The other night a guy friend of mine who saw the content of my Facebook page asked me, “so what’s the big deal with all these women and natural childbirth? And why do they feel the need to constantly talk about their birth and to get people to watch their birth videos and stuff?” My first reaction was to say, “You won’t get it, it’s a girl thing and it’s WAY too big of a topic to even get into.”
But then it occurred to me how little the average person knows about the current state of birth in our country. And that the only way to change that is to make it common knowledge and the only way to do that is to speak up and spread the word!
The truth remains that in our society most of us are either uninformed or misinformed. And most of what we think we know has been implanted into us not for the safety and well being of ourselves and our babies but for the monetary gain of the HCA (Hospital Corporations of America) one of the richest and most fraudulent corporations of all time.
I can’t keep quiet any more, this information is too important not to be shared. Women deserve to be given all of the information, only then can they be expected to make truly informed decisions.
Only when women are acting from a place of knowledge and not from fear will we have a real chance to reclaim birth as the sacred and empowering journey that it is meant to be and not as the dire medical emergency that is leaving millions of Mommas traumatized.
We Choose Natural Childbirth Because We Know the Facts
FACT #1- The Current Medically Engineered System of Birth Is Failing Us
In our country we treat birth as if it’s a medical emergency. Instead of allowing normal birth to follow it’s natural process doctors are interfering and are taking over with their own man made technology centered system of birth. As if they can somehow do a better job than nature. These methods are highly intrusive and dangerous. Over half of the women who give birth in the hospitals are leaving feeling abused, mistreated and traumatized. This system is failing us in a BIG way!
- The United States lags behind most other industrialized and even some developing countries in maternal mortality, currently ranking 50th out of 171 countries
- Our current C-section rate is 33% and rising
We Choose Natural Childbirth because it is Our Bodies, Our Babies, Our Experience and Our Choice
FACT #2- “Birth Rape” is Real and It’s Common
Since I have dove into this birth world I cannot believe the stories that I’m hearing every day. We’re seeing our fellow women, our sisters, and our friends going into the hospital to have their babies and coming out completely traumatized by what went on!
They say that they were manipulated by the hospital system and bullied into accepting unnecessary interventions and even c-sections without sound medical reason. The feelings some women have about their negative experiences are overwhelming. Many are claiming birth abuse, and some would even go as far as to say birth “rape” especially if they had instruments placed inside them without their consent.
This (rape) can include having Q-tips, speculums, scissors, forceps, vacuums, fingers, hands, and other objects inserted into a woman’s vagina or being given an enema, IV, epidural, or C-section without their consent.
Having one’s water broken without consent is another example of doctor’s taking control, which is basically what rape is all about. Being coerced, manipulated or deceived so that one will be obedient and go along with these treatments is another form of birth rape. Some even consider making rude and discouraging remarks to influence the mother rather than empower her to be included in the definition. Moving a mother into certain positions without asking and telling her what to do are further examples of mistreatment.
Some deny the existence of birth trauma in mothers or believe that they or exaggerating, especially being that misconduct is rarely reported.
Some 54% of women in one study had grounds for a complaint but did not file.
We Choose Natural Childbirth Because We Will Not Allow Ourselves to be Operated on For Profit
FACT #3- Despite the Poor Quality of Care, Business is Booming & Profits Soar for the HCA (Hospital Corporation of America)
One of the largest hospital operators is a gigantic corporation called the HCA (Hospital Corporation of America) it is one of the most profitable and corrupt multi-billion dollar corporations of all time.
Before you decide to hire them to be in charge of one the most important and monumental experiences of your life, the birth of your child there are a few things that you should know about them.
- The HCA has been investigated by the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Health and Human Services who served search warrants at Columbia/HCA facilities and on dozens of doctors with suspected ties to the company. Following the raids, the Columbia/HCA board of directors forced Rick Scott to resign as Chairman and CEO. Who despite his wrongdoings still made off with $350 million dollars. In 1999, Columbia/HCA just simply changed their name back to HCA, Inc. and went about business as usual
- HCA also admitted fraudulently billing Medicare and other health programs by inflating the seriousness of diagnoses and to giving doctors partnerships in company hospitals as a kickback for the doctors referring patients to HCA. They filed false cost reports, fraudulently billing Medicare for home health care workers, and paid kickbacks in the sale of home health agencies and to doctors to refer patients. In addition, they gave doctors “loans” never intending to be repaid, free rent, free office furniture, and free drugs from hospital pharmacies.
- 2000 and 2002, Columbia/HCA pleaded guilty to 14 felonies.
- In late 2002, HCA agreed to pay the U.S. government $631 million, plus interest, and pay $17.5 million to state Medicaid agencies, in addition to $250 million paid up to that point to resolve outstanding Medicare expense claims. In all, civil law suits cost HCA more than $2 billion to settle, by far the largest fraud settlement in US history.
All of these crimes appear to be aimed at making more money from each patient as possible. Apply this to birth and suddenly the reason for a 33% cesarean rate becomes clear. They have no interest in a simple, intervention free birth but have such a huge interest in interventions that they are willing to risk a $2 billion fine as just a small cost of doing business.
Fact #4- Hospitals Make More Money Off of Birth Than any Other Condition
They have twice as much money coming in from each c-section birth than each natural vaginal childbirth, some employer based health plans give doctors an extra bonus of up a $750 per C-section.
This is a scary thought. We are putting our faith and trust into a system that is not working for us but rather for themselves. This is why you need to analyze for yourself everything that these doctors tell you. They can be crucial in spotting and helping with severe issues, but they also have a terrible record of inflating very minor differences into surgery requiring problems.
Most midwives on the other hand have nothing to gain from advising an intervention, their only motivation would be the wellbeing of the mother and child. This is a crucial separation of interests; it is never good to have the person with the most to benefit from a bad outcome as an advisor.
Hospitals most profitable service is birth; they’re charging a fortune but are delivering poor service. If they were a restaurant chain they would have gone out of business years ago.
But they are a multi-billion dollar business and they have something very powerful on their side: billions of dollars, enough to hire the most expensive cut throat financial consultants there are, people sitting at desks doing nothing but figuring out how they can make the hospitals more money!
They have the ability to manipulate using the oldest tactic in the book, by feeding off of peoples fear. They do this by creating the illusion of danger, they tell us that for one reason or another our bodies are broken but we are in luck because they are there to offer the solution to it, and one they get paid for.
We Choose Natural Childbirth Without Fear
It is the most natural thing in the world for us to have fear about birth. It is something that is huge! We’ve never done it before, it sounds impossible that our bodies would be able to pass another human through them. And then the pain, all the pain we’ve heard about, the anguish the horror stories, and then there are the movie scenes that all tell us that birth is scary and painful! Women are scared to death of giving birth.
And that is why WE are here!
We Share Our Natural Childbirths because…
If We Don’t Tell Women the Truth about Natural Childbirth Then They’ll Never Know!
“Pregnancy is Not a Condition and Birth is Not an Emergency”
I and many other women know this to be true! We know how profound, amazing, empowering, beautiful and completely encompassed in love natural childbirth can be! It is so powerful I feel like it has changed me right down to the core, it has awoken me to this powerful woman that I always thought that I could be but that I now know that I am.
I choose natural childbirth because I want to pass on to my daughter that she too is strong, and to lead by example that when you are faced with the unknown the answer is never FEAR, it is always to trust and believe in yourself.
I choose homebirth because I’ve had hospital “births”
Brilliant post, true of Australian hospitals too.
This article is full of lots of opinion….and by the way, the same fear mongering you are accusing the “big evil doctors” of…..and the whole “employer based health plans” paying bonus’ for c-sections? makes no sense, why would they pay MORE out to the doc. Want the real reason for all of this? Docs getting sued when patients won’t take personal responsibility for their decisions….baby dies, courts are loaded with lawsuits over this and juries are awfully sympathetic to the mother. Put the lawyers on the bottom of the ocean and I bet docs would be far more apt to give us our own voice. You paint some picture that all docs are wringing their hands in the back rooms looking to make money and spew evil into the world. Its idiotic. Nice one sided article…..I wonder if you should sign up to work for CNN, you’d make a good heavily biased reporter.
Mike- Where have you given birth? Oh thats right you probably haven’t. You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Very rarely do law suits against doctors go to court. Risk management and the insurance companies pay them off. Patients will never know if their doctor killed or harmed someone. It happens everyday. I have attended births in the hospital and at home. I have had a hospital birth and a home birth. The only time I have seen a mother and baby die due to complications in childbirth was in the hospital and it was due to doctor and hospital negligence. They killed that mother and baby. That doctor is still practicing and that hospital still has its doors open. And when I worked in the hospital there were many occasions when doctors would look for patients that could easily be persuaded into a c-section even if they did not need one because the hospital needed to make more money. It happened all the time. Don’t believe me? Then go get a job on a labor and delivery floor and open your ears.
What a shock, a man’s name gets posted and suddenly I have no idea what I’m talking about. Interesting. I do have two children and a wife who gave birth to those children who I was with in the room for all of it….you think I have no idea about things because a baby didn’t pop out of me? That is an incredibly short sighted view of the world. Wonder if you just generally hate men?
My wife is a PA and we know lots of great docs, many of whom are OB’s who are by far the MOST SUED docs in the community. The reason it rarely goes to court is because Lawyers LAWYERS are making plea deals just to make a buck. Its sad. I know lots of great OB’s who go weeks into mission fields and do amazing things for people who live in third world country’s who really appreciate the skill they bring to their squalor. Only in America can we blame everyone else for our choices and gripe about it. I get that tragic things happen, tragic things happen with midwives too….
Mike,
No, I do not hate men. I have a wonderful husband and three beautiful children. What I don’t like is men that think they have any clue about what goes on or what does not go on in hospital delivery rooms across the country every day. As a man you will never birth a child, you will never have your genitals cut without your consent, you will never go through birth trauma or be raped during the birth of your child, you will never have a stranger walk into your room and shove their hand up inside you. You have no idea the emotional scars those things leave on women.
I am a former NICU Respiratory Therapist and now a senior midwife student. Why do you think OB’s are the most sued doctor? I am not sure I believe that statistic, but why do you think that would be? Maybe because they screw everything up. They take a completely normal, natural life process and mess it up and injure babies and kill mothers. Yes, tragic things happen to midwives but far less because a midwife knows how to keep her hands to herself.
As a midwife student I too have gone into the mission field and helped deliver babies in 3rd world countries. And in many of those countries it is safer to give birth there than it is here.
Well I agree with your arguement but men DO have their genitals cut without concent. Circumcision happens all the time. Just putting that out there. Another part of unconcious choices made by society.
Wow, this article is one of the most biased ones I’ve seen in a long time! It is condescending and judgmental. You imply that if you don’t chose a natural childbirth, you must be either “misinformed, uninformed” or “acting from a place of fear” as you describe it. Why don’t you throw in some more real studies, or represent the viewpoints of the other side, rather than spewing your one-sided views and calling them ‘facts’.
Yes, the birth-process is highly institutionalized in North America. Yes, there are definite drawbacks to it. Yes, there are definitely women who have negative experiences in the hospital. But there are also many women who give birth in a hospital and have a wonderful experience. Whose babies’ lives are saved by medical expertise.
I’m all for moving towards educating and empowering women that they have a choice in their birth process. But it should come out of a place of considering the pros and cons of both hospital births and home births. Not by citing some fear-inducing reasons against hospital births.
You will probably comment and say that these women are the exception. How would you know? You’re so biased and judgmental, you wouldn’t even be open to hearing a positive hospital birth experience.
I don’t usually respond to articles, but I saw this article on a friend’s facebook and it made my blood boil. As mothers, we should stand united, not point fingers at those who make different decisions than ours.
That was very well said and I totally agree!
Please be more thoughtful about why the author wrote this article. Lovinlife, you say it is biased. Why do you think that?
What if it is just the plain unvarnished truth?
I had 5 babies in the hospital. The first was a typical traumatic hospital birth and I was gassed and the baby drawn out with forceps. (It was long ago in 1962) I was determined to heal that birth and my subsequent 4 hospital births were empowering and mostly intervention free. I thought I knew a lot about birth. I was passionate about it. I was good at it. And I told people how I loved my birth experiences. ( I only knew about those in the hospital)
But years passed and I had the unbelievable privelidge of watching my oldest daughter decide to come home to have her baby in our house. She let me be there and the midwife asked me if I wanted to “catch” the baby. (which of course I did, with the permission of my daugther and her husband)
Once I saw that birth, caught that hot slippery little body in my own hands….. I understood (really for the first time) what the difference was between a home birth and a hospital one.
DAY AND NIGHT. That is the difference. There IS NO COMPARISON. They are really too different things. One is medical and the other is mystical. One is full of fear and strangers making sure everything is going at their schedule while the other is full of peace and patience and faith in a woman’s body.
Please do not comment on how wonderful Hospital birth is unless you have seen with your own eyes what totally blissful experience a home birth can be and generally is. Once you have seen it you cannot UNLEARN it. Most doctors have never seen a home birth.
“April” is obviously passionately interested in helping women find out about the absolute joy of home birth. She may have put you “off” a bit with her exteme opinion. But I have been watching this birth scene for 50 years. Almost every word in her article is something I have seen myself.
A woman cannot trust the medical staff in a hospital to be willing to do a birth her way. THey have their own agenda and the birthing woman is way low on that agenda. Her wishes do not matter and they love to say “Well, you got a healthy baby out of it.”
This is so outrageous I get a bit too passionate just as April does. Of Course we all want a healthy baby. That goes without saying.
We want a good dinner in a restaurant but don’t want to manhandled by the staff in order to eat it.
Birth Rape sounds extreme. The words are meant to shock. But shock is exactly what happens to the women who go innocently to the hospital expectins staff and doctors to be her advocate. She has a rude awakening almost immediately. She is reduced to a number. She is not consulted about much of her treatment. She is told that it is “hospital procedure” and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Well there is. Stay away from the hospital. That is my fervent advice to any healthy woman.
Bonny – to reply to your response, I have actually given birth at home, which makes this so ironic.
What angers me so about this article is that it talks about ’empowering women’, yet goes on to give a completely one-sided view of home births vs. hospital births. There’s no mention of the pros or cons of hospital vs. home births, and only very vague statistics or studies quoted that don’t do much to support April’s arguments. If you want to write an unbiased article, you need to explore both sides, give relevant data and studies to back everything up, and let the reader decide what’s right for them.
You talk about empowering women, yet the article left me feeling anything but. I thought we had come so far as women and the freedom we hav in our decision making, including childbirth. But after reading an article like this, I realize how much further we have yet to go. Empowering is about giving unbiased information and letting the person decide for themselves. Next time you write, keep that in mind before you start pointing your finger.
Alot of this article is talking about the over charging, over medicalization,and sky high c-section rate in corprate America,open your eyes, it’s not about home birth vs hospital birth or birth center birth. It is about what really goes on in american hospitals,and for one, normal healthy pregnancy,does not belong in the hospital.Belive what woman are saying about there birth,interview them,hold there hand while they are in labor,listen to their stories….and then wake up to the truth or sleep thru your life.
I agree with Mike that doctors do everything they do because they have to be covered legally. And that is where my issue is. I don’t want to have a c-section just because that is the safest way for the doctor. I want what is safe for me.
I had major trauma in my first childbirth in a hospital, I have been threatened with c-section for no reason, I have been cut (4th degree episiotomy), my baby had been yanked out with a vacuum (which caused me permanent muscle tear and lifelong incontinence).
So I had my second baby in a birth center, the experience was 180 degrees the opposite.
I encourage everyone to be informed. It is ok if you go to the hospital, as long as you are more knowledgeable on the subject than the doctors and the nurses themselves. That is my opinion.
It’s true that OBs do stuff for legal protection reasons. I’m not sure that they don’t get sued MORE as a result, as that stuff is not evidence-based & is more likely to get bad results. But this is fine for the lawyers, and the hospitals get to charge more, and there’s more morbidity & so more repeat patients, etc. Claims of malpractice are farmed out to for-profit insurance companies; & when births are more expensive, health insurance companies get to raise their rates (not that they can’t/wouldn’t anyway). It’s a great system if you’re out to make gobs of money! It’s the American Way! It is NOT set up to make anyone healthy–which is why 49 countries have better birth results than we do, though we spend at least twice as much on healthcare. If you want good HEALTH, you need a system which has THAT for a top priority–you need single-payer, universal, non-profit healtcare. Which is why the lawyers & insurance companies will fight this tooth & nail.
There is a lot this article DOES NOT mention as well. For instance… The caring compassionate nurses that bend over backwards to make sure your experience is everything you want it to be. Maybe those women that felt taken advantage of didn’t have a properly thought out birth plan. Maybe those women didn’t take enough responsibility in there own health care. Women should take charge in knowing what they want. I don’t know a single hospital that wouldn’t allow you to act out your plan. And the nurses will applaud you when your done. I do agree that the doctors are getting very relaxed with preforming c-sections, only because it is easier and they(the doctors) don’t have to wait as long. It’s easy to point fingers, but I think you should take a good look at yourself first. Also, I think you should research the other side as well…
I am a mother of two, wonderful, perfectly healthy children. My children met all their milestones right on target. I had an epidural with both of them, and pitocin. And I can tell you, I was really glad at about the 24th hour of labor I had that epidural. I was able to relax and rest a little, and I never once felt “raped” or taken advantage of. I knew I wanted an epidural, I did some research on it. I also knew I did not want an episiotomy, I told the doctor, and guess what I didn’t have one. Oh, and after 3 hours of pushing they had to use forceps! Not a suction cup, forceps! They asked my husband and my consent and we agreed. Nothing was done, without first explaining it to me and my husband. We were allowed to ask questions and made informed decisions. That is a little bit of the other side for you.
That is good. But that does not mean that this information is readily available in our society and that it does not happen and that it is not important to discuss these issues. Also it may be said that the other side of the story is readily available and accepted.
You should try watching One Born Every Minute and see if the women wanting natural child births are supported and “applauded” by the nursing staff. Their treatment of mothers wanting a natural child birth is pretty common. I would rethink that comment.
Please, do your research before you bash c-sections or medicated or hospital births. Perhaps look into your rogue and unsavory and uneducated midwives as well as maternal and infant death stats when it comes to home birth. It’s riddled with exploitation of the newborn and the mother, loss and fraud. Birth can be a very real emergency and your head-in-the-clouds comment at the end here would explain why one too many newborns have died–because you didn’t acknowledge the dangerous side of birth–the “emergencies.” Now go get educated and please, no defunct degree-mills! Perhaps you might check out a great resource for some informed and educated perspectives and hardcore statistics to challenge your status-quo: http://www.skepticalob.com
GradSchoolChic,
You are the one that needs to be educated on this topic. Research has proven over and over again that for healthy mothers and babies the safest and healthiest place for a baby to be born is at home. More babies have died in the hospital than at home.
“No, all the existing scientific evidence and all national statistics indicate that homebirth triples the rate of neonatal death. Even studies that claim to show that homebirth is as safe as hospital birth, like the Johnson and Daviss BMJ 2005 study, ACTUALLY show that homebirth with a CPM has triple the rate of neonatal mortality of comparable risk women who delivered in the hospital in the same year.”–SkepticalOB
GradSchoolChic,
It’s a good thing you are in Grad School. Maybe they will teach you how to read a study correctly. For low risk women and babies it has been proven that mortality is lower at home.
Great article April!
@GradSchool? You’re referring us to Dr. Amy? Lol! She isn’t even a practing physician. Not to mention her information is NOT unbiased, she HATES homebirth, homebirthers, and all the like.
@Patricia, I am a victim of birth rape. I had to beg a nurse to stop touching my vagina. I said No! Repeatedly and still she wouldn’t remove her hands from my vagina. There is a police report on file. If that’s not an actual sexual assult I don’t know what is!?
Birth is not life or death, yes death can happen. How many women die from surgical complication post cesrean (check out Ina May’s safe motherhood quilt)?
Homebirth is safe, midwives are not (by and large) uneducated. Most women choosing homebirth have degree. My last midwife had multiple DOCTORS for homebirth clients(often repeat clients)
It shocks me that people deny these experiences, *my* experience because they didn’t have that experience. Just because it doesn’t happen to you doesn’t mean it’s not real. I’ve never had cancer, should I deny it’s exsistence? I’ve never been victim of racisim, should I tell those that have that it’s all inthere heads and Dr. Imawolfinsheepsclothing says so?
Homebirth and natural birth are safe and good choices. Every mother that would like it to be an option should have it as an option. There needs to be a more judicisous use of uintervention, no more big baby induction and cesareans, no more dialate 1 cm an hour, no more taking away a mothers choice.
As long as I feel safe my babies will be born at home, and in the near future I will be able to support women in that same choice as their midwife.
Please indulge me then and show me a study that proves homebirth is as safe/safer than hospital birth. The BMJ study is flawed so we won’t count that one. They compared homebirths attended by a CPM in 2000 to hospital birth stats going back to 1969. If you look at hospital births in the same year (2000) they show that hospital births had lower mortality rates. You also may be interested to know that Johnson and Johnson collaborated with MANA on this study. If a hospital had collaborated with them then i’m sure many of you would find this highly suspect. I hear many claims of numerous studies proving the safety of homebirth but have yet to see one so i’m being totally serious when I ask to see an unbiased study proving the safety of homebirth in the United States.
what does an ‘unsavoury midwife’ look or act like? Just so I can avoid them in the future.
I don’t consider the Skeptical OB to be a reliable source of info if you’re bashing this post. Dr. Amy Tuteur is probably one of the most opinionated, negative people about anything (and everything) that she happens to disagree with. BTW, did you know it’s been rumored that she’s had two natural births herself? You should go ask her about that. *eyeroll*
I am so freaking sick of hearing about birth rape. As someone who has actually been raped and forced to do things no woman should ever have to do out of fear of being beaten to death let me tell you it in no way compares to anything you described. Please stop comparing your bad birth experience to the very real hell other women have to live through. It’s disgusting and ignorant.
Patricia,
Birth rape is real. It is trauma. Women suffer from PTSD from it for years. I have witnessed women going through birth rape. Rape is sexual assault whether that is penetration through sexual intercourse or with an object or with your hand. Consent is not obtained. I have seen many women raped during birth, their consent was not obtained and they were assaulted. They went through hell. What is disgusting is that you would downplay what these women have gone through.
REALLY? Until you live through a real rape you have no clue. Rapists get off on the pain they are inflicting on their victims. Last I checked I had never heard of a doctor kicking a patient in the ribs or bashing their head into the wall just for the pleasure of it. Rape is not a word to just throw around because it causes people to think it’s no big deal when it really does happen. Oh she was raped? No big deal. Women throw that word around for everything. Seriously…. Get a clue.
I have lived through a “real rape”. I was held captive in my own home for two days and repeatedly forced to endure sex acts at the whim of the man who had me there. Please do not disregard the pain and terror of women who went through something similar simply because it was in a medical setting. If you have been raped, then surely you know all too well the pain, misery and struggle that follows it with people who want to pick things apart to tell you how it wasn’t rape, you brought it on yourself, you didn’t fight back hard enough, you’re exaggerating, or that you should just be thankfully to be alive and get over it. Survivors of any kind of abuse need to come together, not pick apart over semantics. No adult of sound mind should ever be forced into something they absolutely do not consent to.
I was raped repeatedly for years and suffer from multiple personalities due to it. Birth Rape is very real and happens daily. Even if you have a birth plan, doula, educated husband, and a midwife. It still can happen. The best thing you can do is stay the heck out of the hospital. My next birth will be my healing birth. I have learned my lesson. Healthy pregnancy’s have no business being in the hospital.
Patricia,
You must have dressed a certain way or seduced your attacker. You must have asked to be treated the way you were.
Now, how does that feel? In essence that is what you are saying to women who have endured rape in a hospital setting. You seriously need to get a clue.
I’m very sorry for anyone who has been raped. It’s awful and I would not wish it on anyone. That being said…. I understand that sometimes a birth experience can be traumatic. I understand that sometimes doctors and nurses can be rude or even rough. However most of the claims of “birth rape” I have read were stories about women who’s birth plans were not honored or respected. They asked not to have their cervix checked but the nurse did it anyway because it was hospital policy. A woman feels violated because she needed a c-section and felt like she had no control over her birth. Nurses didn’t explain what they were doing before they did it. That sort of thing is not rape. They are not sexual or violent in nature. They may have been uncomfortable and women my have felt they didn’t have control over what was happening with their body but they were not being attacked in a sexual manner. There are a lot of anti-hospital attitudes on here (this doesn’t really shock me considering the website) but let me tell you that awful things happen with midwives as well. Look at the new story posted on the Hurt By Homebirth website. It’s stunning in it’s sadness. And can I just ask… Where did anyone get the idea that I thought any woman “asked for it” regarding any experience? I don’t understand where that came from because I never once said anything like that. I simply aired my disgust at the term “birth rape”
Thanks for your comments Patricia. I did get a clue when I interviewed women who experienced traumatic births and there is no difference to the experiences and lifelong impact psychologically between birth trauma and rape. Whether the terminology is liked or not this is the impact and the similar destruction to relationships, interactions with peers, isolation, shame, anger, guilt, issues with self worth, ability to live in a functioning way.
Rape is also a legal term that is defined by three elements:
Penetration of ANY orifice by ANY object,
Force or threat of force, or
Sexual contact against the will of the victim.
I think hospital staff gets into the routine and so it isn’t thought of as violent or harmful but this is why it needs to be talked about. Hospital staff need to be informed and know that a womens anatomy is sacred and private and they SHOULD ask permission before doing any kind of exam. I worked in the medical field for a long time and it is well known that you do not perform an exam of that nature without verbal concent. It’s carelessness and sometimes laziness that causes us to disregard a patients feelings.
As we all know, rape is more of an act of violence, power and control, than it is an act of sex. Birth rape IS “real” rape, if one person is forcing another person to do something against their will. Plain and simple.
I’ve heard from people who have suffered rape AND birth trauma, and agreed that both of them are basically rape. Rape doesn’t necessarily have to happen with a penis.
While I am sorry you went through what you did, could you imagine someone telling you to your face, “I’m so sick of hearing about rape. Get over it.” One person’s trauma may not be the same as another’s, but it doesn’t make what happened to that person any less real.
I have been raped and sodimized voilently at gunpoint. It is a traumaic ife altering event. Just because the person forcingtheir hand or instrument into your genitalia is threatening your baby’ safety and not yur own does not make it any less of an assault or a threat.
In any other circumstance for one man or woman to touch your genitalia or apply foriegn object to said genitalia while you repeatedly say no stop and try to move away is rape. Birth rape does exist.
WHile atempting to apply a fetal heart rate monitor to my sons scalp wile i was labor I repeatedly asked heDr to stop he was hurting me. I was cying and trying o move away finlly i kicked im in the face. He stopped. a different dr then took the timeto calm me down and re-attempt the procedure. I was still scared but dr nber 2 listened and was able t apply the electrode wih out causing me pain and while respecting my right to refuse at any point. I was afraid of Dr number one and dd not let him near me again.
This is a great article. To the people bashing it I think they are just bitter about their birth experiences and/or brainwashed to believe doctors are Gods. People will do anything no matter how absurd to avoid facing the truth. This system in America is completely out of control only benefiting the monetary agenda. I don’t know how much more evidence people need. The numbers do not lie. I see a woman commented she loved the epidural and the forceps. I feel so sorry for the baby’s life long spiritual and mental trauma that will always be in their subconscious do to that unnecessary intervention. I’m so happy to see all the people who are awake. Also all the documentaries that keep being made such as “Pregnant In America” and “The Business of Being Born”, “Orgasmic Birth”, etc. Many others are in the make too.
What numbers are you talking about? I loved my hospital experience and I can assure you that neither my child or myself will be suffering from lifelong spiritual or mental trauma. I don’t think doctors are gods (how silly!) but I do think they know more about medicine than Ricki Lake. There is a lot of agenda pushing and opinions in BOBB and Pregnant In America but not a lot of evidence based science. Just remember that most documentaries will only show you what they want you to see so you shold watch with a skeptical eye.
*should
What a great article, many woman go into a hospital setting because they believe they are going to be safe and cared for, and can often end up disoolusioned and confused as to why things went wrong. Home is where a healthy pregnancy and birth belongs. OH and I DO believe that having someone shove their hand inside you without your permission, REGARDLESS of intention, is a form of sexual abuse – hence the term rape.
When I got pregnant, I knew exactly what I wanted. I knew I was going to birth naturally, without any drugs or medical procedures. I was going to have a HypnoBirth.
I had heard over and over the many horror stories from friends, family and birthing blogs about hospital births. I was so scared. I was so scared I did an immense amount of research of what I wanted and didn’t want during my labor, birth and recovery. I went nuts. My birth plan was 7 pages long! I spoke to my OB at every visit about every little detail. She listened to me and treated me with respect.
When the big day arrived, I birthed the most beautiful baby girl. I had the birth of my dreams. It was in a hospital with an OB and a nurse. Both women respected my wishes – squat bar, low lights, no talking, no coaching, leave umbilical cord attached, skin to skin contact, no rubbing, no bath, etc. My dream come true. It was beautiful.
Educate yourself. Talk to your OB. Go to the hospital and talk with the delivery nurses. When I did, all the nurses were so excited I was planning a HypnoBirth! I received so much support and love from my OB and nurse. This was 8 months ago. Maybe things are changing in hospitals. I did not run into any ‘problems’ with what I wanted or how I wanted to birth. Everyone was so supportive.
If you had a terrible hospital birth, then birth at home, or where ever you feel safe, comfortable and supported. Decide for yourself. Educate yourself. But it is possible to have a natural, beautiful hospital birth.
Cheers.
You are definitely one of the rare and the few. I was told everything would be respected and it wasn’t. I also had a long birth plan and was educated.
I don’t think her experience was rare. There are MANY women who have great hospital experiences. That doesn’t mean we should discount those that have bad experiences, because they certainly deserve a voice, but to act as if a good hospital experience is few and far between is erroneous.
I can’t say that I’ve had traumatic births, however I have had traumatic prenatal care. For both my first and second child, I had horrible prenatal care until I switched to midwives. Both were born in a birth center with CNM’s. A little more med-wife than midwife, however the best situation for me at the time. EVERY ob/gyn doctor that I have seen whether pregnant or not I have felt violated, raped, ignored, abused and treated as though I’m worth less than my insurance that paid them. I had my 3rd child at home, just myself and my husband. It was the BEST birth experience I’ve ever had, and my son is now 3 months old, super healthy and very happy. Neither of us had any problems that would have resulted had I gone to the Military hospital that I was “required” to go to. (they had already told me -before examining me- that they would do a cesarian on me; no reason was given.) If a woman is healthy and capable of giving birth at home, why shouldn’t she?
great article!
I am frustrated by this article because I would have loved to have a ‘natural birth’ but would have lost my baby and possibly my life had it not been for the hospital and doctors. I think we need to stop making women feel like they are less of a woman or that they made a bad choice because they were not able to have a natural birth. Kuddos to those who have had natural births and kuddos to those who have not….let’s celebrate the fact that we have choices and that no matter how we choose to deliver our children we are all amazing!
Great article I enjoy your entire website.
The victim blaming that goes on within discussions of obstetric violence is disturbing. It must be the victim’s fault b/c she wasnt educated or prepared enough, she didnt pick the right hospital or OB, she didnt stand up for herself, she didnt have a good support team, she was hysterical, she is exaggerating or making it up etc etc.
This victim blaming happens for the same reason that people blame rape victims for being raped, its b/c they dont want to admit to themselves that it could happen to them.
Women shouldnt have to have a body guard to give birth in a hospital. Every woman deserves to be treated with respect by her caregivers, and given informed consent about any and all interventions used during her time in the hospital.
I just don’t understand people who make comments like “I had a great epidural/induced/episiotomy/forceps/vacuum/c-section birth and I wasn’t raped so these women must have done something wrong and it doesn’t exist cause it didn’t happen to me!” Well, awesome for you, truly. But it does NOT mean that the trauma other women, dads, and babies are experiencing isn’t real.
I choose natural childbirth because birth is safe. Interference is risky.
First of all, I learned at a very early age that name calling and being uncivil to one another is a sure sign of ignorance, and that if we hope to move forward in this world we need to learn how to effectively communicate with each other. With that being said I love that this discussion is taking place!
Yes indeed this article is one sided, it is the side that is rarely spoke about, at least not publicly. We’ve all heard that hospitals are a safe place to give birth, they have your best interest in mind etc etc…But this unquestioned belief is what has lead us to these poor outcomes.
I do not think Doctors are evil. I think Doctors are human, there are good humans and not so good humans, Doctors are no different. Some Doctors are in it for themselves and some are in it to truly help people.
But I can tell you that the company that most of those Doctors are working for is in it for themselves. And they are still just pawns in the game. They act in accordance to what they were told in school without ever questioning it. This learning is almost entirely focused on the technological model of care, the same one that has gotten us in this poor state to begin with.
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
~ Albert Einstein
Mommas your job is not to believe everything I tell you, or anybody else tells you for that matter, your job is to question and keep questioning until you find the answer that you intuitively connect with.
It may be possible to have a good natural childbirth in the hospital, but is it worth the risk?? Just know that you will have to do all of the educating yourself, the doctors are only going to give you thier side of the arguments. Find out all of the facts and risks about every test and intervention, and all the alternatives.
If you are seriously considering natural childbirth in the hospital, I urge you to do what I did. Do your prenatal care with a Midwife that is not associated to a hospital and a typical OB Doctor, and then decide who you believe to be most knowledgeable and educated about the natural birth process, and who will be in it for YOU and YOUR BABY, and not themselves for whatever reason be it money or liability. Because you and your baby are the important ones here!
Beautifully said!
I live in a country where home birth is still very common and advocated, the Netherlands. The whole system of midwivery is adapted to this, homebirth. If you wish to give birth in a hospital without prior medical indication, you actually have to pay extra because your insurance wont cover.
I am shocked to read how childbirth is so much institutionised and hospitalised in your countries, that you actually have to fight for your right to give birth in a loving and nurturing environment: Home, or wherever else you feel best.
In most cases all that birth needs, is a trusting mother that is able to flow with her instincts. Take care of the mother, listen to her needs. and you’re in the best starting position to deliver a child.
Take an example of the Dutch home birthing midwivery system. It works!
Good luck. And even though its hard, try to highlight more the positives of home birth, and less the negatives of hospitals.
Eva. Mother of a 3 year old, after a wonderful home birth experience. Amsterdam,the Netherlands.
Thanks Eva for your comments. I completely agree. I did my bachelor of Midwfery with honours in the UK. The community I trained in had a high homebirth rate (over 30%) with good outcomes for women and babies. I beleive in choice for women. The frustration may be that I know a better way, that can involve more control, greater information, lower levels of emotional/psychological issues in the postnatal period.
For those of you advocating the technological hospital model of care I urge you to watch this video of how our babies are being handled in the hospital and then honestly tell me that this is the BEST way to be doing things! http://vimeo.com/5695045
Hmmmm….This article and all of the comments below make me never want children because of the horrors in the hospital and the risk of death at home….thank you everyone!
Educate yourself. Knowledge is power.
Look. Mike, you can have an opinion. But the fact is, this article is full of truth. And, yes, as a man, you will NEVER fully understand what it means to give birth. My partner was with me the entire time I labored and delivered our son in a hospital. I was traumatized and suffered from severe PPD for nearly a year afterward. He struggled to understand. Our son spent 4 1/2 days in the NICU for what I believe to be as a direct result of interventions. Do you have ANY idea how many nurses, doctors and PAs deliver at home or in birth centers because they KNOW what goes on in hospitals? I’m really glad you and your wife had a good experience, twice. I know a lot of people do, but the fact is, the system IS broken and a lot of women suffer from it and the lack of compassion. Most women in this country are sorely misinformed about what birth really should be and what hospitals do. The basic philosophy of OBs is that a ‘normal pregnancy is a retrospective diagnosis’. From a midwifery/natural birth point of view, all pregnancies and births are normal until proven otherwise. The c/s rate in this country is out of control. NICU admittances are out of control. Women receiving pitocin at some point during their labor is around 80%! 80%??? You’re telling me it is perfectly acceptable to believe that 80% of women are incapable of laboring normally? Of delivering their child and placenta without intervention? It’s total crap.
The thing is, you and your wife are obviously pleased with the way things went for you (BTW, L&D staff are usually much less pushy with people they know to hold a medical degree of some sort). And since you had such a good time, you have had NO reason to do the research that this author, or I, or a host of other people have done into the travesty that is hospital birth in the US. The WHO has compiled numbers on the safety of birth in various countries (including perinatal and maternal death rates) and the US is consistently boasting some of the highest numbers.. For a country that has such a ‘safe’ and ‘high tech’ birth system, those numbers should be quite the opposite, right? Instead, as the author said, birth is treated like an emergency, rather like an illness, and it leads to all kinds of unnecessary interventions.
Bravo to the author of this post. We are expecting number two in November and planning a peaceful homebirth.
Are you SURE yr baby would’ve died, or is that just what the OB told you? Did you get a copy of yr hospital records, & do you understand them? I only ask because I got bullied into an “emergency” c/sec (my ICEA childbirth “education” course had said, “if yr dr says you need a c/sec, you have to sign yr consent.” Nothing about having the right to refuse, or getting as many 2nd opinions as you like, or signing yrself out against medical advice.) I found out, after I got my hospital records, it wasn’t REALLY an emergency–in one place, it was called “elective”!!!!!!! Which proves the point of the article: most women DO NOT HAVE A CLUE, and would be better served by those who do not have a financial (or medicolegal-protection) interest in c/sec.
You might very well have needed yr c/sec–they ARE necessary for about 5-8% of the birthing population–but NO WAY are they necessary for over 30%!!!!!
If this article is based solely on opinion then why is it that 1 in 3 hospital births result in a c-section? Whereas 1 in every 150 something home births end in a beautiful natural birth! Why because we have no doctors rushing us to give birth. Birth at home or even laboring at home is not a big deal because you are not taking up a bed, time and resources. Instead in a hospital you are rushed to give birth. You are giving pitocin which is the start to an ugly cycle which most of the time ends in a c-section.
Wow, some of the comments on here are pretty rude for sure. “All truth passes through 3 stages, 1st it is ridiculed, 2nd it is violently opposed, 3rd it is accepted as being self-evident.” – Arthur Schopenhauer.
This article is fabulous. I was not sick when I was pregnant, nor was I injured, therefore there was no reason for me to go to a hospital to birth my daughter. Laboring and birthing my daughter was not an emergency, hospitals are for emergencies! Our bodies know what to do, women have been birthing babies naturally for years.
@Patricia, your words do NOT speak to all women who have been raped. I have been raped and I am also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I also know that it is a fact that homebirth can be very healing for those who have been raped or sexually abused. It was for me and many other women feel the same. Birth rape is also VERY real for those who have experienced it. Let’s not take away from the women who have been through a very traumatic situation too.
“Unfortunately, the role of obstetrics has never been to help women give birth. There is a big difference between the medical discipline we call ‘obstetrics’ and something completely different, the art of midwifery. If we want to find safe alternatives to obstetrics, we must rediscover midwifery.” – Dr. Michel Odent, M.D.
For everyone that is hating on this article, you need to watch this, One World Birth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCPZrK8C2ZY&feature=youtu.be
“Birth isn’t something we suffer, but something we actively do, and exult in.” – Sheila Kitzinger
Since many commenters on here keep asking where is the proof, etc., etc., I think it would be important for those of you to watch the documentaries “Orgasmic Birth” and “The Business of Being Born”. This way, you can be empowered by educating yourself, instead of relying on us to give you that information (since you keep asking this thread to “show you the proof”. Do your own research, WE HAVE, knowledge is power.
For those of you who keep saying this article is incorrect and misleading, here is some fabulous info on why interventions ARE so dangerous http://erinmidwife.com/2011/03/31/if-i-were-at-home-i-would-have-died/ “Homebirth and hospital birth are supported by two divergent models of care. The homebirth model subscribes to the philosophy of don’t fix what isn’t broken: natural processes generally work best when they are not interfered with. The medical model subscribes to the (more profitable) philosophy of action: pregnancy and birth are conditions that require fixing. All actions and interventions have consequences. Many of the interventions in a typical hospital birth cause complications, like hemorrhage. These interventions do not happen at home.”
“When you hear someone say “I would have died if I had a homebirth” or “my baby would have died” please remember that these are very emotionally charged sentiments. You can’t simply cut and paste all the circumstances surrounding a given hospital birth, superimpose them on a homebirth setting, and predict the same outcome — or vice versa. The models of care are too divergent. Women can die from birth complications in any setting, and our hospital death rate from birth-related causes is indefensibly high. We know that low-risk women are as safe, if not safer, birthing at home.”
And another article, “Homebirth is Safer, Cheaper and Can End Disparities in Moms Dying” http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/04/childbirth_care_and_access_to_midwives.html
Like Ina May Gaskin said, “”If you keep women afraid, you can make a lot of profit.”
“We are responsible to the next generation of birthing women. Let is be known that we did not watch in silence as birthing rights were taken away.” – Tracy Wilson Peters
Since many commenters on here keep asking where is the proof, etc., etc., I think it would be important for those of you to watch the documentaries “Orgasmic Birth” and “The Business of Being Born”. This way, you can be empowered by educating yourself, instead of relying on us to give you that information (since you keep asking this thread to “show you the proof”. Do your own research, WE HAVE, knowledge is power.
Sooo… You can take the time to quote Ina + Odent (Odent who thinks having the father in the room while a woman is giving birth increases her chances of needing a c-section… among other crazy things..)but you can’t refer someone to a study showing the safety of homebirth? Watching the BOBB or an orgasmic birth video does not make you educated. Don’t most NCBs say they want to spread the word about how safe homebirth can be? So why wouldn’t you want to share information? I have looked for such a study and have not found one (aside from the flawed BMJ paper)so is it wrong to ask to see these numerous studies so many claim to have seen? MANA did a huge study comparing homebirths to hospital births in order to prove the safety of homebirth… but when they were finished they refused to release the results. If that study really proves that homebirth is safer than hospital birth why would they be hiding the results? Does no one question that?
Yes Finally good to hear this coming from the US since our culture is so influenced by the US.
I went to the Family Birth Centre at KEMH and it was fantastic, a home-style birth suite where the medical stuff is kept away in cupboards til needed. The “real” hospital is next door in the unlikely event that something does need to be done.
I had a fantastic team of midwives, one or two there when i gave birth each time, my husband and children stayed with me. It was nice being able to share the bed for a normal night of sleep. They were so supportive & encouraging. The doctor only came in to wish us well when we were leaving, My kids played during and after my labour. They were welcomed & present for the birth(with preparation) It was the best of both worlds for me (home & whatever needed) ..Fully paid by medicare – I’m happy to pay tax to preserve this special care to be accessable to all women regardless of income. I wish more women had access to this type of care (especially like me since I live a long way from the hospital)
i was reading this after being posted on a friends facebook and it made me angry…..some of us dont have a choice to have a natural birth. you make it sound like we all have a choice and thats not true. if i would have had my baby at home well we wouldnt have made it. she was stuck there was no if ands or buts about it…and when i go to have another baby it will be c-section my bones dont open to let them come through. my drs gave me every chance to have her natural and when she got stuck they took me to the er. i think your artical is full of you opinions and what you believe and your trying to pass them off as facts. my drs were fantasic and were always ready to talk to me if i called (which they dont get paid for) or visited the office. i give them all the credit for making sure me and my daughter we safe and healthy. you should have put that this is your opinion and you want people to know your opinion and not this is fact this is whats happening.
Amanda,
Your bones don’t open? That is not possible since your pelvis is made up of joints. Unless your doctor did a full series of x-rays he/she can not know for sure that your pelvis was narrow which is when babies get stuck. Since you had your baby in a hospital you were probably flat on your back which closes up your pelvis instead of letting it open fully. If you were able to get in a better position such as a squat or on hands and knees you might have been able to have your baby vaginally. Also, if you were at home you would not have died nor would your baby. If your baby truly was not coming out vaginally at that point your midwife would have transported you to the hospital.
no my pelvic bone doesnt move…im not stupid and had 3 drs tell me this is why she got stuck. my moms doesnt move either and she had to have all of us by csection. normal pelvic bones open up like pliers my doesnt move at all…she could not get passed my hips. i was not flat on my back they tried different positions and i tried for hours to have her but she couldnt pass that bone. i know this was a possibility because i had trouble getting pregnant and they did so many tests on me before that he told me that it was a possibility. but we tried anyway…i also know that when the time comes for us to have another baby i will have to have it csection…i can go into labor but they will never come out. as for home birth i live 45 min from the nearest hospital and if i would have to call an ambulance add another 45 min to that so i wanted to know i was somewhere safe and with people and equipment in case of the worst. im all for people having their own opinions an options….it just upsets me when they say csections are not nessisary and that babies will comen when they are ready and that is not always the case.
oh and i do understand that some people have horrible experiance and im so sorry for that…dont put down all hospitals drs and nurses….i had complete control till she got stuck…i had wonderful nurses, fantastic drs, and a great midwife that helped me 1 get pregnant, 2 through my pregnancy and all my dumb questions, and 3 through the birth and after. they were wonderful with sophia and all had to come see her before we left. i also had bp trouble so i couldnt really do anything for the first day cause i had to lay till it came down and they were wonderful and helpful teaching my husband how to burp her and change her since i couldnt move.
You may have a platypoid or android shaped pelvis or maybe during labor your doctor determined Cephalopelvic Disproportion was the reason labor wasn’t progressing (or not *shrugs* I don’t know half of what a doctor knows about these things so i’m only guessing) Whatever the cause sometimes the baby just can’t pass through and the woman will need to deliver via c-section. If that’s the case it’s nothing that you could have avoided so don’t listen when people tell you that you didn’t try hard enough or that the doctor “had it out for you” – actually Lisa, a doctor can usually tell early on in your pregnancy by doing a pelvic exam if you are likely to have trouble delivering. No x-rays needed. That may be why a c-section gets brought up early on in some cases (so women are prepared for every possible outcome on delivery day) – I know not everyone wants to acknowledge this but sometimes the baby does get stuck and needs help coming out. Plus you can’t tell someone that a midwife will make the decision to transfer if needed because you don’t know if that’s true. We can all HOPE that a midwife would know when to transfer but I have heard plenty of stories where the midwife doesn’t want to transfer (even when something is obviously wrong)and actually belittles the woman for asking to go to the hospital. At least in the hospital you can ask for someone else if you are getting bad care. At home with a midwife you are stuck with her regardless of her knowledge or bedside manner.
Patricia,
You can only know what type of pelvis a woman has with 100% certainty by doing a series of x-rays. Yes, a pelvic exam will help give clues but it is not definite. Also, in a homebirth there are always 2 midwives present and a lot of times another assistant or student midwife. I have never known a midwife that would not transport if the mom needed to be transported. A midwife is not going to put her license in jeopardy by keeping someone at home that needs a higher level of care. And no, even in the hospital you can not ask for a different doctor. Many times there is not another doctor present that could just take over your case.
What exactly is your beef with homebirth, Patricia? If you don’t agree with it or its not for you, then fine have your baby in the hospital but quit trying to tear down choices for other women. Babies are born safely at home everyday and babies die everyday from medical mistakes in the hospital. Those are facts. I have seen both sides first hand.
Amanda,
Yes c-sections are sometimes needed but they are not needed the majority of the time. And they certainly are not needed in 30% of births which is the average c-section rate in this country. There are reasons why the World Health Organization has told the United States to lower the c-section rate to 15%.
Also, if you had been at home and needed to transfer you don’t have to call an ambulance. You get in the car and drive to the hospital. I have attended homebirths for years and have never been involved with a case that required transportation via ambulance. If a baby is not descending for whatever reason that is not a life or death emergency.
im just saying in my case it wasnt possible to have a home birth nor would i have chosen a home birth….i wanted to be where their was a medical team and equipment to handle any situation that came up and thats what was right for me. i live way to far away from a hospital incase a situation would arise i didnt want to risk her life. in my situation i was put in the hospital i had an extreamly high bp two days before my due date and when i was in the drs office he told me we had to get it down and usually that means the baby needs to come out. i trusted my dr with my life he was with me and is the one that found out i had pcos. he listened to me and he did what i wanted. he let me try but even before i was pregnant while doing all the tests i had he told me their was a chance i would not have her naturaly how he explained it to me was my pelvis was fused there was a medical term but cant remember it off hand. he drew me a picture. so i wanted to try to have her and he did they let me i labored for hours pushed for hours but there was no point she was not or never would come out that way. i had seen other drs durring my pregnancy and even a midwife and they all told me that i would never have a baby vaginaly there was no way. i know there are csections preformed that are not needed i know people that opted for a csection never even trying…but thats their choice not mine to make. home births are great for some people and theres risk involved with that also….hospital births are right for some people and things can happen to. i know there are people who had horrible experiances both ways but i had an awesome experiance having sophia…..i loved my drs (i had two on my team that day who talked to eachother of and on all that day with what was happening and how to handle it) i had a great medical team in ld and in the or who was great with sophia…laughed at her cause she peed twice in the or….snuggled her and made over her. i just dont think you should put down people for having hospital births or csections….you want us not to put you down for home births but give us the same respect. dont act like you know everything about one my body telling me that its not possible for my bones not to move i saw the records for both drs…or that csections are not needed….if that is the route i have to go to have safe and healthy babies its painful couldnt move for weeks but i would do it 100 times for her. r u going to tell me im wrong for going with fertility treatments?? since it didnt happen naturally??
oh and it was that she was not decending she was stuck in the pelvic bone and was pushing herself so hard that she has and still does a mark on her head for where she was pushing into the bone. i couldnt have sat in a car for 45 min to get to a hospital i never screamed no epidural or anything i did my breathing and focusing to help me through labor i didnt get anything till she got stuck and when she would push it would bring me off the bed and they took me to the er they gave me a spinal.
patricia: im not sure what it was called he did tell me this long medical term but he described it as it was fused…and that its really small up in there that even when i would get and exam and they used the whatever its called its so painful for me. thats when he told me that he was almost positive that she would never come out and that was when i was trying to get pregnant. i personal dont understand the whole rape thing they are talking about and im not putting anyone down i just never felt like that was the case…i had so many test done before like my uterus was scraped and tubes flushed and ultra sounds…i had to have an exam every month while i was on clomid to get pregnant that i guess it was second nature to me and they were doing what they needed to do to make sure i was good to go. like i said i had an awesome dr who was there to help us get pregnant and through out the whole thing and even came by to visit sophia and made me take her in to see him when i got my staples out. im sorry to those who didnt have a good birth experiance. but i know i made the right choice for me and sophia…and when im ready to try for baby number 2 i know my dr and hospital.
I only got about halfway through the comments, I plan to finish them tonight when I get home from work. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion about whether homebirth or hospital birth is right for them. Although I 100% agree with informing mothers of their risks and options, nobody gets to decide what’s right for other people and shaming them into doing what you’d prefer is disrespectful.
I do have to say that there seems to be a lot of hypocrisy here. On one side of the coin a lot of the people who prefer home birth are arguing that it’s ok for them to have the birth plan and experience that they prefer. And I couldn’t agree more. But you can’t turn that coin over and tell people who choose hospital birth that they don’t deserve the same courtesy and respect. Many many women have perfectly pleasant hospital birth experiences so painting doctors as people who sit in a dark room toiling their hands and waiting for gleeful moment when they can force you into a c-section just doesn’t ring true for them.
If you want women to be more informed about their birthing options then you need to learn the difference between impassioned informative speech and hyperbolic opinion. To be clear, I’m not just talking about this article or the comments here, but for a lot of the motherhood rhetoric that is blowing up the scene these days.
Believe me, I absolutely love learning about different ways of doing things; I’m not one to stick with the status quo just because it’s there. When I looked for a doctor I found one who’s compassionate, caring and a contributing member of the International Cessarian Awareness Network. I don’t want a homebirth because that’s not what *I* feel comfortable doing and the more comfortable you feel in your environment the better the birth will go. But I did research and find a doctor and hospital that suits my informed needs. I don’t think that anyone has the right to tell me that’s not what I “should” do. I am PRO homebirth but that doesn’t mean I’m ANTI hospital birth and vice versa.
Oh some of these comments have made my heart hurt. April wrote the article to explain WHY we choose natural childbirth so of course it is one-sided. It is promoting natural childbirth which has been proven to be the safest route for both mother and her child. I don’t think she or anyone else is out to berate others for the choices they have made or will make. The point is to educate and then women are free to make their own choices. She is simply stating why women choose the natural route.
If you’re happy with your birth experience, whether it was at home or in a hospital or if it was vaginal or a cesarean then that is wonderful. None of us want to make others feel horrible for their positive birth experiences no matter how they came about.
April is simply stating her side of the coin since most people don’t understand why women would choose pain over comfort (natural versus meds/epidural) or why they would choose home over the hospital.
I have had a natural hospital birth so I do know and understand that it is possible but is definitely more difficult to obtain in a hospital setting without a great support team (believe me – I switched to midwives at 37 weeks pregnant with my third for that natural birth!). I’ve switched to a birth center this fourth birth of mine for a more homelike birth experience amongst women with the same birth philosophies as myself to avoid unnecessary trauma to both me and my baby.
I love the comment from the woman from The Netherlands- oh how I wish America saw birth as you see in your country! There would be less deaths and less PPD, etc., etc.
Thank you for the blog. I birthed 4 of my children at home and have always found it frustrating that almost no one wanted to hear much about my birth stories. Most wanted to tell me I was “brave” and that they would have died or their baby would have died had they not had the intervention or doctors, then they promptly changed the subject. This blog says what I want to say as well. We have thought our choices out, we have researched and we have come to a conclusion. Our stories matter and must be heard as well. We are in the minority a very small minority and we have to yell loudly to let others know that they have choices and rights during childbirth. A minority does not have to give equal time to the majority as we hear that opinion all the time. We have the data we have the clinical living proof in our very arms. This does not take away from any woman’s story but adds to the awesome story of women. I appreciate that their are skilled Ob’s that can save lives (sometimes) in the very rare cases when that something goes wrong. Having said that treating everyone like things are going to go wrong makes no sense. I too have lost 2 children ….in the hospital where I found that they don’t have all the answers which left me free to pursue a different path of homebirth.
Wanted to also encourage some points of this article by something I just coincidentally came across today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/22/opinion/22krugman.html?_r=3
Unfortunately it DOES boil down to money. Birth is business and it pays the most.
A great article! My husband and I are expecting our first child this fall. Having watching friends and family members have horrible hospital experiences, we decided to research other options. We are having a home birth with a wonderful, highly skilled midwife.
I wish more expecting couples would take time to research the options in their area, read articles like these, delve into hospital data, and make decisions for a healthier birth experience. Our biology, mother nature, has prepared women to bring forth life, without the need for medical interventions (for the majority of women).
Thank you for posting this.
Remember….”opinions are like butt holes…everybody’s got one!” It’s good to be informed and research and publish and all…however, don’t assume people who have read up on what you are saying is “uninformed or misinformed” aka: ignorant…there are those who just feel more secure in a hospital setting, period end of story. Most people who I’ve met with your opinion are pushy with their opinion and won’t take the opinion of those who oppose, as an answer. “To each his own”…take your research and facts and present them as just that…research and fact, in return people will be more willing to listen. Just saying…best wishes with your children! 🙂 Mine are just fine too….(I had them in a hospital…tisk tisk!)
I was raped and assaulted during my hospital birth. I had planned a physiologcal birth, but the ‘care’ team had other ideas. In the end I was physically held by two men whilst a third performed an internal exam and then another did a spinal as I was forced into a section. I was given a choice – have a spinal or we will knock you out… Some choice! I still have nightmares. At the time we were told that there was danger to our baby, but my notes say that I had gone over the hospital’s 12 hour labour policy. This was in the UK in 2004. Do I feel raped and assaulted? Yes. I went on to have a home VBAC, where my baby and I were MUCH safer. If you really want statistics there is plenty of great research which planned shows home birth to be safe, and probably safer than hospital birth. It is actually very rare for birth to go wrong by itself, it would not make for the successful species the human race undoubtedly is. It is very common for the current system of birth in he west to make birth go wrong… Ina May is a good place to start reading!
I find it so funny that people get so enraged at this post. If you care to look at the website it cleary states that this is a blog. I think that means that the author can write whatever the hell she wants. It’s not an article from some major newspaper. Lighten up people. If you don’t like what is being said then don’t read the post or the blog. And when was it a crime to be passionate about something you care about.
I am a home birther, a huge advocate, and a lover of midwives. Though I agree with much of the content of this post, I find it quite biased and hyperbolic. If I were new to the discussion of birth practices I would find this very extreme and reactionary — and probably doubt the veracity of many of the claims. Since you start the post outlining your desire to educate people who haven’t thought about these issues, you should probably tone down the anti doctor/hospital rhetoric a little bit, and present your stats/facts in a more relevant and clear fashion. (i.e. Besides being a poorly run business, how is are HCA’s practices specifically relevant to this conversation. It’s not really news that hospitals want to make money and we can’t exactly stop going to them just because of this.) You assumption that all doctors and hospitals are conspiring against the well being of the patients is just not true. There are a lot of great doctors and birth friendly hospitals out there. As a student of midwifery, you should be putting some energy into helping hospitals facilitate good birth practices and good relationships with midwives.
Doctors get sued not because they necessarily screwed things up with all their interventions (though surely, sometimes, this is the case) but more often because when tragedy strikes (as it does with midwives, too) an emotionally devastated family needs and wants someone to blame. Most consumers irrationally expect their doctors to be infallible. And psychic. When the worst happens we believe that our well paid and educated doctor should have seen it coming and been able to prevent, treat, or cure it. Any other result is a sue-able offense.
Midwives are also sued for negligence. Sometimes because they were negligent, and sometimes for the reasons listed above.
Here’s the bottom line: The birth industry as it stands, stinks. Doctors are practicing defensive medicine, midwives don’t trust doctors (and vice versa), midwifery is largely unregulated, and hospital policy is generally not natural birth friendly. Everyone needs to start working together to make childbirth a better experience for mothers.
Your vitriolic mistrust of doctors and hospitals just perpetuates the toxic culture that already exists between them and midwives.
If you want to win people over to this cause, (and remember, I’m already a believer) you need to take a much more balanced approach.
If I were interviewing you as a midwife and read this blog post, you’d be out.
Well said!!
Birth rape IS rape. Taking it one step further, here are some ways birth rape might be considered EVEN MORE traumatic than “regular rape”:
1. Not only are you assaulted and traumatized, but your baby is also often assaulted and traumatized as well.
2. Society keeps telling you that you were not raped and your trauma is unwarranted. Other rape victims’ pain is validated and accepted by the vast majority of society.
3. Birth rape is combined with emotional climax of childbirth, and at the same time, demolishes the woman’s rightful chance at a positive, empowering experience.
4. A birth rape victim’s attacker is a highly regarded institutionalized operation. Many even regard the rapists as Gods, and defend them as such. The mother who was birth raped is also often verbally attacked by the rapists’ cult followers.
5. Birth rape victim do not have the precedence that other rape victims do in court. Also, their attacker is protected.
ALL rape victims need a voice. Please educate yourself before you attack. Homebirth is the safest option for the vast majority of women. Those who “know” they needed an intervention are most often misinformed. Your Dr saved you/your baby from the dire situation(s) he/she created when they starting messing with your pregnancy/birth in the first place.
Let the emotionally charged and poorly informed replies begin…
im so sorry for your experiance. i honestly dont know how you feel cause my experiance was a great one. 6 years of trying for a baby and the rush of finally having her was fantastic. my drs and nurses were wonderful and i knew going into the hospital that i might not have her naturally….due to the way my pelvis is it doesnt open like normally it should. i also live over 45 min from a hospital so home birth was not an option and something i personaly didnt feel comfortable with. my drs (i had 2 on my team that day) and nurses gave me every opertunity to have her and i tried but when she got stuck they took me in for a csection. i informed myself with everything i could get my hands on and asked all the questions i could. i knew what was best for me and went with that. im so glad i was at a hospital when she got stuck cause i woulnt have known the outcome if i was home. i think the message should be inform yourself weigh your options and do what is best for you wether its home birthing, or being in a hospital.
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I dont know if anyone can help me. Im in my second preganacy. In my first one (8 years ago) I had a c-section, and it was really traumatic. I have ITP (Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura) and my Dr. has concerns about natural childbirth this time. I would love to have that experience and of course avoid all the trauma and stress from the last one. Have you any suggestions
Thank you for your article. I am glad to see so much response. It is a good thing that you didn’t present the other side, it is already everywhere you gave a good starting point for families that want to look for something else.
As for the birth rape I have had a change about the way I see things. I used to think this was too strong a word until a woman explained how when someone is touching and forcing fingers or anything else up a woman’s vagina and she is screaming no and it doesn’t stop. It is rape. There may be no gun but there are threats of the death of you or you baby with no justification and when a woman is in this vulnerable position it certainly is like a gun. Woman are treated roughly and so are their babies when they are not compliant with everything done to them. Threats of court orders to comply have also been made.
Thank for presenting this side of things!
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Hey! I could have sworn I’ve been to this blog before but after browsing through some of the post I realized it’s
new to me. Nonetheless, I’m definitely delighted I found it and I’ll
be bookmarking and checking back often!
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