Natural and home birth and un natural hospital births

There were two of them and they were very nice and wonderful but I opted for the one OB because he was funnya ad had exactly the personality I could relate to.

Yes we also had midwives at our disposal at our OB's office. There were two of them and they were very nice and wonderful but I opted for the one OB because he was funnya ad had exactly the personality I could relate to. Probably not a good reason to pick a doc but he was awesome and knew what he was doing. I would have been happy with the one midwife but he was the best. His name was alsO mike meyers.... Which is kind of creepy but also my favorite horror film
Villian ever lol

Honestly? The whole natural birth thing peeves me just a bit. I think it's the result of a generation who was fortunate enough to be born in an era where hospital births were the norm. As a result, I think the idea of birth at home with minimal assistance has become romanticized. People no longer remember exactly how many women and infants died during childbirth from complications that are now a non-issue. My mother spent her childhood in a very undeveloped, small village in Asia. Her grandfather (my great-grandfather) was the village healer and midwife, so to speak. My mother has memories of women and infants dying regularly during the birthing process. The whole reason the modern "non-natural" childbirth process was developed was to avoid these deaths. Perhaps it worked too well....I wonder if that's why, now, people think childbirth is a safer process than it really is.

I have no problem with people wanting to not use painkillers, epidurals, not having c-sections unless necessary, etc. But I think those that push the idea that "oh, hospitals are bad, midwives are better!" are undoing all the years that were spent developing these procedures in the first place.

I never knew you could have a birth WITHOUT a midwife..... They do all the pre-birth stuff, births and follow up till the baby is 4 weeks, then the health visitors take over till the child is of school age.

Here you can get one if you want. The standard practice, at least in this area, is to go to an obgyn throughout the pregnancy and have them deliver the the baby.

I don’t know that home births and “natural†births are entirely a result of privileged ignorance if you will.
Much of it is a backlash against a male-dominated field invalidating women and their experiences. In the 60’s and 70’s women were told not to breastfeed, not to pick up a crying child, and plenty of other things that completely invalidated what their normal instincts were telling them to do. It make sense to me that more and more women want to be more in control of their birthing experience and know that they will be heard.
Though it was necessary in my situation, the experience of being whisked away, numbed from my neck down and having babies taken out of me without any participation whatsoever on my part is *very* surreal, discombobulating, and not in any way shape or form how you would want your own daughter to experience her first moments of motherhood.

Doctors being in charge of births is relatively new in the entire scope of our history. Traditionally childbirth and baby care was the domain of women. Doctors only got involved around the early 1900’s. Even as the trend shifted from homebirth with midwife to hospital with doctor, mortality rates did not decrease. What has reduced the risk the most was the advent of antibiotics in the 1930’s. Not the fact that women were birthing in hospitals.

I am enormously grateful for the scientific discoveries that allowed both my children to survive. But those discoveries do not need to replace the knowledge we already have about how women birth best, instead they should compliment that knowledge.

In the mid 1950's-60's, it was thalidomide, prescribed to pregnant women routinely - causing the widespread incidence of 'flipper babies' - children who were born with severe malformities, including phocomelia (short limbs and deformed extremities).

I wonder how lifestyle differences between areas play a factor and how much may NOT be the fault of doctors methods

I wonder how lifestyle differences between areas play a factor and how much may NOT be the fault of doctors methods

What do you mean?

I wonder how lifestyle differences between areas play a factor and how much may NOT be the fault of doctors methods

Probably quite a bit more than most people would admit.




I'm thinking diet, exposure to smoke, fitness levels stuff like that.