| Unassisted Childbirth and Pregnancy |
| Unassisted childbirth. Just the very words scare many people and to actually do it is unthinkable. In a society where pregnancy and birth are inhereintly dangerous and treated as medical conditions to go through each without the aid of trained professionals is unthinkable. However, it's done, all over the world every day. Most of the time this happens in thrid world countries we consider "below us" in civilization, but more and more women today are having babies alone. Often in unassisted birth the fathers play an active role in the births. Sometimes they do not and the mother gives birth alone. There are many reasons for an unassisted birth, most of the time empowerment and spirtiuality factor in the reasons. Most women who go this route come out on the other end not only with a healthy, happy baby but a new sense of themselves and their bodies. In an unassisted birth there is no doctor or midwife, or anyone who plans on acting like one. Instead, the labouring woman is in charge of what goes on and when. It is totally up to her when to push, how to push, who catches her baby, and what position she gives birth in. Sometimes partners and friends are involved in the birth and suggestions may be given, but at the end of the day, the mother is doing it all. In most cases of unassisted birth there is not timing of contractions, checking dialtion, or any other such procedures we as a society often associate with a woman giving birth. This is not necessary. Instead, the mother is in tune with her body and knows when to push, and how much to push. These procedures are unnecessary and possiably discourage natural birth. When you stick fingers in the vagina durging birth, as in checking dilation, then you are distracting the woman and often she will tense up. This is counter productive because when a woman is giving birth she needs to be her most relaxed so that her cervic can open easily. Women's bodies already know how to give birth, and support a life for as long as need be within the womb. Our bodies know this as well as they know how to concieve a life. This is what women were desinged for and by now that design is almost perfect, the only think that women have to fear is fear itself. Most women who chose an unassisted birth are very knowledgeable about birth, pregnancy, and newborns. In most cases they are just as informed as most midwives and doctors. For many unassisted birth is a sacred experince and they would not trade if for anything in the world. When you watch something, it changes that experince. Birth is a very emotional, sexual, and sometimes spiritual experince and some women do not feel it is something to observe. Would you ask a doctor to watch you concieve your child? Would you tell a midwife to help? I highly doubt it, and so our births should be. This a time when a woman's comfort and relaxation are of the uptmost improtance and it should be totally up to her how and where she wants to give birth. Most women who chose an unassisted birth are very private people. Other reasons are the nature of the way in which the mother plans on giving birth. While some women go it alone others wish to have their partners play an active role. The sensual birth concept is the most obvious for want of privacy. Some couples prefer to make love during labour. This can be exteremly pleasureful for both partners and can actually speed up labour and make it easier. Also, waterbirth is a popular method. In a waterbirth the labouring woman is in a bath of water. This can help ease pain, should there be any, or totally eliminate it. Many people's fears about unassisted chlidbirth stem from the belife that pregnancy and birth are medical contiditons that are dangerous to both the mother and her unborn child, but this is just not so in most cases. In the past many women died during these times and the higher mortality rates have been acredited to hospitals. This is not so, in fact, in the early days of hopsitals they accounted for more deaths and illnesses of infants and mothers than anything else. Today hospitals are not, in my opinion, ideal places to give birth still. The many problems in the past are due to poor nutrition, general ill health, the constrictive fashions, and too many births. Women in the past did not have the supermarkets, medications, and vitimins of today. What they ate depended on what was in season or what was canned and medications mainly consisted of the herbs at their fingertips. They did not know much about nutirtion, nor were foods, ecspecially meats, regulated for healthy safety. The lower classes had to work, and in urban areas air polution caused many respitory problems. Women often worked 12 hours shifts and then had to come come do housework, care for young children (who often also had been working), and cook dinner, thus got little rest. Diseases like TB were rampent in the past and it is likely many women has such conditions. For the upper class of women although they did not have to work and probably got more rest than their poorer counterparts, they were also generally unhealthy. Those who lived in urban areas were subjected to the same air pollution as the poorer women and they were also exposed to many of the same malidies. However, women of upper classes did not exercise nearly enough, nor did they spend much time out of doors walking, to be pale in the past meant you were of the upper classes because it was proof you did not have to work, or work outside. Also, as was the fashion to be pale many doctors practiced "bleeding" in which they would literally let their patients bleed excessively sometimes to the very point of death. This would also be not good for pregnant women. Constirictive fasishons like the corset, ecspecially tightly laced, deformed the hips of women and ribcages so that giving birth was difficult. This lead to many still births and forceps deliveries. Lastly, women in the past did not have access to birth control methods. Families of 10 or 12 were not uncommon and the women's bodies simply got worn out after so many births. These sorts of problems led to many of the deaths during pregnancy and childbirth and were not solved by the medicalisation of birth but rather by the change of society. |
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