Filed under: empowered childbirth | Tags: best birth, birth blog, birthing from within, holistic pregnancy, intuitive birthing, pregnancy blog, safe birth, safe birthing, safe childbirth
Many women who give birth in hospitals or with doctors and midwives in attendance rely upon the information obtained from technology, or from the experience of these so-called “experts” to guide them in how to safely give birth. No machine, such as an electronic fetal monitor, and no person other than the birthing woman can really know what is right for that woman.
Only by looking within herself and consulting her inner wisdom through intuitive insight can the woman know what is right to do in her particular situation. Sometimes, she may sit down, close her eyes, and actually seek this insight in order to solve a perceived problem in the birth. But most likely, as the following birth story will depict, that which must be done is instictively or intuitively made clear to the mother at a time of emergency, without her actively seeking such information.
The reason that hospital birth, or any birth attended by a doctor or midwife is inherently dangerous, is that it causes the woman to not trust or listen to what her body is telling her to do, and it causes her to listen to others and accept their assessment of her situation when there is no possible way they could know what is best. By doing this, many complications often occur. The medical establishment tries to convince us that only through medical tests or the experience of professionals can a mother really have a safe birth….but it is reliance upon those very experiences which can actually cause complications.
Your body knows what to do….if you will trust this process, and not try to second guess what your body is telling you, just trust it, you will avoid complications the majority of the time. When someone suggests a procedure to you, or a particular course of action, and it doesn’t feel right to you, makes you afraid or causes you to feel unsettled, your intuitive wisdom is telling you it’s not right…..
Listening to your body can help you deal with situations in a home birth which are considered “complications” by the medical establishment. We just call them “variations of normal.” Your body can deal with these spontaneous occurrences very well if you let it.
Judie C. Rall and The Center for Unhindered Living
Photo by Ben McLeod
Filed under: birth, empowered childbirth, homebirth, unassisted birth | Tags: birth, birth kit, bith blog, motherworth, natural chilbirth, unassisted birth
- Small bottle of almond, olive or other natural massage-type oil. (For lubrication of any body part, if desired)
- Underpaddings. Large plastic drop cloths, shower curtains or even trash bags to protect surfaces, covered in old towels, sheets or blankets that can be washed (or thrown away). Some women prefer disposable “chux” pads, they can be purchased in the adult diapering section of your local shop.
- A copy of the book Emergency Childbirth: A Manual by Dr.Gregory White
- Some people like to have a stethoscope
- A camera or video recorder (with film)
- A pen and paper to jot down times and anything of interest
- Foods, drinks, teas or tonics for the laboring mama and her support team
- Videos, toys, art supplies, puzzles, etc. for anxious siblings to discover
An “emergence” kit can be constructed with items that could be grabbed in a hurry or not at all.
- A pair of scissors, rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide and gauze swabs (or alcohol prep pads) for cleansing them.
- 2 industrial strength cord clamps (for emergency use only) and a set of gentler cord ties for normal cord procedures. Umbilical tape or dental tape (not floss, the ribbon-like stuff) works well. Braided embroidery floss is a popular choice too.
- Any bleed stopping remedy the mother has chosen. (Mango Mama posted: Shepherd’s Purse and/or Motherwort tinctures and Bayberry Bark, Cayenne, Shepherd’s Purse and Mistletoe herbs for teas as options)
- Natural fiber hat for a newborn head (remembering that hir tiny head could be very sore from the molding, those tightly knit “hospital caps” made two of my babies scream in pain). Patterns for creating your own baby hat are here for knitting and crocheting and here for sewing
- I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the rubber ball suction device as an “emergency item” but I think they are a bad idea for birth, personally. I’d probably stick one in a drawer so no one would think I was negligent for not having it. I can’t imagine ever using it though…
- Warm towels, blankets, receiving blankets or robes. Some families put towels in a dryer, on a heater, folded around a warm heating pad or in a barely warm oven during labor so they’ll be cozy after birth.
- A large pan, bowl or bucket for catching the placenta (those ice cream buckets work well).
- Maxi pads (cloth ones or even towels can work well)
- Arnica 30x for bruising or pain (mama and perhaps even baby)
- Pain reliever for after-pains (herbal tinctures, teas or commercial)
- Eldon card, vaccutainers and syringe for testing baby’s cord blood (once baby is done with it)
- Calendula tincture, honey for tears or skid marks
- Diapers and baby clothes
- A tape measure
- A scale (if desired. Some families rig up fish scales with a baby blanket or towel and subtract the towel’s weight, some subtract their weight from the reading on the bathroom scale while they hold their infant)
- Celebratory foods, drinks or items for baby’s very first Birth-day party
Filed under: birth, birthstories, empowered childbirth, labour | Tags: birthstories, joy of childbirth, labour, natural childbirth, painfree birth, painfree labour, painless childbirth
by Alice B. Stockham, M.D.
“I know of no country, no tribe, no class, where childbirth is attended with so much pain and trouble as in this country.”
Thus replied a traveler who had been many years in foreign lands, upon being interrogated as to the comparative sufferings of savage and civilized women. His occupation and sympathies had brought him into close relationship with all classes of people, and therefore fitted him for an intelligent and discriminating judgment in this matter.
Neither in India, Hindostan, China, Japan, the South Sea Islands, South America, nor indeed in any country do women suffer in both pregnancy and parturition as they do in this. Possibly among the higher classes in Europe there may be equal suffering; but the peasantry everywhere is comparatively exempt.
The usual testimony of missionaries and travelers is that the squaws of our own Indian tribes experience almost no suffering in childbirth, and the function scarcely interferes with the habits, pleasures or duties of life.
Mrs. Armstrong, one of the early missionaries in the Sandwich Islands, says: “With native women the labor was not long nor severe; the mother, instead of remaining in bed, arose, bathed in cold water, walked and ate as usual.”
Dr. Storer says: “There is probably no suffering ever experienced which will compare, in proportion to its extent in time, with the throes of parturition.” Dr. Meigs says: “Men can not suffer the same pain as women. What do you call the pains of parturition? There is no name for them but agony!”
It is too true that women go down to death in giving birth to children. Thousands of women believe that this pain is natural and that for it there can be no alleviation. “In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children” is thought to be a curse that applies to all women of all time.
If this pain and travail is a natural accompaniment of physiological functions - if it is a curse upon women, then why are the rich, the enlightened and more favored daughters of earth greater sufferers than the peasantry, the savage, the barbarian, and those who we call heathen? Is it not possible, by research and comparison, to learn the natural and true mode of life, so that motherhood may, among enlightened people, be relieved from this burden of suffering? May it not prove that our traditions and teachings upon this subject have been altogether erroneous?
American women in education and enlightenment, in freedom and progress, are the peers of the best and noblest of their sex. From individual, social and national interests, they ought to be conversant with all that pertains to this subject, so closely allied to the interests of the race.
We find in women of superior education and marked intelligence an exaggerated development of the emotional nature, and a corresponding deterioration of physical powers. Weakness, debility, and suffering is the common lot of most of them. Not one in a hundred has health and strength to pursue any chosen study, or to follow any lucrative occupation, and what is vastly worse, most are unfitted for the duties and perils of maternity.
Dr. Gaillard Thomas says: “Neither appreciation of, nor desire for, physical excellence sufficiently exists among refined women of our day. Our young women are too willing to be delicate, fragile and incapable of endurance. They dread above all things the glow and hue of health, the rotundity and beauty of muscularity, the comely shapes which the great masters gave to the Venus de Medici and Venus de Milo. All these attributes are viewed as coarse and unladylike, and she is regarded as most to be envied whose complexion wears the livery of disease, whose muscular development is beyond the suspicion of embonpoint, and whose waist can almost be spanned by her own hands.
“As a result, how often do we see our matrons dreading the process of child-bearing, as if it were an abnormal and destructive one; fatigued and exhausted by a short, walk, or ordinary household cares; choosing houses with special reference to freedom from one extra flight of stairs, and commonly debarred the one great maternal privilege of nourishing their own offspring. These are they who furnish employment for the gynecologist, and who fill our homes with invalids and sufferers.”
Understanding and following physiological laws, pregnancy ought to be as free from pathological symptoms, and parturition as void of suffering with American women as with any on earth, or even with the lower animals.
Dr. Dewees says: “Pain in childbirth is a morbid symptom; it is a perversion of nature caused by modes of living not consistent with the most healthy condition of the system, and a regimen which would insure a completely healthy condition might be counted on with certainty to do away with such pain.”
The great English scientist, Professor Huxley, says: “We are indeed, fully prepared to believe that the bearing of children may and ought to become as free from danger and long debility to the civilized woman as it is to the savage.”
The following paragraphs from one of the essays in Dr. Montgomery’s classical work on Pregnancy, give practical details of cases in illustration of the belief in painless parturition.
“In a letter to me Dr. Douglas states that he was called about 6 A. M., Sept. 26, 1828, to attend a Mrs. D., residing on Eccles St.
“On his arrival he found the house in the utmost confusion, and was told that the child had been born before the messenger was dispatched for the doctor. From the lady herself he learned that, about half an hour previously, she had been awakened from a natural sleep by the alarm of a daughter about five years old, who slept with her.
“This alarm was occasioned by the little girl feeling the movements, and hearing the cries of an infant in bed. To the mother’s great surprise she had brought forth her child without any consciousness of the fact. “A lady of great respectability, the wife of a peer of the realm, was actually delivered once in her sleep; she immediately awakened her husband, being alarmed to find one more in bed than there was before.
“I have elsewhere mentioned the case of a patient of mine who bore eight children without ever having labor pains. Her deliveries were so sudden and void of sensible effect that in more than one instance they took place under most awkward circumstances, but without any suffering.”
Dr. J. King, in his work on Obstetrics, speaks of attending cases where there was no sensation of pain.
He found that by placing the hand upon the abdomen, the muscular contractions were distinctly felt, and examination proved the progress of labor, while, excepting a suppressed breath, the patient experienced no change from the ordinary condition.
With Dr. Holmes, I believe it will take many years to eradicate diseased conditions which are the heritage of this generation, and thus to produce men and women of physical perfection. Science has proven, however, that any woman possessing sufficient vitality to make procreation possible, can do much, even during pregnancy, to alleviate the sufferings of that period, as well as the final throes of travail. Pain and suffering have so long been the customary attendant upon the maternal functions, that many are slow to believe they can ever be alleviated. Painless childbirth is thought to be an impossibility. The reader is begged to lay aside all previous prejudices, and it is believed that when this volume has been thoroughly studied he will be convinced that women in bearing offspring should furnish no exception to the laws of nature, and that pregnancy and parturition may and ought to be devoid of suffering.
Tokology: A Book for Every Woman
1911 by Alice B. Stockham, M.D
Filed under: aqua midwife, birth, empowered childbirth, waterbirth | Tags: waterbirth, birth in water, water birth, waterbirth at home, aqua midwife, labouring in water, labour in water, water labour, waterbirth in the hospital, waterbirth in the birthing center, water birth blog, waterbirth blog, waterbirth information, free waterbirth information, waterbirth resources, water birth resources, waterbirth resource list
Apart from medical factors, psychological factors also influence the birth process. The more familiar the environment is for the birthing woman, the more complication-free and easy a birth is. Beyond that the water offers a shelter into which the birthing woman can dive into, if she wants to concentrate on the process of labour.
A water birth can take place in the hospital, in the birth center or at home.
Water birth in the hospital
Some hospitals [in Germany] have special bearing tubs in the in the maternity ward, which are equipped with all comfort. A birthing tub is accessible from each side, has handles and footrests build in and is fillable up to the chest with water. The parents do not have to worry about the filling of the tub or the disposal of the waste water. In some gynaecological clinics the cardio activity of the baby and the activity of the labour of the mother can be supervised with waterproof telemetry. Many midwives and physicians trained themselves further for water birth. If you are interested in water birth in a hospital, get information from the hospitals of your region whether this possibility of birthing is offered there.
See also Waterbirth International
Water birth in the birth center
Some birth centers have a birthing tub available. Sometimes parents can bring a birthing tub of their choice. Water basin rental companies offer different, transportable birthing tubs. Many midwives of the birthing centers trained themselves further for water delivery and how to connect it with the midwife assistance for a active birth.
See also water babies (Germany)
waterbirthinfo (USA)
Waterbirth at home
With the waterbirth in the own home parents can create their individual birth surroundings. Parents themselves decide which persons are to help with the birth, in which rooms they want to experience it the “celebration of the birth” (Leboyer), which music they want to hear and they determine want they want to eat. They can use the bathing tub or rent a birthing tub with a lot of space. Many parents buy a inflatable children’s pool, which permits a depth of water of 50 cm at least. The liberty to “create your own birth” (see also video: “Kinder kriegen “, Birth center Vienna), requires good planning and birth preparation. Freelance midwives support parents, accompany the house/water birth and lead the following water training in the childbed. From midwives led water baby meetings in the first year of life of the child helps with the transition from the water life in utero to the future land life
See also hebinfo (German), the website of aqua midwife Cornelia Enning from where this translations come
For rental pools or purchasing birthing pools:
aquadoula
yourwaterbirth
gentlewater (UK)
My lens on waterbirth:
waterbirth101
Filed under: birth, empowered childbirth, video, waterbirth | Tags: birth in water, free water birth movies, water birth, water birth video, water birth videos, water births, waterbirth, waterbirth at home, waterbirth video sharing, woman giving water birth
Filed under: aqua midwife, baby care, birth, empowered childbirth, homebirth, midwifery | Tags: aqua midwife, Cornelia Enning, midwife, waterbirth, waterbirth at home, waterbirth contact, waterbirth Europe, waterbirth Germany, waterbirth midwife
It is a great pleasure and honor for me to announce my new series of translations from the website of aqua-midwife Cornelia Enning from Germany. Her work is admirable. If you have any questions or are interested in her services, feel free to contact me:
For direct contact with aqua-midwife Cornelia Enning:
Keplerstr. 16, D-75417 Mühlacker
Telefon: 011-49 (07042) 15536 FAX : 011-49 (07042) 950945
Cornelia Enning has been a licensed midwife in Muehlacker, Germany since 1972. She has been doing homebirths/waterbirths since 1975. She received a B.E. in psychology and pedagogy in 1972 from the University of Berlin. She has been doing homebirths and waterbirths since 1975 and is the founder of the German parents association “Wasserbabies.”
Cornelia is editor of the quarterly Wasserbaby-Post and author of several books about waterbirth at home and in hospitals. She directs the German Federation of Aquapaedagogik and instructs parents in water training for newborns. In addition, she has taught waterbirth midwifery to more than 4000 midwives and obstetricians. Cornelia has two adult children and one granddaughter.
Filed under: birth, birthstories, empowered childbirth, labour, waterbirth | Tags: birth in water, birth stories, birthstories, water birth, water birth story, water births, waterbirth, waterbirth at home, waterbirth story, woman giving water birth
“My husband and I had done many test runs with the hot tub to see how long it took to fill and heat back up again, and it was a good 5 hours. Well my labor was going fast and it had maybe been 4 hours since we put the fresh water in. So the temperature was then about 83 degrees. Luckily it was a warm night. But once I got into the water the contractions slowed down a little. So my wonderful husband connected a garden hose to the hot water inside the house and started pumping it in. The water circled around my body like a warm blanket.
The transition stage came on fast. I remember looking up at the stars and letting out a scream that felt animalistic. I moaned and moaned while feeling the head making its way down. My husband was gently rubbing my back. The midwives only took the fetal heart rate a couple of times. When I was ready to push, they asked me to get out of the tub. They said they felt it wasn’t hot enough for the baby. Well I thought it was damn close enough. Nothing was getting me out. It wasn’t 98 yet, maybe only 92, but I wasn’t moving. I said, “Babies have been born in the Baltic sea in Russia, I’m not getting out.” They looked at each other and said “OK.” I knew my baby would be just fine, something deep inside told me. I trusted my instincts.
The pushing went fast. When the head started coming down I gave some really strong pushes. I remembered reading that many women enjoyed reaching up and feeling the head. So I did. Then I grabbed my husband’s hand and had him feel. The baby’s head was covered in hair. That gave me a lot of encouragement to push the head out. At this time we had the hot tub light on low so we could see. When he came out he had his eyes wide open. I looked down and there he was. Staring back at me. I rested then pushed the rest of his beautiful little body out. My husband put his hands underneath him and gently brought him up to the surface.
The cord was kind of short, so I couldn’t nurse him right away, so my husband and I just held him for a few minutes in the water. It was amazing to see this new person emerge into the world. We had in seconds gone from a family of two to a family of three.
We got out of the tub and walked inside. Our family room was quiet and warm, with soft music in the background. Just like a dream. We sat on the couch and got acquainted for a while. After several minutes with the lights very low, my husband said “so what is the sex of our baby???” We hadn’t had any ultrasound tests so we didn’t know ahead of time. I had been so caught up with everything until this point. I felt like I had just run a marathon. My adrenaline was pumping. But with it being so dark outside and dark inside we didn’t see. I said “I feel little balls, I�m pretty sure it�s a boy.” And it was. Logan James had been born. My husband cut the cord. About 25 minutes later, I got on my hands and knees and gave a huge push and out popped the placenta onto my floor. It was big and beautiful and totally intact.
The birth was more wonderful than I could have ever have imagined. It happened so fast. From the time I got into the hot tub to the time he was born was about an hour. With the total labor being about 4 - 5 hours. I know it was because of the water. The birth was wonderful, without interruptions and distractions. Just like I wanted it to be.
I didn’t want a circus of people around me. I love my family very much, but I felt that it was important to have very few people there. I believe we birth naturally like animals when we are left alone. Our bodies naturally take over. I think water is a miracle. It makes birth wonderful and enjoyable. I’d do it again right now and again tomorrow. I look back on the experience and I get excited to do it again real soon.
With this wonderful website out there and with the help of many books, I have come full circle. From years earlier thinking I would have a hospital birth with drugs and maybe not nurse, to a home birth (naturally), and being a proud member of La Leche League. Thank the heavens for the Internet, which brought me to this site. It literally changed my life.
I hope this story inspires someone somewhere like the other ones that inspired me. Having a waterbirth is a beautiful experience. Not to mention the benefits it has on the baby. Logan is stronger and healthier than many of his friends the same age. (The doctor even said so.) Logan also loves the water. He enjoys his baths and likes to be in the hot tub.
I am so thankful for the waterbirth. It has been a dream, not to mention an empowering experience as a woman. It has made me realize that I am strong and capable of anything. Well, almost anything.”
Sincerely,
Gayla
Filed under: birth, birthstories, empowered childbirth, homebirth | Tags: birth stories, birth story, birthstories, birthstory, empowered birth, free birth, homebirth, labour, natural childbirth blog, safe birthnatural birth vs medical birth, unassisted birth
Article from ‘Marie Claire’ magazine:
I gave birth completely alone
If you thought a homebirth was radical, prepare yourself for freebirthing - where there’s not even a midwife on hand. Allison Tait investigates the growing trend of pregnant women going solo.
Rixa Freeze, 29, a doula from Iowa in the US, endured a 10-hour labour with no medical assistance. She gave birth to daughter Zari on October 31, 2006.
“I was sitting on the edge of the toilet, supporting my baby’s crowning head with one hand, when it occurred to me that my husband, Eric, might like to witness the birth of our first child. Having spent the entire 10 hours of labour almost completely alone, I now wanted to share her arrival.
“Eric came in from our bedroom as I half-squatted on the floor, a pile of towels underneath me. Zari arrived with a swoosh and I gently lowered her onto the nest of towels. Her initial crying subsided as soon as I scooped her up to my chest.
“A few moments later, Eric took a photograph of Zari and me - and when I look at it today I realise what a raw and beautiful moment this was. It was just us - no strangers and no unnecessary noise.
“Two and a half hours later, when the placenta came out, Eric cut me off a small piece to eat; the mild taste was surprising. Later that afternoon, as the three of us relaxed together in our bed, a family for the first time, Eric told me I was right to give birth this way. Initially, he had expressed doubts, out of concern for the baby and me, but now he too realised it was the right choice.
“For me, it was the only decision. When I first heard about freebirthing, or unassisted birth as it’s also known, it was as an academic, in 2003. I was in the first year of a postgraduate degree in American Studies, researching birth-related issues, and a midwife I met mentioned it to me.
At first, I reacted like most people. The idea of giving birth without any medical assistance on hand sounded scary and a bit radical, especially for someone like me who didn’t exactly grow up in a particularly alternative family.
“My curiosity piqued, I read as much as I could on the subject and grew to really respect the women who had chosen this path. I discovered that we have such a culture of fear when it comes to birth. Look at how films portray it - a woman on her back screaming as a doctor comes to save her and deliver the baby. That makes it hard for people to imagine any other way than a medical birth.”
Photo by Chris and Jenni
Filed under: birth, empowered childbirth, homebirth, labour, video, waterbirth | Tags: birth in water, free water birth movies, natural childbirth blog, water birth, water birth video, water birth videos, water births, waterbirth, waterbirth at home, waterbirth video sharing, woman giving water birth
Josie’s Birth in the back yard hot tub surounded by family and friends filmed by her parents.
Filed under: birth, empowered childbirth, homebirth, labour, pregnancy | Tags: natural childbirth, painfree labour, midwifery, midwife, homebirth, pregnancy, mothering, painfree labor, health, social life, Michel Odent, cesarean section, dutch birth statistic, parenting, uterine contractions, oxycotin, natural childbirth vs hospital birth, safe birth choice, convincing relatives about homebirth, advantages homebith
Question: My sister and I were discussing childbirth. She is very influenced by her friend, a nurse, to have an intrusive, medicalized birth. What kind of resources can I share with her to show her that a natural childbirth is a wonderful and safe birth choice?
Dr. Michel Odent: You might first explain to your sister and her friend that a natural childbirth is not a choice. This term can only be used in retrospect, when a woman has given birth without any drug and without any intervention. The environment where you give birth is the real choice. You must explain that your main objective is safety and that according to common sense an easy birth is safer than a difficult birth. So your priority is to make the birth as easy as possible thanks to an environment that can satisfy your basic needs when you are in labor.
Your basic needs are easy to explain in the current scientific context. Physiologists, scientists who study the body functions, tell us that adrenaline (the emergency hormone we release in particular when we are scared or when we are cold) makes difficult the release of oxytocin, the hormone necessary for effective uterine contractions. You can explain that you release a lot of adrenaline when you are in an unfamiliar and clinical environment. You can add that, in contrast, you can imagine yourself giving birth in a familiar environment, with - for example - nobody else around than an experienced, motherly, low profile and silent midwife knitting in a corner. It is probable that in such an environment your body will work well.
The second aspect of the safety preoccupation is: what to do if there is something wrong? In the age of the safe c-section and widespread cell-phones, there is usually an easy answer to this question, which should always be the second one.
Many health professionals need to learn to think in terms of ‘ratio of benefits to risks’. Where out of hospital births are concerned, they immediately ask: ‘what will you do if…’ instead of asking first: ‘how to make the birth as easy as possible’.
You are asking what kind of resources you can share. You might share data about the Dutch birth statistics. In Holland, where 82% of the midwives are independent primary care givers, about 31% of the births occur at home, and an autonomous midwife attends many of the hospital births. The rates of c-sections are around 10% for the whole country and more than 90% of the laboring women do not need an epidural anesthesia. The birth outcomes are much better than in the USA (number of babies alive and healthy at birth).
Do not recommend books about ‘natural childbirth’ because they are usually written for the converted. Instead you might suggest updated books focusing on one of the main aspects of industrialized childbirth, such as ‘The Caesarean. Free Association Books 2004′. In order to help your sister and friend to learn to think long term, you might indicate the ‘Primal Health Research Data Base‘ that is specialized in studies exploring the long term consequences of what happened at the beginning of our life. It appears that the way we are born has life long consequences and that, today, in spite of the safe caesarean, we have good reasons to try to rediscover the basic needs of women in labor and of newborn babies.
Michel Odent, M.D.
For several decades Michel Odent has been instrumental in influencing the history of childbirth and health research. As a practitioner he developed the maternity unit at Pithiviers Hospital in France in the 1960s and ’70s. He is familiarly known as the obstetrician who introduced the concept of birthing pools and home-like birthing rooms. His approach has been featured in eminent medical journals such as Lancet, and in TV documentaries such as the BBC film Birth Reborn. With six midwives he was in charge of about one thousand births a year and could achieve ideal statistics with low rates of intervention. After his hospital career he practiced home birth.
As a researcher he founded the Primal Health Research Center in London (UK), which focuses upon the long term consequences of early experiences. An overview of the Primal Health Research Data Bank clearly indicates that health is shaped during the primal period (from conception until the first birthday). It also suggests that the way we are born has long term consequences in terms of sociability, aggressiveness or, otherwise speaking, capacity to love.
Photo by Pierre-Olivier Mazoyer
