"They said the baby stopped breathing, I mean she started breathing before they got her out, but she stopped breathing so they had to take her out," a mother's explanation for why she had a C section on an episode of MTV's 16 and Pregnant. The baby stopped breathing? Really? So obviously I get that this is what the hospital staff told her to quickly get on her level. They meant that the baby's heart rate dropped and so looked in distress, but they found that her heart rate went back up, yet took her out via cesarean anyways. They must have known to do this because she went in the hospital with labor pains that weren't considered active labor and she was only 38 weeks pregnant, but all they had to say was, "I think we should go ahead and have this baby today," and she unknowingly agreed to a snowball of interventions. And here's the thing that really ticked me off, her mother was with her the whole time!
Doulas know, birth has not been a topic of major focus between women and girls for generations. This has GOT to change. We are vessels for miracles and generally speaking, we don't even know how it works! So I decided to do my own personally exploration of why this is.
I started with my mother, (whom by the way birthed 5 children, none of which came with an epidural). "Mom, why didn't you tell me what is was like to give birth?" my mom's response, "well you never asked." Okay, true...I'll take some responsibility, but why didn't I ask? Before I had my first I went to an OBGYN and I asked her what I needed to do to have a natural birth. She told me it was really difficult but I could do it with much preparation. So I figured, Okay, preparation, I'll read my book What to Expect When Expecting and I'll watch A Baby Story on TV. Needless to say, that was NOT the preparation I needed. With my next child I knew what to expect from experience. I knew that Pitocin was NOT going to happen, no way, I wouldn't allow that again. I also knew that I needed a constant source of close, connected, knowledgeable support, which I now knew was NOT a nurse but a Doula. So I considered the fact that I was a product of the current culture, using popular media for information. Then I went back to my mom, "Okay mom, If I had asked, what would you have said?" she responded, "You're not in labor until you can't do ANYTHING else but focus on your breathing." The most simplest and powerful labor-truth I could tell anyone, she just told me...after I had my kids. "Mom, our OBs and Midwives are telling pregnant women that they're in labor when they have a certain number of contractions in a certain amount of time." she repeated, "No, you have to distract yourself until you just cant anymore." And then I asked, "Mom if I told you I wanted an unmedicated birth what would you have told me?" her simple truth, "you have to breathe." So our mothers know! But we're just not talking about it with them.
Then I dug deeper wondering if it was just my generation who was too distracted by media to go straight to the source. "Mom did you ask your mother how to give birth?" she answered, "No, I went to Lamaze class because someone suggested it." Okay, so my mom educated herself in a good way, she just didn't rely on other women, per say. Maybe the media-issue was selective. So then I went to my grandmother.
"Grandma, did you ask your mom how to give birth?" she answered, "No, I thought birth was fast and easy because it just so happened that that's how I was born. Little did I know my water would break first with no labor pains and I would end up needing drugs." WHAT?! My grandmother's first birth was the same as my first birth! She went on, "I thought when your water breaks you go right in, but when I got there they laughed at me saying, 'your not really in labor'." Unbelievable, I thought. I shared my story about how I got to the hospital thinking the same thing with my first and they laughed at me saying it wasn't really my water...only to see later that it was more of my water all over their floor. So she explained that with her second, she had figured out from experience she had to learn how to do the breathing. The funny thing is, her "second," was really, unknowingly then, her second and third! She had twins vaginally and totally drug free. Now it became clear, if we were sharing our birth stories throughout the generations...and not just one generation...we would be totally preparing our daughters and granddaughters for birth.
Now it started to become clear that young women today look to the media because there is a long history of not getting what they need from having those conversations with their birthing warrior predecessors. So I picked at the issue more with my grandma, "Did your mom talk about it with her mom?" she laughed, "Of course not, you just don't talk about that sort of thing." She thought about it for a moment and went on, "well If I had asked my mother and she had asked her mother I'm sure they both would have shared, but I didn't ask and I'm sure she didn't ask either." So I tried to clarify, "So grandma, was it more of an issue of modesty? Or an issue of lack of relationship?" She answered, "the relationship." My grandma's mother was a flapper in the 20s. She was a little disconnected from motherhood and womanhood, (pretty telling of the feminist times). And so my grandma did not have the open-trusting relationship with her mom which she did need.
Now I'm looking at our American history. I'm seeing that there was something about the 1920s that inspired women to really begin to change their roles. And there was something before that which had to have played some kind of part in their desire to do such. They were already not getting what they needed from their mothers. I'm sure if I looked a little closer in history, not being able to ask my great great grandmother, I would find those answers. But the point is not to point fingers. The point is IT'S TIME TO CHANGE. We have to be able to maintain a relationship with our daughters that inspires the conversations about birth. Otherwise, if it continues the way it is now, it is no longer us women who birth the generations. It is a pair of hands under surgical knives telling us our bodies are not capable of doing it.
I loved reading this encouraging perspective by a Doula Hero in our community
http://rosiedoula.blogspot.com/2012/10/a-birth-revolution.html?m=1
