new post »
see more posts »
I understand why women who had natural births feel that it's an accomplishment. I had an epidural with my 1st and had a great experience. Completely planned on doing that again with #2. Unfortunately, he came very quickly and I went drug-free. The pain is ridiculous, but it's all mental. It could have been a very zen experience where I was learning to control mind over matter, which is what I think those who know they'll do it drug-free try to accomplish. Instead, I was screaming my face off. I give kudos to anyone who would do that willingly.
125 replies [ Reply | Watch | Options ]i still think most people who do that willingly feel like they have something to prove. maybe not all of them, but alot of the women i know do it for that reason for sure.
[ Reply | Options ]People who go to certain schools have something to prove, so do athletes, musicians and rock climbers. With childbirth, there is a satisfaction in achieving that and many women have natural births because they feel its better for them and their dc.
[ Reply | Options ]An OB/GYN once told me that "natural childbirth" is v birth -- with or without drugs. She got annoyed with people discounting v birth (with drugs) as NOT being natural. So let's say natural childbirth with or without drugs, and not knock women who decide to use the drugs. Why in the world would you not choose to use this medical advance if you could? Of course, some situations don't allow for it, and I feel for women who have to go without. God bless you.
[ Reply | Options ]why would we choose it? Because it's better for the baby and better for the mother.
[ Reply | Options ]nope. try again. or is this what makes you feel superior to everyone else on the planet?
[ Reply | Options ]-
-
Drugs make their way to the baby, which cause a sedative effect. This has been proven. Why are you so intent on ignoring facts?
[ Reply | Options ]actually, that hasn't been proven at all, and i defy you to post a link to a study that shows otherwise.
[ Reply | Options ]The website of the American Pregnancy Association, the natl org. or OBGYNs, enumerates multiple risks of epidurals on the following website, including the following summary of available research, which acknowledges that research is "somewhat" ambiguous, it also notes that babies of epidural mothers have respiratory distress, bf'ing difficulty, and fetal heart rate variability. " Though research is somewhat ambiguous, most studies suggest some babies will have trouble "latching on" which can lead to breastfeeding difficulties. Other studies suggest that the baby may experience respiratory depression, fetal malpositioning; and an increase in fetal heart rate variability, which may increase the need for forceps, vacuum, cesarean deliveries and episiotomies." http://www.americanpregnancy.org/labornbirth/epidural.html
[ Reply | Options ]
-
-
Why do you have to talk down to women who choose it? I have had 3 natural childbirths because I had an epidural with the first (I have 4 kids) and I *really* didn't like how it felt. I also feel my recoveries were faster with the natural chidlbirths. Have I proven something? Am I smug? NO. But it worked for me and I don't like your attitude of 'why in the world...' as if anyone who chooses med-free birth is dysfunctional.
[ Reply | Options ]
Eh, some do, but some don't. I would seriously consider it only bc I have a terrible reaction to drugs & my mother got permanent nerve damage from her last epi, so I'm scared shitless of that. I am not an earth-mother or anything like that, I just like the idea of quicker recovery time & no needle in my spine.
[ Reply | Options ]
i don't think it's an accomplishment because you don't gain anything from it. you can get a perfectly healthy baby with an epidural. it's like holding your hand over an open flame without flinching. is that an accomplishment? not in my book.
[ Reply | Options ]I feel like once you get an epidural it invites many more interventions by the MDs, most of which I feel are unnecessary and benefit the Drs more than the mother or the baby (does anyone really know effects of all these procedures on babies? I don't think they've been well studied, personally - and I'm not sure that a decent study is even possible). And result in the 30%+ c-section rate, which is definitely NOT in the mother's best interest.
[ Reply | Options ]I made my decision to do natural for the same reasons. Its not something I "urge" on other women necessarily, but based on what I had read, I was concerned that an epidural could increase my chances of having a c-section, which I very much wanted to avoid. Its also why I chose to work with a midwife.
[ Reply | Options ]-
Epidurals can lead to many other complications. Our bodies were made to give birth and we undergo a multitude of chemical changes when we give birth naturally which are beneficial for the mom and the baby. Its not an ego thing, but yes an accomplishment none the less.
[ Reply | Options ]Cancer is a natural process also. Does that mean we should endure it without chemo or pain control since that's what nature intended?
[ Reply | Options ]NP: if it made it more likely that you would survive cancer w/o complications, then maybe yes. However, that's really not the case, is it? Chemo will cure cancer that would otherwise be fatal. Pain Mngmt will not make it worse/affect outcome. Can you really not see the difference between birth and cancer?
[ Reply | Options ]are you saying you have evidence to support the idea that NOT getting an epidural increases neonatal survival? the "it's natual" argument is really one of the silliest and weakest around. you want no epi, go for it. but don't try to imply it's somehow inherently better because "it's natual."
[ Reply | Options ]YES, of course! It's a medical intervention, and as ALL medical interventions, it has risks. One of them is increase in c-section rates, which is a serious surgical procedure, that has its own death rate, etc. Others include other side effects. Not saying that it's never worth it to have an epi (or a c-section for that matter), just that it has risks and I am not convinced that for a non-high-risk delivery these risks are justified.
[ Reply | Options ]
this is just propaganda perpetuated by the pro-natural birth types. it's simply not true.
[ Reply | Options ]np: that epidurals lead to many other complications? that is true! i had an epidural. but in doing so, i recognized that there are trade-offs. for me, the pain was so bad that i chose the epidural. but epidurals do up the chances that you will have to get a c-section, which is major surgery after all.
[ Reply | Options ]no, they don't. the only increased risk is an instrumental delivery, and even this doesn't control for the possibility that the women who opted for epidural pain control did so because their labor was more painful related to a predisposing likelihood of instrumental delivery.
[ Reply | Options ]this study properly controlled for whether or not studies randomized epidurals and found a 2 fold risk of c-sections for those given epidurals: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1481670/
[ Reply | Options ]single studies are relatively meaningless. even the repeat cochrane (gold standard) in 2005 showed no increased rate of cs.
[ Reply | Options ]Ugh. This is NOT a study. It's a statistical data rehash. If you don't understand what you are posting, please don't post. There should be a license required to access pubmed.
[ Reply | Options ]a statistical reanalysis is indeed a study. if you don't understand what a study is, please don't post.
[ Reply | Options ]-
np: actually, you sound kind of arrogant and obtuse. if you have a point to make, please make it. but it sounds like you have no real rebuttal to whatever study that poster put up a link to right now.
[ Reply | Options ]Do your own research - assuming you actually know how. I have neither the time nor energy to do a lit search, then explain stats and study design to you. If you can't do this yourself and want to engage in discussions about evidence-based medicine, perhaps go back to school to learn how.
[ Reply | Options ]NNP: Oh my gosh, i think i remember this poster from a breastfeeding discussion a couple weeks back. Somebody posted all these links about how breastfeeding hasn't been shown to have any benefits, and she kept telling telling everyone to "do their own research" when they asked her to support her view (that it has lots of benefits). Ask her to post a link! She will keep saying it over and over, no matter how many people confront her. It's kind of fun.
[ Reply | Options ]
-
and what are effects of instrumental delivery on a child? does anyone know? also, there are many many other side effects of epidurals (including as severe as potential paralysis for the mom)
[ Reply | Options ]the risk of instrumental deliveries are significant. however, it is nearly impossible to control for pain/epidural usage and any preexisting L&D issues which would impact a laboring woman's decision to have the epidural *independent* of the increased risk of an instrumental delivery.
[ Reply | Options ]
NP: please, prove me wrong if you can, but I believe that we currently don't have any sort of real handle on the risks associated with epidurals. can you link to a study that has randomized them? all of the studies that i am familiar with randomize timing of the epidural (early vs late) but not epidural itself. so we don't know what the risks are. i think it is silly to assume that there are none, however. any kind of intervention is associated with some sort of risks--the are just poorly understood in this case, so it is hard to balance pros/cons.
[ Reply | Options ]I agree, and thanks for stating this so clearly. I thoroughly believe that women need to do their own reading/assessment and make their own decision. Its not clearcut, and obviously there are circumstances that absolutely necessitate epis and c-secs, but go into your labor having formed some of your own opinions.(Posted above and below but not to the "study" debate.)
[ Reply | Options ]there are studies comparing epidural to opiate pain relief that show no difference in cs. but my point was essentially the same as yours - that the risks are not conclusively proven. it's ethically difficult to randomly assign people to pain control vs no pain control regardless of their preference so i doubt we will ever have a conclusive answer.
[ Reply | Options ]
yes our bodies are made to give birth but they were made to give birth to babies that were significantly smaller than the babies being born today, so if we can all have 6lb babies we should be fine but our bodies were not made to give birth to 8lb+ babies
[ Reply | Options ]huh? where are you getting this natural weight cut-off info? the birth weight that people can handle is usually related to their size. taller women can usually handle larger babies. as heights have increased, it makes sense that birthweights have also increased. there is nothing unnatural about 8 lb babies (except for in the cases of gestational diabetes, etc.)
[ Reply | Options ]NP: And honestly anatomy varies even across the size of the mom. I gave birth naturally to an 8 lb, 4 oz baby. Non-pregant size is/was 5'4" and 125-ish lbs.
[ Reply | Options ]-
10.2 lbs, im 5 foot 1 and 125 lbs. No one thought I could do it, pregnant with number 2 now, he is going to be at least 8 according to the doctors now! I dont think height/size have anything to do with whether you can do it naturally or not, lets call it what it is, if you dont want to feel pain, get an epi, no big deal but jsut because we want natural childbirth because its what every woman on earth did before an epi was available, doesnt make me some kind of martyr.
[ Reply | Options ]
-
-
Having seen women who have given birth naturally and those who have planned natural but gone for epis, I think their experience of labor is completely different. People have different pain threshholds, physically and psychologically. I have seen women literally pass out from pain during labor and women who were not in excruciating pain. It is the women who are lucky enough to not have an unbearable labor experience who were generally willing and able to go natural.
[ Reply | Options ]Oh really?! We did it because it did not really hurt that much. Riiiight..got it.
[ Reply | Options ]That was pretty funny wasn't it??? lol. Because let me just say that having my 9 pound 10 ounce baby without any meds hurt like all holy hell!!! (but I'd still do it again).
[ Reply | Options ]np: uh yeah. Having my baby drug free hurt like nothing I've ever thought possible. But I can't wait to do it again. And I'm one of the people who posted on accomplishments post that it was one of my top 2 accomplishments in life. I worked hard, mentally and physically, to prepare and to achieve that goal.
[ Reply | Options ]
OR: It was not meant as a personal insult to state that people have diffent experiences of pain during labor. I'm curious why this offends you and makes you feel like you need to defend the idea that you were in pain? Does the fact that you suffered have anything to do with why you chose a natural childbirth? You don't need to prove that you endured pain to be confident of your decision. None of the women who made the choice with me to have a natural birth ever cited a desire to suffer as a reason why, but of course you are entitled to your own motivations. Anyway, I have been at hundreds of births and have 3 dc, one natural (not by choice). There is no doubt in my mind that labor can be completely different in terms of pain for me personally amongst my births, and for all the women I've seen go thru it. There is no right or better choice and suffering more doesn't validate your choice. You don't need validation for a perfectly reasonable decision. My point was that there are factors at play beyond just desire when it comes to natural/epidural. Some women truly have an unbearable pain experience: unbearable as in they could not withstand the pain and needed pain relief available regardless of their ideal birth plan (similar to an extreme example of anyone will eventually reach a pain limit if subject to torture long enough). I just believe that a lot of labor and delivery is beyond our control and no women should feel defensive, guilty, or too proud of any choice. As with all of life, it's part choice and part fate/God's will/luck (whatever your spiritual belief).
[ Reply | Options ]^completely different in terms of pain for me personally amongst my births, and for all the women I've seen go thru it. There is no right or better choice and suffering more doesn't validate your choice. You don't need validation for a perfectly reasonable decision. My point was that there are factors at play beyond just desire when it comes to natural/epidural. Some women truly have an unbearable pain experience: unbearable as in they could not withstand the pain and needed pain relief available regardless of their ideal birth plan (similar to an extreme example of anyone will eventually reach a pain limit if subject to torture long enough). I just believe that a lot of labor and delivery is beyond our control and no women should feel defensive, guilty, or too proud of any choice. As with all of life, it's part choice and part fate/God's will/luck (whatever your spiritual belief).
[ Reply | Options ]-
OR: Neither. Supporting a woman's choice to have a natural birth or epidural is the easy part. The challenge is assuaging the guilt of a laboring woman who was certain she would do natural, but simply cannot endure the pain any longer and needs pain relief. Unfortunately, women, their spouse, and their families often put unhealthy and unfair pressures on women to "succeed" at a natural birth. The biggest challenge is helping a woman realize that a healthy birth is a successful one, regardless of how they get there.
[ Reply | Options ]
I had two natural births and one (my third) with an epidural. The epidural felt surreal and freaky - how little pain there was during hard labor - but I felt physically better so much faster after the natural births. I have a high pain threshhold though and had reasonablt quick and uncomplicated labors. If I were doing it again I would definitely do natural.
[ Reply | Options ]I don't think that some women have higher pain thresholds. I think that SOME births are easier than others. I had 2 relatively quick, non-medicated births. One was manageable, the other was not (I was a wreck, like the OP described her experience).
[ Reply | Options ]both pain threshold and pain tolerance are variable between individuals. it is absolutely true that some women have higher and some lower pain thresholds. this is not debatable. this combines with different labors to create a subjectively different birth experience between women and even within one woman's mulitple birth experiences.
[ Reply | Options ]I had three deliveries, and three very different pain experiences. It is not all subjective. During one delivery I sustained a very severe tear (4th degree I believe is what they called it), tore through to rectum, THAT was excruciating. The baby presented as posterior AND brow, and should have been delivered by C. He has significant disabilities BTW. We will never know for sure what role the delivery might have played in that too. I bled daily from the wound site for a year. I was in a lousy HMO (midwife delivered) and they kept telling me I was just taking a long time to heal from a very difficult delivery. FInally consulted an MD (at my own expense) outside the HMO a year later, and apparently it looked like I had a no-intervention delivery in the wild somewhere, lots of damage to my body. The idea deliveries are only "subjectively" more or less painful is BS. It all depends on how the baby presents, the size of the baby, the size of the mother, and whether or not it is a first delivery.
[ Reply | Options ]i am sorry for your experience. but pain threshold is, by definition, subjective. i agree that more severe medically complicated deliveries are, on average, perceived as more painful than uncomplicated ones. if you took 100 volunteers and gave them a superficial laceration or a full-thickness laceration, i agree that all would report a greater degree of pain with the latter. but that has nothing to do with my point, which I stand by, that pain threshold and pain tolerance are subjective experiences, measurable, but subjectively reported differently by different individuals.
[ Reply | Options ]
okayyyyy, and for anyone who wants the real facts, I urge you to read "pregnancy, childbirth and the newborn" by Penny Simkin. She not only explains everything that could potentially happen with every single intervention you could have, she does it in a way that makes no one feel inferior for their choices
[ Reply | Options ]what's sad to me-- and i have done a lot of professional research in this area-- is that the entire debate so often centers around the epidural. get one, don't, whatever. the word "natural" should be banned. but what's really lame is UNNECESSARY inductions, episiotomies and c-sections. All of those are really unpleasant things (unlike pain medication). And yet us women are all bitching about who was tough enough for the pain. I had births both ways, the pain is ATROCIOUS. I loved my non medicated and medicated birth. What I hated about the medicated birth was the entire experience ASIDE from the epidural. What I loved about my non-pain medicated birth was the entire experience except for the pain (though I will say the post labor pain euphoria does exist and I healed 50 times faster with no meds.)
[ Reply | Options ]I agree with a good 90% of what you're saying, but I don't think most of the women who delivered naturally and are posting about it tonight are priding ourselves on being tough: many of us made a decision that we thought would give us the best chance of avoiding other interventions because we don't have control over a medical system that tends to encourage interventions.
[ Reply | Options ]
Until you've delivered a child naturally, you have no idea how incredibly painful, yet wonderful, the birthing of a human being can be.
[ Reply | Options ]The only thing that mattered to me about my pregnancy was the baby it was going to produce. I understand that some women choose to refuse pain meds and why, but that does not make them better people or better mothers. I really don't get why someone would develop some superiority complex over going without an epi, and judge those who do to boot..
[ Reply | Options ]-
I heard of a woman who delivered an 11lb baby without an epi. Her pelvis broke. Try that without pain meds.
[ Reply | Options ]maybe they'll make a new category for it at the Olympics. Then you all can display your evident superiority to the whole world on television.
[ Reply | Options ]One interesting thing is not the superiority SOME mothers may have about natural childbirth, but the defensiveness of those who did not. Why are women chastising each other for making different choices? It's so pointless.
[ Reply | Options ]ITA. I have had 3 drug-free births and one epidural and I am not smug about either choice. I chose to have drug-free births after the epidural b/c I really did not like the way the epi (and other pain meds) made me feel. I also felt I recovered faster without drugs. I don't understand why EITHER side has to talk down to the other, or why there even have to be 'sides.' We all gave birth. We all have children. The End.
[ Reply | Options ]
UrbanBaby Asks...
Are you expecting something special from your dh for Valentine's Day?
- Yes, and he's in big trouble if he forgets.
- Yes, but it's not something I care about.
- No, thank goodness.
- No, and I'm already fuming. He's so unromantic!
- Don't know...
Already voted? View Results
Flashback
UB Like it's 1776!
Posted September 13, 2007(191 replies)
More reminiscing about laughs on UrbanBaby »
The Kid's Menu
Video: Cooking With Grandma Gigi
Granddaughter Olivia helps make plantation casserole...
Also:Lunchbox Recipes
School Lunch Obsessive (video)
Make your Own Baby Food
Baby Food Taste-Off
Is it wrong to ask minors to mix martinis?
Can you tell a pregnant boozer to stop?
