!!
:)
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hahaha your kids will love it! hahaha
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Strange you should bring this up....it happened to me when I was born (nurses didn't want responsibility for delivering me who was arriving in the elevator on the way to the delivery room) and to me when I was delivering my first born. All of my babies were born natural, though.
Congratulations on the home births.
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That is terrible!!!
Sometimes people say that they wouldn't feel brave enough to have a homebirth and I always say that I wasn't brave enough to go to the hospital. I was scared :)
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