May 28, 2013 • 37 mins
As more women are choosing natural childbirth, Caroline and Cristen look into what "natural" actually means and how women deal with the pain of having a baby without meds.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From how Stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And after we did an episode
not too long ago about elective cesarians, which are on
the rise in the United States, a lot of moms
(00:27):
in particular wrote in asking, hey, thanks for covering this.
Why don't you look at the opposite side of the
birthing conversation and look more at natural birth? Yeah, And
I was reading all these suggestions and everybody had a
lot of great input, and I honestly I was like,
natural birth, that's just going without meds, right, I mean,
that's all there is to it. It's just like not
(00:48):
having a C section as natural birth. Oh No, I
was definitely wrong. I definitely have the wrong impression. There's
so much more to natural birth than just not relying
on pain medications. I mean, it's not relying on interventions
in general, really. But it also it's pretty multifaceted because
you can have a natural birth in a hospital setting,
(01:09):
like in a birthing center maybe, but natural birth also
comprises home birth, water birth, birthing at Einamey Gascon's farm,
which we'll get into in a little while, and as
we mentioned in the podcast on c sections, just to
go ahead and get it out of the way. As
as most regular listeners know, you know, we're gonna be
(01:31):
talking about natural birth, not as a form of advocacy
saying that this is the way that you should have
your children. A because if Caroline and I, too childless women,
were to tell you how to have babies, that would
be just crazy. And also because that's on the point,
we just want to educate you, because we learned a
lot of stuff and now we want to pass it
along to listeners. So let's go ahead and get into stuff.
(01:55):
Because like you said, Caroline, um, you know your concept
of natural was us limited to the presence or absence
i should say, of medications. But really, just how natural
are we talking when we're talking about natural birth? Well,
when we're talking about natural birth. According to Christine Isaacs,
the director of the General of Stetrics and Gynecology Division
(02:15):
at a Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center and director of
Midwiff Reservices for the VCU Health System, she said, in general, uh,
natural birth implies a non medicated birth where you're letting
the natural process of labor and birth take place without
any interventions, and that's a big part of natural birth,
of letting the natural process of labor go forward. So
(02:36):
you're not inducing labor. You know, your doctor is not
breaking your water for you. And even when we'll get
into like visualization stuff in a little while, but like
even maybe as you're lying in bed about to give birth,
you're going into labor, you're actually envisioning the process to
help it go along. And so interventions that are not
part of natural birth include things like continuous fetal monitoring
(02:59):
and aistiotomy's which is the worst thing ever, according to
this child List woman who was reading stuff about natural birth,
and every time I read what an epistiotomy was, I
just shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Yes see, the episteotomy
is the procedure in which the doctor will make an
(03:20):
incision from the vaginal opening to the perennium to make
more room for the baby and that way, because sometimes
that it will it will tear on its own if
you are having a vaginal birth, but an epistiotomy goes
ahead and gets that over with and maybe a cleaner way.
We might have to take a quick break from this podcast,
(03:44):
Caroline can go put my hubben drough my leg. Yes, um,
And of course one of the major interventions, like we've
already mentioned a couple of times now, no epidurals, no
pain medications, a lot of times the mother will rely
on relaxation techniques. So briefly, let's go over the history
of natural birth. I mean, we could say the history
(04:04):
of natural birth goes back to the you know, the
very first time a female exited a baby out of
the womb, because you know, but let's talk about it
more more modern times. The quote unquote father of natural
childbirth British doctor Grantly dick Read, who published a book
Natural Childbirth in ninety three, And this was representative of
(04:27):
a change because by this time childbirth had become more medicalized,
with it leaving the home and becoming something where women
go to the doctor in the hospital to deliver their baby, right,
And dick Read was really concerned with the increasing use
of anesthesia and obstetric interventions, as well as the neglect
(04:48):
of a woman's psyche during the process. You know, he
said that women require more attention and you should have
more of a an intimate kind of natural setting for
a birth. And he said, as far as an nature goes,
woman is primarily adapted for the perfection of womanhood, which
is according to the law of nature reproduction. So in
(05:08):
other words, let woman do what woman will. Now, there
have been some who have said that doctor dick Read
was also a eugenicist who wanted to encourage more white women,
in particular to have more children, because at this point
the birth rate was starting to drop a little bit
for white women, some of whom might have not been
(05:31):
too pumped about the prospect of um the pain involved
with having a baby um. But that was we couldn't
find a direct source on that. It was something mentioned,
I believe in a New York Times magazine piece about
natural birth. We did want to bring that up because
that would be an important point to not not bring
(05:51):
up about dick Read. Yeah. Well, he he based a
lot of his theories about the birth process on early
studies he did in his medical career, but even really
before that, when he was in World War One and
he was speaking with a man from India and officer
and like a subordinate officer from India about yoga and meditation,
and so he takes that knowledge about relaxation techniques and meditation,
(06:16):
and here he went on to read more books about
relaxation techniques and so that really shaped his idea of look,
you don't need all of this intervention, all of this interference.
In fact, he said, interference is still one of the
greatest dangers with which both mother and child have to contend.
So he thought it was more dangerous to have all
of these medical interventions in the hospital as opposed to
(06:37):
giving quote unquote natural childbirth. And as a result, he
went on to pioneer the use of hypnosis during labor,
which is one of the relaxation techniques that we will
talk about later on in the podcast. So that's going
on though in the nineteen thirties, early nineteen forties. Then
when we come to the nineteen sixties and early seventies,
(06:59):
we have a may Auger tied shifting and this is
coming from Sharon Levine, who is an m d at
the Northern California Permanent Day Medical Group. From talked about
how there was a wholesale consumer revolt against highly structured,
hospital centered pre natal care. And yes, you know this
is the nineteen sixties and seventies, So it is coupled
(07:22):
with more of the hippie movement at the time right
and writing that wave of natural childbirth in the nineteen
sixties and early nineteen seventies was i'ame Gascon, who, if
you consider Dick Read to be the father of natural childbirth,
Ia Ma Gaskin is pretty much the mother of it. Uh.
In the nineteen seventies, she publishes her book Spiritual Midwhiffery,
which framed natural childbirth as a euphoric experience an unparalleled
(07:46):
opportunity for transcendence and communion. She really crusaded during her
career for access to and legalization of midwife assisted home
birth because she and the other midwives at her farm
and tennessee this big property where a lot of women
still go to uh pursue a natural birth without any interventions.
(08:08):
They discovered that birth could be that euphoric experience and
a way to get in touch with your female power,
like I am a woman, I'm going to give birth.
I'm going to do this. Yeah. A lot of the
testimonials that you'll hear about women who have natural birth,
and obviously natural birth proponents like name Gascon will bring
up this issue of female power, female empowerment, the experience
(08:33):
of having your body go through something so life giving
and painful at the same time, they say that you
can't experience anything more empowering. Not to keep staying empowering
over and over again. Yeah, I would imagine. I mean,
I feel good, you know, when I take out the trash,
(08:54):
I'm like, look at what I did. I did that,
I emptied the trash and I put a new bag
in the trash can So like, imagine what it's like
if you give birth to something without any sort of
pain fills. I mean, I'm such a whoss I don't, Caroline.
I also appreciate the fact that you just compare childbirth
taking out the track. Please don't write many angry letters. Okay,
(09:17):
So let's look at what's going on today. So in
according to the National Center for Health Stats, home births
were at their highest levels since which is pretty impressive
between two thousand four and two thousand eight, giving birth
at home increas mainly do they say to a increase
(09:37):
in home birth among white women, but there's a lot
there's other aspects of this increase as well. Yeah, it
was no surprise getting all of those requests for a
natural birth episode. Once you see statistics like this, showing
how it's become a lot more popular option because of
things like desiring low intervention birth. Because my occasions can
(10:00):
cause blood pressure to drop, it can either slow down
or speed up labor, and speed up in not a
good way. It can induce nausea, and they can especially
give these expectants soon to be moms feelings that they
are out of control of the birthing process, which again,
those kind of anecdotes are kind of frightening if you know,
(10:23):
to hear about women who will go in thinking that
they're going to have their baby one way, and then
it happens another way and they're drugged up and they
don't remember it right. And part of that feeling out
of control is the fact that many US hospitals induced
labor after one to two weeks post do dates instead
of just letting letting things happen when they will, and
(10:44):
then they'll end up restricting the amount of time a
woman can be in labor. Before transitioning to surgery, I
worked with a woman who she's very tiny. She's she's
very tiny. Tinny lady, you're holding up your index thing
because she's she's as big as my index finger. I
carry her around in my pocket. Um, she's very tiny, like,
and she gave birth to two massive boys, and she
had c sections both times because the first time she
(11:06):
had trouble giving birth because it was just such a
big baby, so she had a c section. And then
the second time it wasn't so much that the doctor
forced her to have a c section, but she was
already approaching like past term, like past do, and he
was so big, so they were like, we're gonna go ahead,
and we're just gonna go ahead and get him out
(11:28):
of there. Well, and then there's the issue of v backs.
Eventinal birth after cesareans that some doctors aren't so comfortable with,
right um. But there's also the family environment that is
involved with natural childbirthing as well. It's sometimes known as
a family centered birth. You hear a lot about um
(11:49):
partners being in the room or by the the water
birthing tub with the woman who's giving birth, delivering massage, uttering, soothing, inspirational,
have that baby quote, I don't know, good gracious, clearly
never had a child. You have that baby? Yeah, get
(12:11):
it out, girl. I'm sure that the first thing that
you want to hear if you are spice up your
life if you're in the middle of labor is just
an inspirational quote by Walt Whitman or something on top
of that too, though, you know, there are cultural and
religious concerns that are sometimes tied into its rural areas.
We talked about how anome gas Can has that farm
(12:31):
in Tennessee, um, and just how you know in rural
settings home births, natural births can be more common. And
for those rifty parents out there, I know this caught
my eye. Natural births tend to cost about a third
of the hospital birth. But yeah, that's that's significant. Yeah, well,
(12:52):
so who is it safe for? I mean, is natural
birth safe or we all just are we all just nuts?
And yeah, natural birth is definitely great for women men
who are healthy and have a low risk pregnancy. You
might want to reconsider having a non intervention situation if
you do expect that there will be complications. Yeah, even
(13:13):
for women who want to say, go to anime Gascon's
farm to deliver their child, they have to go through
rigorous screenings to make sure that they are a healthy.
Candidate who is not just physically healthy, has also been
having a very healthy diet for the months leading up
to childbirth to make sure that interventions would not otherwise
(13:36):
be needed. Yeah, so, who's not a good candidate. A
woman over the age of forty, a woman over three
hundred pounds, a woman with high blood pressure, diabetes, or
like we said, a high risk of complication, but putting
your mind at ease. In the American College of Obstetrics
and Gynecology said that the absolute risk of planned home
(13:56):
birth is low, but the planned in the plan home
birth is a very important part of this. This isn't
a cock saying, Hey, you know what, if you want
to have your baby at home, you know, just hopping
the tub, pop it out, no big deal. No. A
lot of times with these planned home births or natural births,
you're gonna have a certified nurse midwife who has been
(14:16):
trained in delivering babies. You might have a duela to
help guide you through the process. You'll probably have family
members there. You know, you have an entire team in
the same way that you would have a birth plan
if you went to a hospital. Well, so, what I
want to know if you're if you're experiencing natural childbirth.
We already talked about how that means you're not using medicine.
You're not getting an epidural, you don't have any sort
(14:38):
of i VS dripping anything into you. So how are
mom's supposed to cope with the pain of childbirth? Well,
I'm sure a natural birth proponent would say, Caroline, our
bodies are built for this moment. We can do it.
We can absolutely do it. But there are also ways
to manage that pain because the I mean, the thought
(15:03):
of having a no epidural childbirth is is daunting to me.
But a lot of women will go in at least
equipped with some kind of pain management techniques, such as
the Alexander technique. This was developed by F. M. Alexander,
and these are techniques he originally developed to help with
vocal problems that he had, but apparently it teaches mom's
(15:24):
how to release muscular tension, to increase their breathing capacity
and restore the body's original point and proper posture, which
sounds a lot like uh yoga breathing, yeah, yeah, And
and just putting yourself in a position that's comfortable, which
is something that natural birth proponents really stress is that
(15:45):
when you haven't taken pain medication and you're not like
strapped down to a bed in a hospital, you're allowing
yourself to get up and move around as needed. There's
also the Bradley method, which is also known as the
husband coaching method I've leave, which is developed in the
late nine by Dr Robert Bradley. It emphasizes excellent nutrition
(16:06):
and exercise during your pregnancy in addition to relaxation techniques
to manage pain. It also, obviously because it's also known
as the husband coaching method, it emphasizes having your husband
there to help coach you through. Although I will say
small quibble with the husband coaching method terminology. I think
it's time we call it the partner partner coaching, the
(16:29):
partner coaching methodology. UM moving onward to hypnosis. Like we
mentioned when we were talking about the father of natural birth,
doctor Grantly dick Reid, who pioneered the use of hypnosis
during labor in the nineteen forties to foster total relaxation.
Fast forward we have Mary Mangan with her Mongan method,
(16:54):
also known as hypno birthing, and essentially the point of
hypno birthing is attempting to override the body's fight or
flight system with hypnosis, right, I mean, I I would
definitely need to be calm. Yeah too, because I'm just
like I said, I'm such a worse, you know, with pain,
and I would just be so scared of the pain
(17:16):
that you know, giving birth whatever. I'm scared of the pain.
Do you think, though, with hypnosis, that you would be
susceptible enough to persuasion that you could be successfully hypnotized
because a lot of hypnosis depends on your willingness to
that sounds like a video that you and I need
(17:37):
to make about can we be hypnotized? And then I
can answer that question. I don't know under hypnosis. Under hypnosis,
I'll just talk about sandwiches the whole time. Probably. Do
we have Lamas, which we should sound familiar to you.
Lama's breathing. It was a pioneered by French Dr Ferdinand
Lamas in nine It utilizes distractions during your contractions to
(17:58):
decrease that perception of pain. And in nineteen sixty, inspired
by Dr Lamas, Marjorie Carmel introduced his techniques in the
US and started Lamas International. And then we also have
water birthing, and this is supposed to provide a natural
buoyancy and may reduce vaginal tearing. Relaxes the muscles and UH.
(18:20):
A lot of hospitals actually do have water birthing um tubs.
Birth centers natural birth centers also often provide large jaccuzzi
style tubs, and at home you can even rent special
portable tubs. Yeah, there are risks associated with water birth,
though it's not for women with infections or excessive bleeding
(18:43):
pre aclamsy at or bacteria in the bloodstream, moms who
have herpies or delivering earlier than full term. And the
risk to the baby include brain injury UH from lack
of oxygen underwater. They could have electrolyte problems from the
baby's swallowing water, and serious infection from contaminated water. Said,
this is not something you want to do just like
(19:04):
on the fly, just like any natural planned home birth.
You want to make sure to dot your eyes and
cross your teeth and don't just hop into a tub.
And I think you can have a baby correct, no problem.
Although I will say after reading about all of this
stuff water birth, Yeah, I caught my attention. I was like,
(19:24):
I get this, would you because they said that you know,
water birth's very you don't have to stay in the
tub the whole time. Would you want to deliver in
the water or would you want to like just sit
in the tub to be buoyant and feel better and
then get out. I don't well, it depends on how
I'm feeling. We'll check back with you and check back
with me. Um. And then there's also birthing from within.
(19:48):
This was pioneered Pam England and it's more portraying birth
as a rite of passage, includes belly casting sculptures and
other forms of earthing or I'm not entirely sure how
birthing from within is supposed to relieve the pain of
actual child birth. And there was one mom's testimonial we
(20:11):
read about it that said, you need to do some
lamas and other stuff on top of this, because it's
not really going to do much. Well, my mom still
uses lama's breathing when she's pushing the carts down the
aisle on the airplane, so see it still comes in
hand years later. People. Oh, yeah, I mean any kind
of a breathing technique that can Yeah, that can calm
your stress levels. Get that parasympathetic nervous system going is
(20:34):
a usually a good thing. Um. There's also reflexology progressive
and touch relaxation, also guided imagery a k a. Day
dreaming with the purpose where you you talked about this
earlier Caroline, where you visualize the baby coming out to
help call me down. Yeah, just picture the baby going
down a water slide. So obviously, what we're trying to
(20:56):
say is that there is a vast menu of options
for ms who have elected for natural birth aside from
the epidural Well, so I mean as far as benefits
go of natural birth and and not taking pain medicine.
A lot of the supporters of this method are saying,
your your body tells you what to do, and it
(21:18):
and your brain is signaling all these things and helping
your body and the baby know exactly what to do.
And so when you're in so much pain, the body
actually releases endorphins naturally, So that's a natural decrease in
your pain perception. And it can even and this I
want to hear from moms out there, they say that
it can even create a shift in thinking, a dream
(21:39):
like state where you're less focused on the outside all
the people in the room around you, and more focused
internally on the work of labor. So maybe it does
help you kind of envision what needs to happen inside
your body, you know. Writing in favor of natural birth
in the Journal of Prenatal Education, nurse Judith A. Lothian
(22:00):
and follow two thousands talked about this physiology of pain
and childbirth and talked about how the contractions feeling those
contractions can be valuable for helping women figure out how
to facilitate birth, you know, if they need to move
in a certain way, or if one position is more comfortable,
(22:21):
or if they're able to push more easily in one position,
they can feel that from the pain that they might
not be able to or would not be able to
if they had gotten an epidural. And Lathian also argues
that there is a faster bonding time between mother and
child during a natural birth or after after a you know,
natural birth, thanks to the fact that they are not
(22:43):
on any medications. And also again proponents will talk about
how the experience of a natural childbirth will stay with
the mother in terms of long term satisfaction. There was
actually a study that we found um that talked to
moms from the nineteen sixes and seventies twenty years later
(23:03):
after they had had their natural birth to kind of
see how the experience still resonated with them. And this
was in the journal Birth, and they talked about how
those who really felt like they were in control of
their birthing experience had higher self confidence and self esteem
because they felt like they had done this incredible thing
(23:24):
and maybe because of the fact that they felt the pain,
perhaps it was a more salient experience because you know,
they were they were there present for all of it.
Not to say that if you have an up dural
you're not present, but you know what I mean, Like, mentally,
it's probably easier to remember the experience of pain than
of going under. Now, we've brought up the word empowerment
(23:45):
a lot during this episode to talk about how, you know,
women promote natural birth, how they feel about natural birth.
But the fascinating thing is that even though a lot
of it has framed in terms of empowerment, natural birth
has had a icy relationship with feminism. It seems very cyclical,
like at different times during history, it seems like you're
(24:09):
more of a feminist. If you have your baby in
a hospital, you're more of a feminist. If you have
your baby at home, you're more of a feminist. If
you don't have a baby like it seems like there
has been this very like kind of shifting relationship between
childbirth and feminism. And from that New York Times article
on inome Gasking that we sited earlier, they talked about
(24:31):
how in the early nine hundreds, feminists strongly encouraged women
to move childbirth from the home to the hospital because
that was more of a control over what you were doing.
Um In nineteen fifteen, the National Twilight Sleep Association, which
has nothing to do with vampires, lobbied for women to
get enough drugs to not remember the childbirth so you
(24:55):
would be in like more of a twilight sleep while
you were giving birth. And I seen seventies kindom Gascon
herself was at odds with feminists whose focus was on
getting women into the workplace and out from under those
constraints of the family, and as a result, in nineteen
seventy five, The New York Times notes a Yale feminist
group actually booed gask In off stage, and she Willman Firestone,
(25:18):
who was a big second way feminist, talked publicly about
how she hoped for a day when machines could handle
reproduction because biology doesn't equal destiny and reproduction with something
biologically foisted upon women. So yeah, there's I mean, you
you could make an argument either way. I think. Well,
I mean we also have to take into consideration the
(25:40):
fact that, for instance, that feminist group booing I am
Gaskin off stage, that was happening, you know, really at
the fever pitch of second wave feminism, when perhaps choice
wasn't as much of an option for women, when they
were really trying to push down, um, more bare warriors,
whereas today maybe natural birth is on the rise because uh,
(26:05):
not to say that we're less politically engaged at all,
but the getting into the workforce thing isn't as um
how do I say this. We're in the workplace, you know,
it's not as it's not as revolutionary. Now we're fighting
to figure out how to balance all of that to
(26:25):
have our kids and also move our way lean into
uh promotions at work. Well, it goes back to the
article we talked about in our C Section episode written
by Veronic bergeron UM where she talked about how any
medical intervention is anti feminists. And so, I mean that's
(26:47):
in stark contrast to what Shelmoth Firestone said about you know,
it should all be mechanical and done by machine. Well,
and I just think I mean, to me, at the
end of the day, it's gonna be anti feminist and
unhelpful for women to sit around and point fingers at
(27:07):
other people who don't have children the way they want to,
or choose not to have children at all, or who
have children, you know what I mean. We can you
can slice and dice it so many different ways. And
to me, the question is, well, what is the absolute
truth of this? The absolute truth of it is that
maternal healthcare should be something that uh, you know, is
(27:29):
supported by the government and safe, and that if women
want to have home births, then they should be able
to find a certified nurse midwife who can do it safely,
or if they want to go to the hospital, they
should not be rushed. They should be able to either
schedule that C section or push vaginally. You know. Like
it's more about to me, like, what are the healthcare
(27:50):
outcomes of this? Yeah? What is what is right for
you and your family and what is healthy for you.
It shouldn't be because somebody told you what to do necessarily,
and and we shouldn't be I mean, I say we
I don't necessarily mean you and me. I just mean
we as women shouldn't be shaking our fingers at people
being like you gave birth wrong? Right? You know what's
(28:10):
right for you, it is not right for somebody else. Well,
and for me reading about natural birth for this episode,
it did open my eyes up to another option that
from my position, which is pretty far away from childcare
any any time soon. Um. Nevertheless, it was it was
something that I would have never considered, but now that
(28:33):
I know about it, it has opened my eyes to, hey, oh,
this actually could be an option, you know, if if
I choose to have kids. Right. And also what I
was wondering, you know, when krist and I were talking
about what to talk about, I did wonder about different
people's different definitions of what is normal and what is natural,
(28:54):
because I feel like, even on a personal level, we
all have different definitions, but on a national and national level,
people have different definitions of what's normal. Yeah, this conversation
would be strange if we were podcasting in the Netherlands,
for instance, because they're most moms are referred by their
family doctor to a midwife, and doctors will only intervene
(29:17):
in high risk cases. So the natural birthing option and
home births are a lot more common over there, and
I thought this was funny, slash weird slash potentially scary.
Epidurals over there are only given if it's basically convenient
for the antisthesiologists, like during business hours if they have time,
So like, if you're looking for an epidural, I hope
(29:38):
you give birth during a weekday business hour time. Yeah.
We even found a study in the journal Nursing Inquiry
from two thousand nine by Susan Dara who was looking into, Okay,
what is the global definition of normal natural when it
comes to birthing, because I believe, okay, the World Health
(30:01):
Organization defines normal birth as a birth that is spontaneous
and onset low risk at the start of labor and
remaining so throughout labor and delivery, which seems very nebulous. Right. Well,
they talk in this article about how normal and natural
are not the same thing, and normal isn't even normal
(30:23):
because you might, okay, they might just like look at
a case file on you as a pregnant lady and
be like, oh, yeah, it's like she's healthy. You know,
everything's where it should be. She's normal. But if you
examine anyone, any mother very closely, nobody's really normal normal,
Like everybody has different issues, health issues, even if they're
(30:43):
not something major. So there's that whole issue of defining
a normal birth versus defining what a natural birth means.
For instance, the Royal College of Midwives defines a normal
childbirth as one where a woman commences, continues and completes
labor physiologically at earn, which again sounds very maybe listen vague. Well,
(31:03):
it seems like a lot of these definitions when it
comes to normal simply draws the lineup. It's not induced,
not inducing the labor in any way, and you would
probably be delivering vaginally and not be a C section.
But that, I mean that brings up the whole question
of what's really normal because how many people are getting
labor induced? And then depending on the stats, something that
(31:27):
we don't think of as quote unquote normal could actually
be very normal and common. So then you have to
delinea between normal and common, right, and then if the
opposite of normal is abnormal, then it's then who's yeah,
we're all weird? Does the language problem does does get
a bit tricky, But I think we can for the
purpose of this podcast, we can hammer down that natural
(31:51):
birth really does focus on it's not induced, there's no epidural,
it doesn't have to be at home. It is different
from a home birth. You can have a natural role
birth at home, but you can also have a natural
birth at a birthing center at a hospital. It's like,
how square is a rhombus, but a rahmbus is not
a square exactly exactly. Well, I feel like for all
(32:13):
this old broader discussion about natural births versus c sections,
versus epidural no epidural. New York Times magazine writer Samantha M.
Shapiro summed it up very well, and she's also a
mother when she wrote, quote, there is not one pure
route to authentic motherhood. We had a listener right in
(32:36):
on Facebook who talked about how after her C section
she had other mothers tell her she wasn't a real
mother because she didn't give birth Ageli, And that just
breaks my heart because Hello, I as an adult, know
plenty of other adults who were born by C section,
and I mean, well, then their mothers are real mothers. Like,
how can you say that to someone? Well, and then
(32:57):
it gets into hey, would you say that to an
adoptive mother, you're not a real mom. Yeah, that's awful.
So let's lighten up on judging other people and let's
all just try to be happy and get along. Yaas hippie, Caroline,
You're gonna go run away to Eiim Gaskin's farm in Tennessee.
You know. I hope she has puppies there. I can
just play with them. Well. In the meantime, I'm sure
(33:19):
that this episode has gotten a lot of moms, and
I hope dad's too thinking. So share your thoughts with us.
Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can
send your letters. You can also message us on Facebook.
I thought also probably the fastest way to get a
response from us would be via Facebook. I don't work.
I don't work. I just said on Facebook all day.
(33:40):
It's just on Facebook. You can tweet us too at
Mom's Stuff podcast. And before we get to a couple
of the messages you sent us, Caroline, let's take just
a short break and now back to our letters. And
we have a couple of letters from our Hair Color
podcast us which were still getting a lot of fun
(34:02):
emails from This one is from Darlene and Darlene, I
probably read letters from you before her, but I'm going
to read another one from me because it it tickled me.
She writes. I've been coloring my hair since I was
in my teens. My mother worked for a cosmetics company
that made hair coloring, so I, her long haired daughter,
often served as a model for new colors. My hair,
(34:24):
which was naturally mouse brown, has been every shade in
the quasi natural rainbow. I was a brunette when I
got married, a blonde when my son was born, in
a redhead when my corporate i D photo was taken. However,
a while back, I decided to abandon the constant upkeep,
chopped my hair off short, and was delighted to see
that my natural color was coming in as a beautiful
shade of silver. I remembered an old clare All product
(34:46):
called Silk and Silver, which was to enhance and encourage
silvery hair colors, but discovered it was no longer made,
and also I couldn't find any products for enhancing naturally
silver or gray hair that wasn't spray on or punk related. Personally,
I can't wait to be a female silver Fox. But
the home hair color and hair care industry doesn't seem
to offer any help. And I looked up silk and
(35:07):
silver because I wanted to see the box, and I
couldn't even find a Google image for it. Really. Yeah,
and I'm surprised too, Darlene, that it hasn't been easier
to find some kind of at least white or very
light gray hair coloring, because it's having a has been
having a fashion moment, definitely, so it might be something
(35:28):
you have to go to your settle. Yeah, that's true.
I have a letter here from Adam about blonde hair
and stereotypes. He said, when I was in South America,
people often seem surprised to hear I was from the US.
Apparently many people think Americans are all tall with blonde
hair and blue eyes. I'm not sure when we all
became Norwegian, but that's the stereotype. When people would ask
(35:51):
where I'm from and I replied, they'd say, you're from
the US, but you're not a monkey. I finally asked
what the word indicated. I knew it meant monkey, but
apparently in Ambian slang it's someone with blonde hair and
blue eyes. I don't know how they came to think
we're all blond with blue eyes, especially since Columbians by
far have more fun despite their dark hair. But at
least I figured out why everyone was surprised I wasn't
(36:13):
a monkey, So thank you Adam. Yeah, Adam is one
of our super fans who is traveling the world and
sends us photos a lot from places that he's been
and makes me a little jealous that I am not traveling,
So Adam, thank you. I'm traveling by curiously through you.
Well again. Our email addresses mom Stuff at Discovery dot com.
(36:34):
You can follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.
Check in with us on Facebook because we've got a
lot of fun stuff going on this summer as well.
You can follow us on Tumbler too weird Stuff Mom
Never told You dot tumbler dot com, and don't forget
to watch us as well. Three times a week we're
coming at you on YouTube, making you laugh and helping
(36:55):
you learn at YouTube dot com, slash stuff Never Told You,
or more on this in thousands of other topics. Is
it hastaff works dot com.
Welcome to stuff Mom Never told you. From how Stuff
Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Kristen and I'm Caroline. And after we did an episode
not too long ago about elective cesarians, which are on
the rise in the United States, a lot of moms
(00:27):
in particular wrote in asking, hey, thanks for covering this.
Why don't you look at the opposite side of the
birthing conversation and look more at natural birth? Yeah, And
I was reading all these suggestions and everybody had a
lot of great input, and I honestly I was like,
natural birth, that's just going without meds, right, I mean,
that's all there is to it. It's just like not
(00:48):
having a C section as natural birth. Oh No, I
was definitely wrong. I definitely have the wrong impression. There's
so much more to natural birth than just not relying
on pain medications. I mean, it's not relying on interventions
in general, really. But it also it's pretty multifaceted because
you can have a natural birth in a hospital setting,
(01:09):
like in a birthing center maybe, but natural birth also
comprises home birth, water birth, birthing at Einamey Gascon's farm,
which we'll get into in a little while, and as
we mentioned in the podcast on c sections, just to
go ahead and get it out of the way. As
as most regular listeners know, you know, we're gonna be
(01:31):
talking about natural birth, not as a form of advocacy
saying that this is the way that you should have
your children. A because if Caroline and I, too childless women,
were to tell you how to have babies, that would
be just crazy. And also because that's on the point,
we just want to educate you, because we learned a
lot of stuff and now we want to pass it
along to listeners. So let's go ahead and get into stuff.
(01:55):
Because like you said, Caroline, um, you know your concept
of natural was us limited to the presence or absence
i should say, of medications. But really, just how natural
are we talking when we're talking about natural birth? Well,
when we're talking about natural birth. According to Christine Isaacs,
the director of the General of Stetrics and Gynecology Division
(02:15):
at a Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center and director of
Midwiff Reservices for the VCU Health System, she said, in general, uh,
natural birth implies a non medicated birth where you're letting
the natural process of labor and birth take place without
any interventions, and that's a big part of natural birth,
of letting the natural process of labor go forward. So
(02:36):
you're not inducing labor. You know, your doctor is not
breaking your water for you. And even when we'll get
into like visualization stuff in a little while, but like
even maybe as you're lying in bed about to give birth,
you're going into labor, you're actually envisioning the process to
help it go along. And so interventions that are not
part of natural birth include things like continuous fetal monitoring
(02:59):
and aistiotomy's which is the worst thing ever, according to
this child List woman who was reading stuff about natural birth,
and every time I read what an epistiotomy was, I
just shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Yes see, the episteotomy
is the procedure in which the doctor will make an
(03:20):
incision from the vaginal opening to the perennium to make
more room for the baby and that way, because sometimes
that it will it will tear on its own if
you are having a vaginal birth, but an epistiotomy goes
ahead and gets that over with and maybe a cleaner way.
We might have to take a quick break from this podcast,
(03:44):
Caroline can go put my hubben drough my leg. Yes, um,
And of course one of the major interventions, like we've
already mentioned a couple of times now, no epidurals, no
pain medications, a lot of times the mother will rely
on relaxation techniques. So briefly, let's go over the history
of natural birth. I mean, we could say the history
(04:04):
of natural birth goes back to the you know, the
very first time a female exited a baby out of
the womb, because you know, but let's talk about it
more more modern times. The quote unquote father of natural
childbirth British doctor Grantly dick Read, who published a book
Natural Childbirth in ninety three, And this was representative of
(04:27):
a change because by this time childbirth had become more medicalized,
with it leaving the home and becoming something where women
go to the doctor in the hospital to deliver their baby, right,
And dick Read was really concerned with the increasing use
of anesthesia and obstetric interventions, as well as the neglect
(04:48):
of a woman's psyche during the process. You know, he
said that women require more attention and you should have
more of a an intimate kind of natural setting for
a birth. And he said, as far as an nature goes,
woman is primarily adapted for the perfection of womanhood, which
is according to the law of nature reproduction. So in
(05:08):
other words, let woman do what woman will. Now, there
have been some who have said that doctor dick Read
was also a eugenicist who wanted to encourage more white women,
in particular to have more children, because at this point
the birth rate was starting to drop a little bit
for white women, some of whom might have not been
(05:31):
too pumped about the prospect of um the pain involved
with having a baby um. But that was we couldn't
find a direct source on that. It was something mentioned,
I believe in a New York Times magazine piece about
natural birth. We did want to bring that up because
that would be an important point to not not bring
(05:51):
up about dick Read. Yeah. Well, he he based a
lot of his theories about the birth process on early
studies he did in his medical career, but even really
before that, when he was in World War One and
he was speaking with a man from India and officer
and like a subordinate officer from India about yoga and meditation,
and so he takes that knowledge about relaxation techniques and meditation,
(06:16):
and here he went on to read more books about
relaxation techniques and so that really shaped his idea of look,
you don't need all of this intervention, all of this interference.
In fact, he said, interference is still one of the
greatest dangers with which both mother and child have to contend.
So he thought it was more dangerous to have all
of these medical interventions in the hospital as opposed to
(06:37):
giving quote unquote natural childbirth. And as a result, he
went on to pioneer the use of hypnosis during labor,
which is one of the relaxation techniques that we will
talk about later on in the podcast. So that's going
on though in the nineteen thirties, early nineteen forties. Then
when we come to the nineteen sixties and early seventies,
(06:59):
we have a may Auger tied shifting and this is
coming from Sharon Levine, who is an m d at
the Northern California Permanent Day Medical Group. From talked about
how there was a wholesale consumer revolt against highly structured,
hospital centered pre natal care. And yes, you know this
is the nineteen sixties and seventies, So it is coupled
(07:22):
with more of the hippie movement at the time right
and writing that wave of natural childbirth in the nineteen
sixties and early nineteen seventies was i'ame Gascon, who, if
you consider Dick Read to be the father of natural childbirth,
Ia Ma Gaskin is pretty much the mother of it. Uh.
In the nineteen seventies, she publishes her book Spiritual Midwhiffery,
which framed natural childbirth as a euphoric experience an unparalleled
(07:46):
opportunity for transcendence and communion. She really crusaded during her
career for access to and legalization of midwife assisted home
birth because she and the other midwives at her farm
and tennessee this big property where a lot of women
still go to uh pursue a natural birth without any interventions.
(08:08):
They discovered that birth could be that euphoric experience and
a way to get in touch with your female power,
like I am a woman, I'm going to give birth.
I'm going to do this. Yeah. A lot of the
testimonials that you'll hear about women who have natural birth,
and obviously natural birth proponents like name Gascon will bring
up this issue of female power, female empowerment, the experience
(08:33):
of having your body go through something so life giving
and painful at the same time, they say that you
can't experience anything more empowering. Not to keep staying empowering
over and over again. Yeah, I would imagine. I mean,
I feel good, you know, when I take out the trash,
(08:54):
I'm like, look at what I did. I did that,
I emptied the trash and I put a new bag
in the trash can So like, imagine what it's like
if you give birth to something without any sort of
pain fills. I mean, I'm such a whoss I don't, Caroline.
I also appreciate the fact that you just compare childbirth
taking out the track. Please don't write many angry letters. Okay,
(09:17):
So let's look at what's going on today. So in
according to the National Center for Health Stats, home births
were at their highest levels since which is pretty impressive
between two thousand four and two thousand eight, giving birth
at home increas mainly do they say to a increase
(09:37):
in home birth among white women, but there's a lot
there's other aspects of this increase as well. Yeah, it
was no surprise getting all of those requests for a
natural birth episode. Once you see statistics like this, showing
how it's become a lot more popular option because of
things like desiring low intervention birth. Because my occasions can
(10:00):
cause blood pressure to drop, it can either slow down
or speed up labor, and speed up in not a
good way. It can induce nausea, and they can especially
give these expectants soon to be moms feelings that they
are out of control of the birthing process, which again,
those kind of anecdotes are kind of frightening if you know,
(10:23):
to hear about women who will go in thinking that
they're going to have their baby one way, and then
it happens another way and they're drugged up and they
don't remember it right. And part of that feeling out
of control is the fact that many US hospitals induced
labor after one to two weeks post do dates instead
of just letting letting things happen when they will, and
(10:44):
then they'll end up restricting the amount of time a
woman can be in labor. Before transitioning to surgery, I
worked with a woman who she's very tiny. She's she's
very tiny. Tinny lady, you're holding up your index thing
because she's she's as big as my index finger. I
carry her around in my pocket. Um, she's very tiny, like,
and she gave birth to two massive boys, and she
had c sections both times because the first time she
(11:06):
had trouble giving birth because it was just such a
big baby, so she had a c section. And then
the second time it wasn't so much that the doctor
forced her to have a c section, but she was
already approaching like past term, like past do, and he
was so big, so they were like, we're gonna go ahead,
and we're just gonna go ahead and get him out
(11:28):
of there. Well, and then there's the issue of v backs.
Eventinal birth after cesareans that some doctors aren't so comfortable with,
right um. But there's also the family environment that is
involved with natural childbirthing as well. It's sometimes known as
a family centered birth. You hear a lot about um
(11:49):
partners being in the room or by the the water
birthing tub with the woman who's giving birth, delivering massage, uttering, soothing, inspirational,
have that baby quote, I don't know, good gracious, clearly
never had a child. You have that baby? Yeah, get
(12:11):
it out, girl. I'm sure that the first thing that
you want to hear if you are spice up your
life if you're in the middle of labor is just
an inspirational quote by Walt Whitman or something on top
of that too, though, you know, there are cultural and
religious concerns that are sometimes tied into its rural areas.
We talked about how anome gas Can has that farm
(12:31):
in Tennessee, um, and just how you know in rural
settings home births, natural births can be more common. And
for those rifty parents out there, I know this caught
my eye. Natural births tend to cost about a third
of the hospital birth. But yeah, that's that's significant. Yeah, well,
(12:52):
so who is it safe for? I mean, is natural
birth safe or we all just are we all just nuts?
And yeah, natural birth is definitely great for women men
who are healthy and have a low risk pregnancy. You
might want to reconsider having a non intervention situation if
you do expect that there will be complications. Yeah, even
(13:13):
for women who want to say, go to anime Gascon's
farm to deliver their child, they have to go through
rigorous screenings to make sure that they are a healthy.
Candidate who is not just physically healthy, has also been
having a very healthy diet for the months leading up
to childbirth to make sure that interventions would not otherwise
(13:36):
be needed. Yeah, so, who's not a good candidate. A
woman over the age of forty, a woman over three
hundred pounds, a woman with high blood pressure, diabetes, or
like we said, a high risk of complication, but putting
your mind at ease. In the American College of Obstetrics
and Gynecology said that the absolute risk of planned home
(13:56):
birth is low, but the planned in the plan home
birth is a very important part of this. This isn't
a cock saying, Hey, you know what, if you want
to have your baby at home, you know, just hopping
the tub, pop it out, no big deal. No. A
lot of times with these planned home births or natural births,
you're gonna have a certified nurse midwife who has been
(14:16):
trained in delivering babies. You might have a duela to
help guide you through the process. You'll probably have family
members there. You know, you have an entire team in
the same way that you would have a birth plan
if you went to a hospital. Well, so, what I
want to know if you're if you're experiencing natural childbirth.
We already talked about how that means you're not using medicine.
You're not getting an epidural, you don't have any sort
(14:38):
of i VS dripping anything into you. So how are
mom's supposed to cope with the pain of childbirth? Well,
I'm sure a natural birth proponent would say, Caroline, our
bodies are built for this moment. We can do it.
We can absolutely do it. But there are also ways
to manage that pain because the I mean, the thought
(15:03):
of having a no epidural childbirth is is daunting to me.
But a lot of women will go in at least
equipped with some kind of pain management techniques, such as
the Alexander technique. This was developed by F. M. Alexander,
and these are techniques he originally developed to help with
vocal problems that he had, but apparently it teaches mom's
(15:24):
how to release muscular tension, to increase their breathing capacity
and restore the body's original point and proper posture, which
sounds a lot like uh yoga breathing, yeah, yeah, And
and just putting yourself in a position that's comfortable, which
is something that natural birth proponents really stress is that
(15:45):
when you haven't taken pain medication and you're not like
strapped down to a bed in a hospital, you're allowing
yourself to get up and move around as needed. There's
also the Bradley method, which is also known as the
husband coaching method I've leave, which is developed in the
late nine by Dr Robert Bradley. It emphasizes excellent nutrition
(16:06):
and exercise during your pregnancy in addition to relaxation techniques
to manage pain. It also, obviously because it's also known
as the husband coaching method, it emphasizes having your husband
there to help coach you through. Although I will say
small quibble with the husband coaching method terminology. I think
it's time we call it the partner partner coaching, the
(16:29):
partner coaching methodology. UM moving onward to hypnosis. Like we
mentioned when we were talking about the father of natural birth,
doctor Grantly dick Reid, who pioneered the use of hypnosis
during labor in the nineteen forties to foster total relaxation.
Fast forward we have Mary Mangan with her Mongan method,
(16:54):
also known as hypno birthing, and essentially the point of
hypno birthing is attempting to override the body's fight or
flight system with hypnosis, right, I mean, I I would
definitely need to be calm. Yeah too, because I'm just
like I said, I'm such a worse, you know, with pain,
and I would just be so scared of the pain
(17:16):
that you know, giving birth whatever. I'm scared of the pain.
Do you think, though, with hypnosis, that you would be
susceptible enough to persuasion that you could be successfully hypnotized
because a lot of hypnosis depends on your willingness to
that sounds like a video that you and I need
(17:37):
to make about can we be hypnotized? And then I
can answer that question. I don't know under hypnosis. Under hypnosis,
I'll just talk about sandwiches the whole time. Probably. Do
we have Lamas, which we should sound familiar to you.
Lama's breathing. It was a pioneered by French Dr Ferdinand
Lamas in nine It utilizes distractions during your contractions to
(17:58):
decrease that perception of pain. And in nineteen sixty, inspired
by Dr Lamas, Marjorie Carmel introduced his techniques in the
US and started Lamas International. And then we also have
water birthing, and this is supposed to provide a natural
buoyancy and may reduce vaginal tearing. Relaxes the muscles and UH.
(18:20):
A lot of hospitals actually do have water birthing um tubs.
Birth centers natural birth centers also often provide large jaccuzzi
style tubs, and at home you can even rent special
portable tubs. Yeah, there are risks associated with water birth,
though it's not for women with infections or excessive bleeding
(18:43):
pre aclamsy at or bacteria in the bloodstream, moms who
have herpies or delivering earlier than full term. And the
risk to the baby include brain injury UH from lack
of oxygen underwater. They could have electrolyte problems from the
baby's swallowing water, and serious infection from contaminated water. Said,
this is not something you want to do just like
(19:04):
on the fly, just like any natural planned home birth.
You want to make sure to dot your eyes and
cross your teeth and don't just hop into a tub.
And I think you can have a baby correct, no problem.
Although I will say after reading about all of this
stuff water birth, Yeah, I caught my attention. I was like,
(19:24):
I get this, would you because they said that you know,
water birth's very you don't have to stay in the
tub the whole time. Would you want to deliver in
the water or would you want to like just sit
in the tub to be buoyant and feel better and
then get out. I don't well, it depends on how
I'm feeling. We'll check back with you and check back
with me. Um. And then there's also birthing from within.
(19:48):
This was pioneered Pam England and it's more portraying birth
as a rite of passage, includes belly casting sculptures and
other forms of earthing or I'm not entirely sure how
birthing from within is supposed to relieve the pain of
actual child birth. And there was one mom's testimonial we
(20:11):
read about it that said, you need to do some
lamas and other stuff on top of this, because it's
not really going to do much. Well, my mom still
uses lama's breathing when she's pushing the carts down the
aisle on the airplane, so see it still comes in
hand years later. People. Oh, yeah, I mean any kind
of a breathing technique that can Yeah, that can calm
your stress levels. Get that parasympathetic nervous system going is
(20:34):
a usually a good thing. Um. There's also reflexology progressive
and touch relaxation, also guided imagery a k a. Day
dreaming with the purpose where you you talked about this
earlier Caroline, where you visualize the baby coming out to
help call me down. Yeah, just picture the baby going
down a water slide. So obviously, what we're trying to
(20:56):
say is that there is a vast menu of options
for ms who have elected for natural birth aside from
the epidural Well, so I mean as far as benefits
go of natural birth and and not taking pain medicine.
A lot of the supporters of this method are saying,
your your body tells you what to do, and it
(21:18):
and your brain is signaling all these things and helping
your body and the baby know exactly what to do.
And so when you're in so much pain, the body
actually releases endorphins naturally, So that's a natural decrease in
your pain perception. And it can even and this I
want to hear from moms out there, they say that
it can even create a shift in thinking, a dream
(21:39):
like state where you're less focused on the outside all
the people in the room around you, and more focused
internally on the work of labor. So maybe it does
help you kind of envision what needs to happen inside
your body, you know. Writing in favor of natural birth
in the Journal of Prenatal Education, nurse Judith A. Lothian
(22:00):
and follow two thousands talked about this physiology of pain
and childbirth and talked about how the contractions feeling those
contractions can be valuable for helping women figure out how
to facilitate birth, you know, if they need to move
in a certain way, or if one position is more comfortable,
(22:21):
or if they're able to push more easily in one position,
they can feel that from the pain that they might
not be able to or would not be able to
if they had gotten an epidural. And Lathian also argues
that there is a faster bonding time between mother and
child during a natural birth or after after a you know,
natural birth, thanks to the fact that they are not
(22:43):
on any medications. And also again proponents will talk about
how the experience of a natural childbirth will stay with
the mother in terms of long term satisfaction. There was
actually a study that we found um that talked to
moms from the nineteen sixes and seventies twenty years later
(23:03):
after they had had their natural birth to kind of
see how the experience still resonated with them. And this
was in the journal Birth, and they talked about how
those who really felt like they were in control of
their birthing experience had higher self confidence and self esteem
because they felt like they had done this incredible thing
(23:24):
and maybe because of the fact that they felt the pain,
perhaps it was a more salient experience because you know,
they were they were there present for all of it.
Not to say that if you have an up dural
you're not present, but you know what I mean, Like, mentally,
it's probably easier to remember the experience of pain than
of going under. Now, we've brought up the word empowerment
(23:45):
a lot during this episode to talk about how, you know,
women promote natural birth, how they feel about natural birth.
But the fascinating thing is that even though a lot
of it has framed in terms of empowerment, natural birth
has had a icy relationship with feminism. It seems very cyclical,
like at different times during history, it seems like you're
(24:09):
more of a feminist. If you have your baby in
a hospital, you're more of a feminist. If you have
your baby at home, you're more of a feminist. If
you don't have a baby like it seems like there
has been this very like kind of shifting relationship between
childbirth and feminism. And from that New York Times article
on inome Gasking that we sited earlier, they talked about
(24:31):
how in the early nine hundreds, feminists strongly encouraged women
to move childbirth from the home to the hospital because
that was more of a control over what you were doing.
Um In nineteen fifteen, the National Twilight Sleep Association, which
has nothing to do with vampires, lobbied for women to
get enough drugs to not remember the childbirth so you
(24:55):
would be in like more of a twilight sleep while
you were giving birth. And I seen seventies kindom Gascon
herself was at odds with feminists whose focus was on
getting women into the workplace and out from under those
constraints of the family, and as a result, in nineteen
seventy five, The New York Times notes a Yale feminist
group actually booed gask In off stage, and she Willman Firestone,
(25:18):
who was a big second way feminist, talked publicly about
how she hoped for a day when machines could handle
reproduction because biology doesn't equal destiny and reproduction with something
biologically foisted upon women. So yeah, there's I mean, you
you could make an argument either way. I think. Well,
I mean we also have to take into consideration the
(25:40):
fact that, for instance, that feminist group booing I am
Gaskin off stage, that was happening, you know, really at
the fever pitch of second wave feminism, when perhaps choice
wasn't as much of an option for women, when they
were really trying to push down, um, more bare warriors,
whereas today maybe natural birth is on the rise because uh,
(26:05):
not to say that we're less politically engaged at all,
but the getting into the workforce thing isn't as um
how do I say this. We're in the workplace, you know,
it's not as it's not as revolutionary. Now we're fighting
to figure out how to balance all of that to
(26:25):
have our kids and also move our way lean into
uh promotions at work. Well, it goes back to the
article we talked about in our C Section episode written
by Veronic bergeron UM where she talked about how any
medical intervention is anti feminists. And so, I mean that's
(26:47):
in stark contrast to what Shelmoth Firestone said about you know,
it should all be mechanical and done by machine. Well,
and I just think I mean, to me, at the
end of the day, it's gonna be anti feminist and
unhelpful for women to sit around and point fingers at
(27:07):
other people who don't have children the way they want to,
or choose not to have children at all, or who
have children, you know what I mean. We can you
can slice and dice it so many different ways. And
to me, the question is, well, what is the absolute
truth of this? The absolute truth of it is that
maternal healthcare should be something that uh, you know, is
(27:29):
supported by the government and safe, and that if women
want to have home births, then they should be able
to find a certified nurse midwife who can do it safely,
or if they want to go to the hospital, they
should not be rushed. They should be able to either
schedule that C section or push vaginally. You know. Like
it's more about to me, like, what are the healthcare
(27:50):
outcomes of this? Yeah? What is what is right for
you and your family and what is healthy for you.
It shouldn't be because somebody told you what to do necessarily,
and and we shouldn't be I mean, I say we
I don't necessarily mean you and me. I just mean
we as women shouldn't be shaking our fingers at people
being like you gave birth wrong? Right? You know what's
(28:10):
right for you, it is not right for somebody else. Well,
and for me reading about natural birth for this episode,
it did open my eyes up to another option that
from my position, which is pretty far away from childcare
any any time soon. Um. Nevertheless, it was it was
something that I would have never considered, but now that
(28:33):
I know about it, it has opened my eyes to, hey, oh,
this actually could be an option, you know, if if
I choose to have kids. Right. And also what I
was wondering, you know, when krist and I were talking
about what to talk about, I did wonder about different
people's different definitions of what is normal and what is natural,
(28:54):
because I feel like, even on a personal level, we
all have different definitions, but on a national and national level,
people have different definitions of what's normal. Yeah, this conversation
would be strange if we were podcasting in the Netherlands,
for instance, because they're most moms are referred by their
family doctor to a midwife, and doctors will only intervene
(29:17):
in high risk cases. So the natural birthing option and
home births are a lot more common over there, and
I thought this was funny, slash weird slash potentially scary.
Epidurals over there are only given if it's basically convenient
for the antisthesiologists, like during business hours if they have time,
So like, if you're looking for an epidural, I hope
(29:38):
you give birth during a weekday business hour time. Yeah.
We even found a study in the journal Nursing Inquiry
from two thousand nine by Susan Dara who was looking into, Okay,
what is the global definition of normal natural when it
comes to birthing, because I believe, okay, the World Health
(30:01):
Organization defines normal birth as a birth that is spontaneous
and onset low risk at the start of labor and
remaining so throughout labor and delivery, which seems very nebulous. Right. Well,
they talk in this article about how normal and natural
are not the same thing, and normal isn't even normal
(30:23):
because you might, okay, they might just like look at
a case file on you as a pregnant lady and
be like, oh, yeah, it's like she's healthy. You know,
everything's where it should be. She's normal. But if you
examine anyone, any mother very closely, nobody's really normal normal,
Like everybody has different issues, health issues, even if they're
(30:43):
not something major. So there's that whole issue of defining
a normal birth versus defining what a natural birth means.
For instance, the Royal College of Midwives defines a normal
childbirth as one where a woman commences, continues and completes
labor physiologically at earn, which again sounds very maybe listen vague. Well,
(31:03):
it seems like a lot of these definitions when it
comes to normal simply draws the lineup. It's not induced,
not inducing the labor in any way, and you would
probably be delivering vaginally and not be a C section.
But that, I mean that brings up the whole question
of what's really normal because how many people are getting
labor induced? And then depending on the stats, something that
(31:27):
we don't think of as quote unquote normal could actually
be very normal and common. So then you have to
delinea between normal and common, right, and then if the
opposite of normal is abnormal, then it's then who's yeah,
we're all weird? Does the language problem does does get
a bit tricky, But I think we can for the
purpose of this podcast, we can hammer down that natural
(31:51):
birth really does focus on it's not induced, there's no epidural,
it doesn't have to be at home. It is different
from a home birth. You can have a natural role
birth at home, but you can also have a natural
birth at a birthing center at a hospital. It's like,
how square is a rhombus, but a rahmbus is not
a square exactly exactly. Well, I feel like for all
(32:13):
this old broader discussion about natural births versus c sections,
versus epidural no epidural. New York Times magazine writer Samantha M.
Shapiro summed it up very well, and she's also a
mother when she wrote, quote, there is not one pure
route to authentic motherhood. We had a listener right in
(32:36):
on Facebook who talked about how after her C section
she had other mothers tell her she wasn't a real
mother because she didn't give birth Ageli, And that just
breaks my heart because Hello, I as an adult, know
plenty of other adults who were born by C section,
and I mean, well, then their mothers are real mothers. Like,
how can you say that to someone? Well, and then
(32:57):
it gets into hey, would you say that to an
adoptive mother, you're not a real mom. Yeah, that's awful.
So let's lighten up on judging other people and let's
all just try to be happy and get along. Yaas hippie, Caroline,
You're gonna go run away to Eiim Gaskin's farm in Tennessee.
You know. I hope she has puppies there. I can
just play with them. Well. In the meantime, I'm sure
(33:19):
that this episode has gotten a lot of moms, and
I hope dad's too thinking. So share your thoughts with us.
Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is where you can
send your letters. You can also message us on Facebook.
I thought also probably the fastest way to get a
response from us would be via Facebook. I don't work.
I don't work. I just said on Facebook all day.
(33:40):
It's just on Facebook. You can tweet us too at
Mom's Stuff podcast. And before we get to a couple
of the messages you sent us, Caroline, let's take just
a short break and now back to our letters. And
we have a couple of letters from our Hair Color
podcast us which were still getting a lot of fun
(34:02):
emails from This one is from Darlene and Darlene, I
probably read letters from you before her, but I'm going
to read another one from me because it it tickled me.
She writes. I've been coloring my hair since I was
in my teens. My mother worked for a cosmetics company
that made hair coloring, so I, her long haired daughter,
often served as a model for new colors. My hair,
(34:24):
which was naturally mouse brown, has been every shade in
the quasi natural rainbow. I was a brunette when I
got married, a blonde when my son was born, in
a redhead when my corporate i D photo was taken. However,
a while back, I decided to abandon the constant upkeep,
chopped my hair off short, and was delighted to see
that my natural color was coming in as a beautiful
shade of silver. I remembered an old clare All product
(34:46):
called Silk and Silver, which was to enhance and encourage
silvery hair colors, but discovered it was no longer made,
and also I couldn't find any products for enhancing naturally
silver or gray hair that wasn't spray on or punk related. Personally,
I can't wait to be a female silver Fox. But
the home hair color and hair care industry doesn't seem
to offer any help. And I looked up silk and
(35:07):
silver because I wanted to see the box, and I
couldn't even find a Google image for it. Really. Yeah,
and I'm surprised too, Darlene, that it hasn't been easier
to find some kind of at least white or very
light gray hair coloring, because it's having a has been
having a fashion moment, definitely, so it might be something
(35:28):
you have to go to your settle. Yeah, that's true.
I have a letter here from Adam about blonde hair
and stereotypes. He said, when I was in South America,
people often seem surprised to hear I was from the US.
Apparently many people think Americans are all tall with blonde
hair and blue eyes. I'm not sure when we all
became Norwegian, but that's the stereotype. When people would ask
(35:51):
where I'm from and I replied, they'd say, you're from
the US, but you're not a monkey. I finally asked
what the word indicated. I knew it meant monkey, but
apparently in Ambian slang it's someone with blonde hair and
blue eyes. I don't know how they came to think
we're all blond with blue eyes, especially since Columbians by
far have more fun despite their dark hair. But at
least I figured out why everyone was surprised I wasn't
(36:13):
a monkey, So thank you Adam. Yeah, Adam is one
of our super fans who is traveling the world and
sends us photos a lot from places that he's been
and makes me a little jealous that I am not traveling,
So Adam, thank you. I'm traveling by curiously through you.
Well again. Our email addresses mom Stuff at Discovery dot com.
(36:34):
You can follow us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast.
Check in with us on Facebook because we've got a
lot of fun stuff going on this summer as well.
You can follow us on Tumbler too weird Stuff Mom
Never told You dot tumbler dot com, and don't forget
to watch us as well. Three times a week we're
coming at you on YouTube, making you laugh and helping
(36:55):
you learn at YouTube dot com, slash stuff Never Told You,
or more on this in thousands of other topics. Is
it hastaff works dot com.
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