Benefits of Natural Childbirth

Especially cynical today.

Recently, I offered a near hour-long talk about the benefits and how-to of natural childbirth.

I know - and I said so - that some people would rather never use those two words in the same sentence. Natural childbirth. Sounds horrible, doesn't it? For most U.S. women, it does, but that's because women have been sold a deceptive-at-the-least bill of goods. In this country, with all its alleged "improvements" over time, women have been told their bodies are inherently broken. They don't work right; they're gross. And women believe it.

We've been trained, socially, to believe childbirth is some kind of cosmic curse put on women, one of which we should be both afraid enough to hand it off to the "experts" and with which we should be disgusted enough to do all we can to get out of it. Handing birth off often means giving it to a doctor who's never had nor will ever have a baby (if he's a man, right?) or into the hands of the overbearing medical system, which has neatly categorized and packaged how birth should go for us and runs us through the rigors to adhere to its protocol. Getting out of it has meant allowing drugs to be pumped into our backs at alarming rates (some 80 percent at one of our local hospitals) so we don't have to feel anything. It's also meant a shift to seeing major abdominal surgery - the cutting open of seven layers of our abdomens and the extraction of the often-not-ready baby - as simply another "option" in birthing. Sick.

So I spoke on this topic - natural childbirth - knowing there really are only a few interested in it at all. And I spoke to a largely empty room. There was a straggler or two from the health fair going on outside the room, a gracious health fair worker and the videographer. One woman who wanted to be there - but left early with an active toddler - told me she'd had a c-section the first time and "they" were already talking c-section again. "Yeah," she said, "this baby will probably be big, too." Her first baby was something like 9 pounds. I flashed in my head to the 10-pound baby girl I recently watched come into a 98-degree birthing tub on the dining room floor of an Amish home. Perhaps it was just my mood, but I didn't even want to open any more conversation with that young woman, poor thing. Where do you start?

Having read the Scriptures often enough, I know the principle, "In the end, people will call evil good and good, evil." That's what's happening. If you believe childbirth is not inherently dangerous and want to experience the awesome, powerful and thrilling experience of natural childbirth - and, say, do that at home without any needles, tubes or beeping medical monitors - you're considered crazy, even neglectful. Yet, in many cases, you can ask your doctor to cut your baby out of you for no reason other than you want the baby born on a certain date and need to tell Grandma when to buy her plane tickets, and that's considered OK. The whole thing is beyond me.

Sigh.

So, to add insult to injury, my family and I stopped for a cold treat on the way home. It's one of those family-owned corner ice cream shops with everything in Spanish. (Great ice cream, good prices, by the way.) I was perusing the bulletin board (but can't read a lick of Spanish) and saw an ad for the complete prenatal and birth "package" at one of our local hospitals. (They had a sign in English, one in Spanish.) The whole package is $3,890 (still almost twice as much as a fee for homebirth midwifery services, by the way) and includes prenatal care, a spontaneous, uncomplicated vaginal delivery and two post-partum visits. Sounds good, right? Then, in finer print, is the list of what it does not cover. First, no classes - no endorsement that prenatal preparation is necessary. Second, not the epidural anesthesiologist. Ahhh. I get it. We are going to quote you a price for bare-bones maternity care that does *not* include pain medication, then *not* teach you about natural childbirth so you can actually *do* it that way, but then we'll offer you an epidural a few minutes after you arrive (if we haven't already induced you, which also is not covered in our quoted fee) and then send you a big bill for the epidural anesthesiologist and all its related add-on services. It just floors me.

I am *so* ready for my phone to ring about 2 a.m. To pull out of my driveway, flashlight in hand, while my mind starts thinking about set up, about the precious family I'm about to see, about the midwife and what I can do for her. With the clear skies looking down on us, I'm so ready to walk up a walk, let myself in and listen for just a second. I'll hear a moan - maybe a low, quiet one, maybe a shout. I'll kneel next to the sweet young thing. It won't be long and she'll start grunting. Then we'll see it - the baby's head - maybe by flashlight, maybe by gas lantern. Mom might say, "I can't!' and we'll tell her she's almost done. Then the baby will come, in a holy "whoosh" up to her belly. She'll lay her head back and grin. The dad and midwife will cry. The baby will offer a sneeze or two and grow pink in the arms of its mother. (That's natural childbirth, and that's all covered in the fee.)

So I've been kicking around the idea of nursing school. See, in Indiana, to be *legal* to practice, a midwife must first be an RN. It's been that way a long time - despite the fact that active and passionate midwives and their supporters have been telling Indiana legislators for years that non-nurse (or "lay") midwives do just as well. As far as I can tell, there's no proof that being a nurse makes one a better midwife. None.

Sigh.

Yet the world rests in the alleged security of certifications, licenses and letters. Right, letters. You know, like RN, BSN, CNM, ABCDEFG, whatever. So then someone like me, with dreams of inserting fingers to see what a "stretchy" cervix truly feels like for myself, has to face this issue: One, *if* I could find a midwife willing to train me knowing I wouldn't then later be *legal* to practice, would I then be willing to take the risk of practicing in a system hostile to me? (Oh, the stories I've heard of midwives having to practice clandestinely with little or no free access to medications, referral providers or supplies. I feel for them and greatly admire them at the same time.) I think I *would* be willing to take the risk - doing so in faith - but then I'm back to having no real access to full-fledged training and apprenticeship because my CNM friends could be compromised just by hanging out with me, let alone offering me any kind of training.

Argh.

So then one of my midwife friends convinces me that having a nursing degree and license is like a ticket into a wide world of possibilities - midwifery included, obviously. There's the likelihood I'd always have *some* kind of job if I wanted it. There's hospital work, clinic work, home-health work. There's hospice care, which I found myself drawn to as I held my hand over my precious grandma's heart and felt it stop beating last winter. (That's another interesting topic, as a few times a month I - conversely - pinch between my fingers a freshly aired umbilical cord to feel *brand-new* heart beats.)

I spend a few months thinking about it. Nursing. Nursing! What? It's so bizarre, as I studied *journalism* in college, signing up with hungry anticipation for every writing and literature course I could manage. I literally asked my guidance counselor what the minimum requirements were for math and science. "Sign me up for those and let's get them out of the way." I graduated college with something like an A- average. Math and science definitely were the "minus."

And now I've done it. I've gotten the application - with intentions of filling it out - for an 18-month accelerated BSN program. ("Accelerated" means cramming a lot of work into a short time - just my style.) My request for college transcripts is almost in the mail - just need a stamp - and I'm thinking about things like anatomy and physiology and microbiology.

It's a big deal to think about school. I have three small children and homeschool them. I have less than no money to invest in education. For the most part, I hate the hospital and cringe at the thought of what I've heard called "clinicals," where I know I'm likely to curse the whole U.S. health-care system. But ...

Just think. I *could* be a CNM - legal and all - by age 45. I *could* learn the rudiments of basic care to help my children and aging parents. I *could* really feel a stretchy cervix. Ooooh, now that's exciting.