Time Magazine Calls Vaginal Birth a Traumatic Alternative to Cesarean
Friday, October 23, 2009 at 8:43AMI clicked over from Facebook to see the story behind the mass breastfeeding picture in this article and discovered what the editors at Time Magazine found relevant to link as related posts.
In Best and Worst Moms Ever, Time ranks the best and worst moms of all time, leaving their readers on tenterhooks waiting for the Best and Worst Dads Ever feature.
The article, The Labor Market, describes vaginal birth as “the not always .. appealing alternative” to a maternal request cesarean.
Nobody questions the rightness of cesareans performed in a medical emergency (which account for up to 20% of the total), but those made simply at the request of the mother, known as “elective cesareans,” are associated with a number of pitfalls. Before these are addressed, however, it is worth remembering that vaginal delivery is not always an appealing alternative.
Utter the phrase “natural childbirth” and the mind envisages a stoic and earnest woman, surrounded by murmuring midwives in a softly lit room, where ambient music plays and tea lights flicker. Upon the elapse of some decent, manageable labor, she pushes out her baby with honest grunts. While that may be true for some, for most women natural childbirth is one of the most violent physical traumas they will ever experience, bar a serious accident or grievous assault. The average length of labor for a first-time mother is anything from seven to 12 hours, but it can easily be 20 hours or more. During that time, she is wracked by contractions — a euphemism that doesn’t even come close to conveying the violent spasms that take hold when the body reflexively tries to squeeze a baby through a narrow vaginal opening. The forces involved are such that when the baby’s head emerges, it can do so with sufficient pressure to rip the mother’s perineum and leave grind marks on pubic bone. In many ways, the act of giving birth resembles a medical emergency — in fact, if no medical intervention of any kind were made, up to 1 in 67 women would die in labor. Fear of birth pain is thus legitimate and it is no wonder that many women elect to have C-sections — especially when the procedure is over in about 40 minutes and feels no more uncomfortable, in the words of an anesthetist in one of Hong Kong’s top maternity hospitals, “than someone rummaging around in your tummy.” When cost is not an issue, women express even greater interest in cesareans. In Hong Kong, just over 45% of private-hospital births are surgical, compared to a territory-wide rate of 27%.
I enjoyed many birth-related articles in Time Magazine over the last year, namely Pamela Paul’s February article, The Trouble With Repeat Cesareans and Ada Calhoun’s August article, Giving Birth at Home. However, I just couldn’t find it in me to follow the link from Why Pregnancy Sucks to read about “the boom in adult single mothers.” Judging and rating mothers is one of the mainstream media’s number one spectator sports.
Reader Comments (23)
Yes, vaginal delivery is sometimes no picnic, but really, who among the common woman imagines giving birth as a la-la-la experience with tea lights, for goodness sake? I'd wager that more people picture the hospital birth (complete with screaming) so often portrayed in the media. Quoting the 1-in-60 statistic is meaningless when many of the world's women are within spitting distance of a hospital, so medical intervention is possible when needed! There's a middle ground between squatting behind a bush before going out into the fields and having a c-section... why do writers so often forget that?
Christa, I think because it brings some people pleasure to mock women's non-pharmaceutical comfort measures.
Pure ignorance. Birth isn't about comfort, it's about triumph. I hear women who have unintentional natural births go on and on about the pain and say they can't wait to do it again. But those who chose to birth naturally and prepare for it feel like they wouldn't do it any other way. I think people forget that preparation and a supportive birthing team actually remove most of the pain! Plus the claim that a c-section is painless is ridiculous! No surgery is painless.
Sorry typo - those who are unprepared would never do it again.
Being a parent is not about having tea-lights anywhere thank you- TIME! Ugg and if someone having a c-section is LUCKY they can have tea lights and soft respectful voices during it too. That article makes no sense.
"in fact, if no medical intervention of any kind were made, up to 1 in 67 women would die in labor."
This sounds like a load of hooey to me. How did our species EVEN make it then?
"in fact, if no medical intervention of any kind were made, up to 1 in 67 women would die in labor."
I seriously doubt that! where do they have the research to back that up? what a load of crap.
and, btw, maybe it doesn't hurt during a c/section, but afterwards i'm sure it hurts! and if a vaginal birth is a greivous physical trauma, what do you call having your stomach cut open and having someone "rummage around"? that sounds way more traumatic to me
I cannot believe the twisted, emotional language used to describe vaginal birth in this article! With people like this describing birth, it's no wonder so many women run screaming to the ORs for their "simple, safe C-section." Yikes!
"— a euphemism that doesn’t even come close to conveying the violent spasms that take hold when the body reflexively tries to squeeze a baby through a narrow vaginal opening."
Clearly this person has never given birth, or at least hasn't done so in a relaxed atmosphere.
I've had two babies now, and with my second labour my worst fear from my first pregnancy almost came true -that I would be in labour and not know it. With my second I didn't feel the contractions. I was laying there on the couch watching TV after my water broke wondering when labour was going to start and then I realized that the little gushes of amniotic fluid every 3 minutes were contractions. The only thing that hurt was later when I had to stand my SPD was pure agony because I had made an exception from semi-bedrest to go the fair and had over-strained everything.
PS 1/67 journalists have no brain. My statistic is just as researched as theirs.
"in fact, if no medical intervention of any kind were made, up to 1 in 67 women would die in labor."
Show me proof, please. studies, articles, whatever you got.
I just can't wrap my mind around how people equate the moments in the OR (though for some, this isn't even true) that you are without pain to meaning "safer" and less traumatic than a vaginal birth. Newsflash: you are being cut into. It's surgery.
Maybe to some, it is less emotionally trying than a vaginal birth, but that doesn't mean the article -- or the woman electing the c/s -- should side step that fact of life-long complications or maternal mortality associated with cesarean sections.
Ignorance isn't bliss... or is it?
Uh, I had a C-section and it didn't feel like someone was "rummaging around in my tummy".
"for most women natural childbirth is one of the most violent physical traumas they will ever experience, bar a serious accident or grievous assault."
Well, you gotta give the writer credit for being really creative. I had a natural delivery and I didn't feel any physical trauma at all. In fact, I was so high I was up for nearly 48 hours straight. Unlike the women who had a C-section, I was showered, walking around and eating whatever I wanted after I gave birth. My baby was able to nurse immediately and while my new family slept, I emailed photographs to all our friends and loved ones. It was the greatest day of my life!
One of the jackass commenters (an MD, no less!) said compared cesareans to wearing a seatbelt. He said "you wouldn't stop wearing a seatbelt just because somebody's friend got hurt wearing one, would you." RIGHT! That's it! Cesareans are totally the same exact thing as wearing a seatbelt (I mean, besides the fact that cesareans are major surgery carrying serious risks and not required by law the way seatbelts are.. but other than that, yeah, totally the same thing.)
I've decided that people are just fucking stupid, and ain't a think gonna be done about it. I still have to send you that letter I got from the OB. I think you'd have a field day with it.
Oh, I meant to say that commenter was on the Jezebel article.. not this one. I couldn't bear to read this one... I'm still fuming over that other stupid bullshit.
Elita... I'm mentally adding three exclamation points after your comment. His (very creative, florid description) might very well be how unmedicated birth, even in a calm, supportive environment is experienced by some women. Injury can occur and women might feel totally overcome and caught off-guard by pain that feels inescapable. If pain relief is wanted or expected but unavailable, inaccessible or ineffective, the birth process itself could be terrifying.
How would one even quantify that MOST women experience unmedicated vaginal birth this way? Show me the meta-analysis that looks at studies that can be generalized to all of womankind all over the world.
Such B.S.
Actually, the 1 in 67 is plausable if you are creative. The worst maternal mortality rate in the world is Siera Leone, with 2000 women out of 100,000 live births dying, followed by Afghanistan with 1900 out of 100,000. That is roughly 1 in 50 dying from childbirth. However, I think there is more at work in those countries than simply "no medical intervention of any kind [being] made," and that in the developed world, that statistic isn't applicable due to the simple fact that we have better sanitation and are less likely to suffer from infection, to say the least. I would like to add that I agree with the previous posters that there is a middle ground between no intervention and C-section, and the ideal is a trained professional monitoring the situation for issues that may arise, but otherwise allowing and assisting the woman's body do what it was designed to do and/or generally staying out of the way.
I love that they quote the Hong Kong doctor who likens a C section where all of your guts are removed and put back together, hopefully in the right spot and without any lacerations etc to "someone rummaging around in your tummy" riiiiight. I wanna smack the author. :/
UUGGGHHHHH. I didn't want to read this because I knew it would make me see red. Damn you for C&Ping! Damn you, Jill! *shakes fist*
Now I am so pissed I have to go and write a blogpost. The things you make me do, woman. GEEZ.
This is so heartbreaking. I wish that the article mentioned the post-surgery repercussions of a C-Section. I was in agony for weeks after my C-S, and needed pain medications before I could get out of bed in the morning. I have major scarring that still, 6 years post-birth, cause me discomfort and limit my activities. I have lost muscle tone in my lower abdomen and will never regain it without surgical reconstruction. I have emotional scarring due to the fact that my epidural suddenly stopped working partway through the procedure and I felt the pain of having someone "rummaging around in my tummy."
Four vaginal births, and one c-section... I would prefer the "trauma" of the vaginal births any day...
Mind you I am not a mom from Asia, but there was nothing remotely violent about my 44 hour labour or vaginal delivery. Yes it was long, painful and difficult at times, but it is hardly something I would describe as a "violent physical trauma". It was not violent and it was not traumatic, pain is a reality of the process. I am left reeling, but not from trauma but rather the magnitude and incredible joy of the experience.