Betty Dodson with Carlin Ross

Better Orgasms. Better World.

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My experience of childbirth, having witnessed hundreds of births, is that it is an astounding, miraculous event that deeply impacts birthing mothers and those who are in attendance.

Childbirth, while certainly unknown and an event of huge transition, is an event that one can look forward to, be excited about, have trepidation and fears about, and emerge feeling like a stronger woman than she ever knew herself to be, that she had a deep experience of herself and much more.

I am not meaning to sugar coat childbirth by any means. Like all wonderful things in life, there are risks involved and fears are almost always a part of it, but I’ve heard far more women subsequently talk about how deeply connected to themselves and their babies they felt, than how terrified they felt; more women have told me about how powerful they felt than have told me about feeling like medicine or their doctor or midwife was powerful. And I’ve even heard women describe it being fun – I mean, why not?!

Unfortunately this is not what most people in our culture hear. Most people hear about the dangers of childbirth and the ways in which pharmaceuticals, hospitals and doctors save lives of mothers and babies. Last week NPR ran a news story series called Beginnings: Pregnancy, Childbirth and Beyond, which continued this same sort of message.

I am not dismissing the value of Western medicine, doctors and pharmaceuticals. These all save lives! BUT -and this is a big but- they are not the panacea. They are often doing damage control with health issues and crises that could have been averted with education, continuity of care and improved diet.

One of the NPR stories talked about the “grim” prospects for mother and baby in Mozambique and the efforts to move birth from unattended homebirth to hospital. Indeed, what they present is grim with many risks for mom and baby. Another story of this series speaks of the dangers of postpartum hemorrhage, how much lower the rates of postpartum hemorrhage are in the US than in Mozambique and how “miraculous” the drug misoprostol is. “They want to train traditional birth attendants on how to use misoprostol”.

These stories fail to acknowledge that the hormonal feedback loop key to labor progressing smoothly is deeply linked to the nervous system and perceived sense of safety. Taking a woman out of her home and putting her into a hospital lacking in privacy and lacking in staff and supplies, would probably make most women feel unsafe and thus disturb the hormonal response she needs for her labor. Is an unattended hospital birth really superior to an unattended homebirth?

When discussing postpartum hemorrhage, the primary reason we have better rates in developed nations is because we are better nourished. When a woman is anemic, for example, her chance of postpartum hemorrhage goes up significantly. So why is this story focusing on pharmaceuticals without any focus on the cause of the problem?

I would love to hear stories about childbirth that give women a sense of hope, a sense of agency in self care (i.e. “If I nourish my body with high quality nutritious food, my baby will grow well, adjust to the world outside the womb more easily and I will decrease my own risks in childbirth and postpartum.”). I would also love to hear a story about the nations that have the best rankings for maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality and what those nations have in common (note that the US is #39 for maternal mortality rates!). What I know these countries to have in common is midwife attended births, continuity of care, and good balanced diets.

In a life event that is so deeply female and feminine, it’d be nice to hear the wisdom of that, the wisdom of women when they have support, guidance and education, rather than hearing about the paternalistic medical model being emphasized. Let’s start covering stories in the news that let women know where safety and health can be found for the pregnancies and births of themselves, their daughters, their sisters and their friends rather than all the ways to fear birth and feel dependent on pharmaceuticals, technology and doctors.