The Iron Ring

I don’t plan on writing much about being a mom on this reinvention of my blog (promise!) but every now and then some news item about babies, pregnancy or childbirth catches my attention as both a mom and a scientist and this weekend was one of those cases. So bear with me.

I read this in the Times about Ina May Gaskin and the homebirth movement. I was struck by the writer’s story of her own birth experience which has many similarities with other women I know, although for the record it is entirely unlike my own experience. The writer’s labor simply didn’t progress enough and after some back and forth with her doctor and her midwife she had a c-section. I don’t pretend to understand all there is to know about childbirth and for the record, I disliked hearing my prenatal yoga instructor say “the universe won’t give you a baby you can’t deliver” (really?). But I do have some thoughts on those women who simply have a stalled labor. I think as mammals we are programmed to stall labor when we feel danger. Our bodies think “wow! Maybe this isn’t such a good time for giving birth!” its kind of a flight-or-fight thing and its completely subconscious. If you really want to give birth vaginally and someone keeps coming in the room and tapping their wrist you can see how your stress hormones might rise. I’m not suggesting that we stop monitoring how labor progresses or that doctors should act like its progressing fine or something. I just think maybe we should be a little less scared of things overall. Less scared of pain and childbirth itself, less scared of c-sections, less scared of imagining all the things that could go wrong.  And at the risk of sounding too rainbows and roses (see previous post?) it would be nice if no one preached anything at all about childbirth and allowed women to simply make informed decisions without guilt.

I may not be heading to Tennessee anytime soon to give birth but I think its great that the option exists. Yet simultaneously I wish Ina May Gaskin’s book was not such a ‘must read’ for expectant Brooklyn women.