DISCLAIMER:the terminology I use in this blog may be unsettling to some. This blog is about child birth and labor...you have been warned.
Isaiah 1:18 "Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD."
I feel like I need to say the above quote to women in the west. Let us reason together.
Reason- a (1) : the power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking especially in orderly rational ways : intelligence (2) : proper exercise of the mind (3) : sanity
Let us reason together about birth. Let us not be automatically divided but let us talk, debate, exchange:facts, science, logic, intuition, emotions of every kind and experiences. Let us engage the POWER of comprehending. But that's what I ask. Can we not reason together? I start this off in a somewhat general way. But really it boils down to people I know/have known and how birth has effected them negatively and positively.
Where do I start when it comes to birthing babies? Well lets start with my mom.
My mother had "a chair in her womb" as she puts it. All three of us my brother sister and I were breech. The doctors did not propose to her any alternative method of birthing other than cesarean. They did try to move my brother while she was in labor and she says it was the most excruciating thing that happened aside from the pain of waking up after the cesarean. My mother had medicalized painful memories of birth and did not know much about other kinds of experiences. Her cesareans were done old school style diagonal down all her abdominal muscles which caused hernias and complications and now limits her on a daily basis. The hospitals later changed that style of cesarean I guess after they realized how damaging it was to women. Anyway that was the start of me hearing about having babies. They cut you out if you re in a risky position. But for some reason major surgery three times on top of the same surgery is not as risky. Well I found out recently that women throughout history and today are capable of birthing breech babies and they are healthy and fine....wtf.
Anyway this isn't a blog about "what would my mom be like today if she "normally" had her three children?" This is about how my current experience and former lack of experience involving birth has shaped, changed, and continues to effect my view on well...life, holistically speaking.
I believe as I'm sure most do. Life begins at conception. This little life of a human being is greatly effected by the choices a mother makes on behalf of the child. So what I am begging of women is to reason. To not trust someone because they are a "professional" or simply because you like them. Look at EVERY risk that you put upon yourself and baby by consenting to interventions. Think. Meditate. Study. Read. Interview. Talk to REAL LIFE people in person. Pick brains. Don't just listen to the bad birth stories but listen to the many versatile great amazing positive birth stories. Are they out there? YES. I've lived it and I can share it with you! Women don't seem to talk about birth and most of the things that I heard about were wives tales and horror stories. Just as negative traumatic stories circulate quickly in media so do negative birth stories circulate via women. Why don't we circulate positive birth stories? Maybe the propoganda that perpetuates the idea that labor is traumatic and unyielding. Anyone who has gone through/seen REAL 100% normal natural birth knows what it's truly like. It's not unyeilding as they make it out to be. In fact for some it's not even unmanagable...I only once questioned my bodies ability and that was one minute before Angel was born. I'm not super woman. But it definitely helped not to have pitocin intensifying labor. Theres so much we don't know about labor until we experience it! I read all kinds of things about natural labor but it wasn't until I decided "I'll try once and if it doesn't work for me never again!" That I found the truth beyond the stories and facts. I found that birth was something God enabled me to do and that I could face my fears and command them to get under my feet in Jesus name. That though suffering and pain came my spirit endured and by the grace of God I had a healthy baby girl. As peter says
"So be truly glad.There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls." 1 Peter 1:6-9
One thing that I feel plays a big part in birth is ignorance and the power that "specialists" and "professionals" seem to take from women. And amazingly women love to give over this power/ability to study and educate themselves on birthing methods. They say "I can trust Dr. so and so he's a professional and he'll take care of me." But the scary thing is that facts and statistics reveal that "professionals" are not sovereign. Hospitals are far from perfect. The rising infant mortality rate is beyond alarming. In a country with such reliance on technology we have opted to not emphasize on healthy physiological processes but rather pathological processes because it is more interesting. It's almost exciting to look at birth as something dangerous when you're in the business of pathology. The obstetricians are today's hero's. They are constantly rescuing babies from the deathly risk of vaginal birth. Some go to the extent of believing cesarean birth is safer than the way God created it to be. And that's where I say stop. Hold the phone.
I believe that God created birth exactly the way it is. For a purpose. If you're not religious you can look at nature and how amazing mammals are at birthing without interventions. This is my personal opinion but when we as women choose to deviate from what God made so that we will not suffer we're missing a part of the picture. Suffering is apart of life. Jesus physically suffered pains that went far beyond child birth. And he did it willingly. Are we as women not as willing and strong to face this feat and rely on our Father and His Spirit to use the opportunity of birth to change us? Are we blinded by fear and risks that we cannot see that through suffering there is much to gain? This isn't about proving ourselves to people. This is about trusting what God made and trusting that He is capable of using this seemingly overwhelming experience for His glory.
I have learned more about life, myself, God, and the importance of support through my birth than through any other experience in my life. I had no idea of what God was capable of doing through me (physically) before I had my daughter naturally. For a christian woman birth is a great opportunity to see Gods glory. But I tell you it's hard to see the whole picture when so many things get in the way. People, machines, drugs, fear, numbness etc. etc.
I'm not going to list statistics, facts, pros and cons, debates blah blah blah. All of the info is readily available for those that so choose to find it. I found it and it's changed my life. I will say I'm not against surgeons, doctors, or medical professionals. They are amazing professions but that's kind of the problem. A lot of people now a days get into it because it's lucrative. Not because they love people.
I will say that survival is only a part of birth. A woman is presented with an opportunity in childbirth, she can merely survive it, or she thrive from it. Through it, she can discover a new part of herself. We as a society have become consumed with fear. We have allowed the starting point for our birth experience to be moved from the natural to the unnatural, from the home to the hospital. We make our decisions based on the horror stories that we hear instead of taking a holistic view of birth. Instead of rationally weighing the risks of our particular birth, we look at the risks of the worst case scenarios and make our decisions based on that. Can we ever be convinced that we are capable of birthing without intervention, that we don't need to somehow enhance God's design for childbirth? How about we start with the creator (or nature however you want to see it) and go from there? It's amazing how much of pathology in birth is caused by the very things meant to prevent it. But I won't get into that with this post.
If only we could see a joining of useful technology and science with nature and lessons learned through birthing history. But then I think we would be in a utopia haha. Ina May Gaskins' Farm gets pretty close I hear : ) well thats my naive post on birth for now. I'm sure there will be more to come later. If this post pisses you off and you want to let me know please do. I want to desperately understand what it is about natural birth that upsets people. Thanks for reading.
Isaiah 1:18 "Come now, let us reason together," says the LORD."
I feel like I need to say the above quote to women in the west. Let us reason together.
Reason- a (1) : the power of comprehending, inferring, or thinking especially in orderly rational ways : intelligence (2) : proper exercise of the mind (3) : sanity
Let us reason together about birth. Let us not be automatically divided but let us talk, debate, exchange:facts, science, logic, intuition, emotions of every kind and experiences. Let us engage the POWER of comprehending. But that's what I ask. Can we not reason together? I start this off in a somewhat general way. But really it boils down to people I know/have known and how birth has effected them negatively and positively.
Where do I start when it comes to birthing babies? Well lets start with my mom.
My mother had "a chair in her womb" as she puts it. All three of us my brother sister and I were breech. The doctors did not propose to her any alternative method of birthing other than cesarean. They did try to move my brother while she was in labor and she says it was the most excruciating thing that happened aside from the pain of waking up after the cesarean. My mother had medicalized painful memories of birth and did not know much about other kinds of experiences. Her cesareans were done old school style diagonal down all her abdominal muscles which caused hernias and complications and now limits her on a daily basis. The hospitals later changed that style of cesarean I guess after they realized how damaging it was to women. Anyway that was the start of me hearing about having babies. They cut you out if you re in a risky position. But for some reason major surgery three times on top of the same surgery is not as risky. Well I found out recently that women throughout history and today are capable of birthing breech babies and they are healthy and fine....wtf.
Anyway this isn't a blog about "what would my mom be like today if she "normally" had her three children?" This is about how my current experience and former lack of experience involving birth has shaped, changed, and continues to effect my view on well...life, holistically speaking.
I believe as I'm sure most do. Life begins at conception. This little life of a human being is greatly effected by the choices a mother makes on behalf of the child. So what I am begging of women is to reason. To not trust someone because they are a "professional" or simply because you like them. Look at EVERY risk that you put upon yourself and baby by consenting to interventions. Think. Meditate. Study. Read. Interview. Talk to REAL LIFE people in person. Pick brains. Don't just listen to the bad birth stories but listen to the many versatile great amazing positive birth stories. Are they out there? YES. I've lived it and I can share it with you! Women don't seem to talk about birth and most of the things that I heard about were wives tales and horror stories. Just as negative traumatic stories circulate quickly in media so do negative birth stories circulate via women. Why don't we circulate positive birth stories? Maybe the propoganda that perpetuates the idea that labor is traumatic and unyielding. Anyone who has gone through/seen REAL 100% normal natural birth knows what it's truly like. It's not unyeilding as they make it out to be. In fact for some it's not even unmanagable...I only once questioned my bodies ability and that was one minute before Angel was born. I'm not super woman. But it definitely helped not to have pitocin intensifying labor. Theres so much we don't know about labor until we experience it! I read all kinds of things about natural labor but it wasn't until I decided "I'll try once and if it doesn't work for me never again!" That I found the truth beyond the stories and facts. I found that birth was something God enabled me to do and that I could face my fears and command them to get under my feet in Jesus name. That though suffering and pain came my spirit endured and by the grace of God I had a healthy baby girl. As peter says
"So be truly glad.There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you have to endure many trials for a little while. These trials will show that your faith is genuine. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold. So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.The reward for trusting him will be the salvation of your souls." 1 Peter 1:6-9
One thing that I feel plays a big part in birth is ignorance and the power that "specialists" and "professionals" seem to take from women. And amazingly women love to give over this power/ability to study and educate themselves on birthing methods. They say "I can trust Dr. so and so he's a professional and he'll take care of me." But the scary thing is that facts and statistics reveal that "professionals" are not sovereign. Hospitals are far from perfect. The rising infant mortality rate is beyond alarming. In a country with such reliance on technology we have opted to not emphasize on healthy physiological processes but rather pathological processes because it is more interesting. It's almost exciting to look at birth as something dangerous when you're in the business of pathology. The obstetricians are today's hero's. They are constantly rescuing babies from the deathly risk of vaginal birth. Some go to the extent of believing cesarean birth is safer than the way God created it to be. And that's where I say stop. Hold the phone.
I believe that God created birth exactly the way it is. For a purpose. If you're not religious you can look at nature and how amazing mammals are at birthing without interventions. This is my personal opinion but when we as women choose to deviate from what God made so that we will not suffer we're missing a part of the picture. Suffering is apart of life. Jesus physically suffered pains that went far beyond child birth. And he did it willingly. Are we as women not as willing and strong to face this feat and rely on our Father and His Spirit to use the opportunity of birth to change us? Are we blinded by fear and risks that we cannot see that through suffering there is much to gain? This isn't about proving ourselves to people. This is about trusting what God made and trusting that He is capable of using this seemingly overwhelming experience for His glory.
I have learned more about life, myself, God, and the importance of support through my birth than through any other experience in my life. I had no idea of what God was capable of doing through me (physically) before I had my daughter naturally. For a christian woman birth is a great opportunity to see Gods glory. But I tell you it's hard to see the whole picture when so many things get in the way. People, machines, drugs, fear, numbness etc. etc.
I'm not going to list statistics, facts, pros and cons, debates blah blah blah. All of the info is readily available for those that so choose to find it. I found it and it's changed my life. I will say I'm not against surgeons, doctors, or medical professionals. They are amazing professions but that's kind of the problem. A lot of people now a days get into it because it's lucrative. Not because they love people.
I will say that survival is only a part of birth. A woman is presented with an opportunity in childbirth, she can merely survive it, or she thrive from it. Through it, she can discover a new part of herself. We as a society have become consumed with fear. We have allowed the starting point for our birth experience to be moved from the natural to the unnatural, from the home to the hospital. We make our decisions based on the horror stories that we hear instead of taking a holistic view of birth. Instead of rationally weighing the risks of our particular birth, we look at the risks of the worst case scenarios and make our decisions based on that. Can we ever be convinced that we are capable of birthing without intervention, that we don't need to somehow enhance God's design for childbirth? How about we start with the creator (or nature however you want to see it) and go from there? It's amazing how much of pathology in birth is caused by the very things meant to prevent it. But I won't get into that with this post.
If only we could see a joining of useful technology and science with nature and lessons learned through birthing history. But then I think we would be in a utopia haha. Ina May Gaskins' Farm gets pretty close I hear : ) well thats my naive post on birth for now. I'm sure there will be more to come later. If this post pisses you off and you want to let me know please do. I want to desperately understand what it is about natural birth that upsets people. Thanks for reading.
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