On topic drift: Midwifery & Childbirth

[matgb]

Hmm, a throwaway episode rec from me, an aside comment from frightened, a strongly stated dislike of an episode from el_staplador and before long we're discussing the medicalisation of childbirth and the denigration of midwifery. Um, I don't know much about this. And as most that know me know, if I don't know much, I don't have strong opinions; us filthy liberals like to have knowledge to guide our opinions.

So, um, those of you that do have opinions, one way or the other (or in other directions, naturally), feel free to join the conversation, because I'm learning stuff, even if much of it is a little beyond me.

A question for the discussion though; does the thought of childbirth scare me because a) I'm a cowardly male, b) it's the unknown that I've little knowledge of due to our fractured society or c) medical portrayal on TV makes it out to be something that is scarier than it probably ought to be portrayed?

Because I genuinely don't know. I do know that a few people I care about have gone through it recently, and it wasn't easy for any of them. Hmm...

Comments

With the caveat that I only have my own experience to go by

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Uh, yeah. If it was up to me? NICE men would not be present at births. All it does is scare them out of their wits for no good reason. There is pain and horror and screaming and SHITLOADS of blood, but, as the mother, you get FLOODED with oxytocin (the hormone that gives you orgasms), and the second the child is actually out you are overwhelmed with bliss for several hours.

The man doesn't have the oxytocin; he just sees the pain and screaming and blood, with no hormonal high to dull the horror.

Nasty men should, therefore, be present at births, if only so that the mother can beat them senseless in the superhuman strength of childbirth phase.

I cracked Ian's rib

* proud smile *

Re: With the caveat that I only have my own experience to go by

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

See, and now I've been going and looking at my pregnancy diary and my scans and stuff and getting all broody. Damn you.

Re: With the caveat that I only have my own experience to go by

[matgb]

Don't blame me, Kathleen brought that subject up, you just went with it. A lot.

I do, however, need to sleep, having just sorted the timings on my icons out, then decided I don't like the newer versions, then chenged my mind again...

[ms-ntropy.livejournal.com]

I'd say B) more than anything else. B) is to blame for A) which isn't really gender specific in the slightest. C) just caters to the common understanding of the whole endeavor.

If that makes any sense.

[poifaerie.livejournal.com]

Childbirth scares you because you're not made to give birth, is the way I see it. The same as when I was younger the thought of babies made me run screaming, but my attitudes have changed as my ladyhormones have kicked in.

And women were not designed/evolved/whatever-you-like to give birth lying on their backs with their feet in the air. Grrr doctors. My sister very recently had her baby, she chose a water birth and said it was actually quite nice!

[silentgreeneyes.livejournal.com]

I, right at this moment, really do not want to have a child..
1) my mother's family are known for huge babies (I was 9lbs, my brother was nearly 12lbs and was 2 weeks early)
2) My father's side has a history of twins (my grandmother on that side was a twin, numerous cousins that side have had twins.)
3) I'm 21 right now. what would I do with a baby?
4) a few other reasons (you know them Mat)

I've heard the stories of mine and my brother's births. My mother developed diabetes during both pregnancies. Both of us ended up being ceasarians.


but anyway..
Yeah, it is an unknown thing, not much is taught about it in schools, and it should be. Sex and reproductive education is severely lacking. It's like the teachers think if the kids are taught about it, they'll go out doing it.
they do it anyway! because they don't know about it!
but, that leads me to a rant about education in general, and I'll someday do the huge ranty post about it.
maybe

Re: With the caveat that I only have my own experience to go by

[innerbrat]

How did I not know about oxytocin in childbirth?

We need to cover this shit in school.

And it randomly occurs to me that the reason it isn't, the reason it's kept unknown, is because it's a thing for the woman to deal with, and our society is still, if not truely patriarchal, then male-orientated enough not to want to talk about Women Things.

[eldar.livejournal.com]

It is scary, but not because it's an unknown. It's scary because the first thing you ought to do is read up on what is known or attend ante-natal classes and you get told all the scary shit that can happen. So it's therefore scary because of what you do know, not what you don't.

Reality, of course, is rarely scary. In my case, it was a little bit scary, but I didn't have time to get scared enough. One minute I was driving up to the hospital to take Alexis some stuff for what was likely her last overnight stay before coming home, next I'd got a 'phone call that, no, the docs had decided Aliza was coming out by CS there and then.

I had an hour to be scared. Then I met the CS crew, got on fine with the anaesthetist, and sat through the whole procedure listening to Virgin Radio in the background. (There was at least a handy screen between me and the business end, at least. And the DJ played Sweet Child O'Mine amongst other tracks.)

I think you just have to do it (or witness it) to realise it's nothing to be too frightened about.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

Gosh, I provoked a discussion! *feels proud*

Hmm well, I'm not you so I can't say why it scares you. I can say why I'm not too worried - half a lifetime's exposure to the concept that birth is a normal state of affairs (not an illness). That deals with B. A (for obvious reasons) and C (because I spent my first 19 years without a TV in the first place) haven't contributed to my experience. (My problem with the common portrayal of birth on TV is that it propagates the myth that childbirth is OMG lying-on-back, screaming, bloody, can't-cope-alone, trial by ordeal of DOOM. I don't think I've ever seriously considered it to be the origin of the problem.)

I've been helping with my mother's magazine (Midwifery Matters, publication of the Association of Radical Midwives) for as long as she's had the editorship, starting with 'this picture is upside down' at age 9 or so, moving through 'this sentence makes no sense at all' and 'this piece seems to have no author' to 'shall I make up some headings for this web debate you've stuck in'? Through it all I've been growing in confidence that, should I come to do such a thing, there is no immediately obvious reason why I shouldn't be able to. I saw the birth of my youngest brother when I was almost 11 - this was a home birth, my mother had explained that she'd probably appear to be in great pain and also that she would probably not pay much (if any) attention to me until after the thing was over, and I was fine. The only thing that scared me was the placenta, which no one had remembered to tell me about.

Oh, I've read some horror stories too, but a surprising (and distressing) number of them have been 'had I not been emotionally blackmailed into having x medical intervention, which I later found wasn't actually necessary but merely the policy of this particular hospital, I might have had a normal birth'.

Things do go wrong, accidents will happen even in the best regulated birth plans, and there is no way on earth I would dispense with the wonderful potential for necessary intervention that we have, but I think that the general perception of childbirth is that it's a dangerous business best undertaken under constant medical surveillance, and that's simply not true.

Thinking about it, it's probably a little of A, B, and C, but the problem begins with B, because that's where C at least springs from. A, of course, means that you're unlikely ever to find out much about the process without either being involved in it yourself or deliberately going out looking, because B no one's ever bothered to tell you, but the problem of misinformation is by no means unique to the male gender. I know that even as a female I'm fairly rare - many women my age, those who have yet to give birth, seem to look on it as a Time of Terror to come. I can only think of one of my friends who's not seen it that way, and she was a home birth herself. From what I've seen from the magazine, it's often only once a woman has had a bad birth experience in hospital that she starts looking - and has to look very hard, because the medical establishment is reluctant to let her out of their hands, particularly if she had problems last time - for an alternative way of doing it second time around. There seem to be a fair number of 30 year olds who think my way, but precious few 22 year olds.

Re: With the caveat that I only have my own experience to go by

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Sleep is good, love, especially when you have work in the morning. I suspect you're there now, yes?

Re: With the caveat that I only have my own experience to go by

[matgb]

ACtually, no, I called in sick, it's finally caught up with me and the lemsip isn't holding it off any more; I'll need to do some work later, but for now, I'm rsting.

Hence I'm not replying to all the below yet, brain not working.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Absolutely on the education thing; although it was kind of weird that my dad was my biology teacher at school and handled the sex ed, at least he did a good job.

Re: With the caveat that I only have my own experience to go by

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Oh love...

* wants to nurse you now *

[0ct0pus.livejournal.com]

The single greatest influence on most peoples perception of childbirth is that episode of "Only Fools and Horses" and it is absolutely nothing like that at all.

I was there through quite a recent birth, from what I could see it's only as medicalised as the mother wants it to be. We were lucky enough to be based at a midwife-led unit, which are apparently a dying breed which suited my partner well as she wasn't keen on having opiates plumbed through a hole in her spine. As it happened she was still on a drip because she had to be induced but even then she was encouraged to move about a bit, sit on a chair, lie on a bean bag. It was all about where she felt most comfortable.

The bit that struck me is that it came in two chunks. There was the contractions, where the uterus sorts itself out, and these REALLY FUCKING HURT LIKE BUGGERY from what I can see. Then there was the actually pushing the baby out, which wasn't half so bad from what she said.

Then there was a baby. That bit was brilliant!

[silentgreeneyes.livejournal.com]

We had the basic concept of it in biology, and a tiny bit on contraception and stds in tutor period and that was about it..

Re: With the caveat that I only have my own experience to go by

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

My daddy taught me biology at school, so I have him to thank for the knowledge. It was a little bit weird at times, but...

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm lucky that Dad passionately believes in education and informed choice. I know that kids at other schools weren't as lucky, for whatever reason. But it's still odd having your dad give the condom demonstration with a cucumber...

And yeah, until I had teh shrublette I NEVER wanted kids, having seen childbirth videos at school.

Now I've actually been through it? I guess I could be persuaded to do it again. It's not as hard as it looks.

Stop me if this all gets a bit TMI...

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Midwife-led units rule, yes. I was in one of those too. I'm only sad that my birth was so quick that they didn't have time to run the water in the birthing pool.

Interestingly, though, I had the opposite reaction re pain. The contractions weren't that bad, and it was just embarrassing when I shat myself; but the actual pushing her out was horrible. But then I was a forty minute labour, and it took them over an hour to sew me back together again afterwards. She was overdue, but when she decided she was coming out, that was it, she was coming out, and if bits of me got in the way they'd be hurt.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I honestly think that midwife-led units in hospitals are the way to go. That way the medical establishment is on hand if you need them, but is kept out of the way if you don't need them.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

I never had the condom-on-a-cucumber demonstration, which is another reason why there is no way I would send any child or ward of mine to my old, insane, school. Fortunately my boyfriend went through the state system.

Ah well, I'm way ahead of the field on childbirth knowledge, so I guess it all evens out. I knew about birth long before I knew about sex.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

And really, that's the way it SHOULD be.

[el-staplador.livejournal.com]

Yes, that works nicely, if you can trust the doctors to stay out of the way when they're not wanted! Not so many of them about these days, though.

[eldar.livejournal.com]

Pah. I have my own thoughts on "midwife-led" units. Suffice it to say had Aliza been a week late and not two weeks early, we might have been unwitting stars of Panorama.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

The one at Calderdale Royal is fab.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

Yeah? I have nothing but lovely things to report about the one I was in.