Open Thread: Why I Do or Don't Think that Epidurals Are Bad
Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 7:33PMAfter this comment thread, which is deteriorating rapidly, and this thread, which is an interesting exchange of diverse opinions, I am left shocked by the intensity of concern that the woman who recently broadcast her birth got an epidural.
Many feel that it was disappointing that a woman who wanted an unmedicated birth, (presumably) didn’t hear encouraging words from her midwife in transition, letting her know that she was so close and that she could do it. Many feel that her team let her down. Based on the woman’s comments after her birth, she wished that her midwife had told her she was eight centimeters before offering an epidural, then followed that statement with something to the extent of “but I needed it.”
This is a semi-open thread. You can say whatever you want anonymously here, provided you are civil to other commenters. If you would prefer to discuss this in Facebook, that would be fine.
Reader Comments (30)
I will start off by saying that I did not like my epidural one bit. It made me feel helpless, powerless, and trapped. And it ultimately led to my Cesarean because I could not push out a posterior baby through my legitimately narrow pelvis when I was flat on my back. I, too, had no support from my attendants for a natural birth, even though that was what I wanted. After 40 hours of labor, I caved.
But I will never, ever damn another woman for getting one. I distinctly remember one point during my second birth where I was thinking, "If I was in the hospital, I would soooo be begging for drugs right now." Fortunately, there were no drugs to be had, and I reaped the reward of an oxytocin-induced painfree birth (after a very painful and intense labor).
Ideally all women would be strong enough to make it through birth without turning to an epidural. But we are not ideal and neither is birth. When the maternity care system is as broken as it is, how can we blame women for wanting to shut off the pain, when there is often nothing else they can turn to? Brought up by mothers who proclaim birth as the most hellish thing they ever survived, and spending their pregnancies watching tripe like A Baby Story, what should we expect? Let's rail against the system that encourages detachment from birth, not the women who choose or are blindsided into it.
I didn't know much about what was going on until I saw your post on facebook and tuned in around the time she got her epi. I must admit I was surprised that a woman with a midwife and doula wasn't more supported. I mean, if a person hires a midwife and doula, isn't that a pretty big indicator that going natural is important to her? Otherwise she would have just gotten an OB, right? Am I missing something? Encouragement and support are so important in those intense moments, but it was like they basically just said "You're right, you CAN'T do it", and caved. Women in transition often express they feel they "can't" do it, but those feelings are natural, and in that state of mind, they just need to hear some positive words and get re-focused.
I do think epidurals have a place. Especially for women who are uneducated about birth and go into panic mode over pain, etc. Their fear is of course going to make their labor more difficult. Ideally, ALL women would trust their bodies, and understand the natural process of birth, but that is not the case. A clueless fearful woman would possibly be traumatized by natural birth and hate the experience, instead of enjoying and being uplifted by it. In a perfect world, everyone would know the real risks of epidurals, and the very possible cascade of interventions that may follow, but that just isn't the case.
But this woman... to have a midwife and doula, she must have known something to make those choices! She must have had a desire to go naturally. And for her "support" team to fail her like that was difficult to see. I know she could have done it, she was so close, and things were uncomplicated. I don't want her to feel bad about her experience by any means. But I hope that she is someday able to step back from this, look at it and say "Hey guys, next time I have a baby and am feeling a little out of my mind as all women do in transition, could you please have some more freaking balls and be there for me so I can have the experience that my baby and I deserve?!"
During my first labor the epi was placed to low, and it didn't work at all while they were hitting me with pit. I felt like they were peeling the skin off of my entire body. I was being forcibly pinned down as I writhed in excruciating agony for hours. They ended up giving me another dose that did nothing, and then they re-placed the epi. I got 2 more doses. It trapped my baby in the birth canal for 2 complete hours and the ob cut me a whole so large that he was up to his elbows with 3 different sized vacuums. My baby was near death. It was beyond belief, and totally traumatizing. Now nearly 5 years later, I have pinched nerves (damage) in my spine at that point. I can't sit down with out going really slow, and I have to be careful when I pick up my children, or stand, or roll over in bed. Lots of time the nerves just pinches right there, and I scream and fall over in paralyzed pain. I can't move either leg. I have to struggle to find a position to get into that will release it, and usually I need help. Yay for epidurals, yah right! I have had a natural labor and birth since then, and it was NOTHING compared to the pain of the pit with the epi.
What bothers me is that the pros and cons are usually about how the mom feels and needs. What about the baby? Before making the choice to have an epidural, ask about the known ways it could harm your baby. It's something that saddens me; in all this debating about our bodies, we sometimes forget that it needs to be more about the life we're bringing into the world and how something like an epidural will harm them, over what we want for ourselves.
Are there cases where an epidural is the right choice? Sure, but far to often I see women making excuses to make things easier on themselves. And not once do I hear them weigh how it will affect their baby. We’re told throughout an entire pregnancy that even taking Tylenol poses a risk. But now it’s OK to have hardcore painkillers to birth? There are so many other options to make labor more manageable. I’m sorry, but so rarely do I see it as justifiable. I truly feel that once you’ve made a choice to have a child, your comfort is secondary to what’s in your child’s best interest. And while it’s super important to have a supportive team, ultimately the responsibility lies with the birthing mother and the father.
I could go on and on, but I’ll leave it at that.
I have to say I'm very disturbed about all the judgments that were being made about her choices. It's her birth & her choice how to birth. It's a VERY slippery slope when we start telling women what they should/should not be allowed to do with their births. The VBAC-lash is proof. I am a doula and childbirth educator, and contrary to what some believe, women don't always want an unmedicated birth when they hire a doula. I've been hired for many, many, many, births, where they thought they might (or knew they did) want pain meds in labor. They wanted the consistent support of someone at their side on their side. I was not there to judge, but support their decisions.
As someone who had not planned on a hospital birth, nor epidural, I do not like that people potentially judge me for the decisions I had to make during labor. Not every birth is easy, or uncomplicated. I had planned a homebirth. I had a doula, her apprentice, my midwife and her student, plus my husband as support. I went into labor at 41weeks 4 days. After having contractions 3-5 min apart, 45 sec - 2 min long for 44 hours, I finally transferred to a hospital, where after several more hours decided to get an epidural. Was that my plan, no. Was it needed, yes. Was I happy, no - I cried and cried, as my team of women told me I had tried *everything*, I had done *everything* and now I was suffering needlessly. I was terrified to get one, sure I would be the statistic that becomes paralyzed or have some awful side-effect. Luckily it went fine. Long story short - at 42 weeks my son was born by cesarean, with his cord tightly wrapped around his neck; he had been unable to descend. He did not get to be skin to skin with me, nor did he get to nurse within the first hour - yet he is a wonderfully, healthy, emotionally-healthy, sweet little boy who did nurse like a champ.
I really wish women could just support other women, holding them up, instead of talking them down. We women need to stick together! :)
For me, it's not about whether or not the epidural is fundamentally right or wrong, it's about the situation. I normally don't speak in generalizations about women who get epidurals because I don't have the privilege of being there in that moment with the woman. We can argue the pros and cons of epidurals all day long, for both mother and baby, but in the end that old cliche still rings true: Until you walk a mile in my shoes.... And we can never really do that can we. No one can be me. No one could know what 6 hours of pitocin induced contractions one after another with no break, a doctor who keeps trying to get you laying on your back, and the horrible sting of antibiotics going in your arm feels like to ME. Not to mention all the psychological elements in place, my views on birth, my ideals, my fears, my anxiety etc. I went through that, and still I had no epidural, but I wouldn't fault the woman who does. What bothers me, and will always bother me is those who seek to remove the choice of a non-medicated birth from women. Those who make that goal hell. Those who pretend to have a woman's best interest in mind. Those who say there is scientific reason for interventions when there are none and those who seek to remove all autonomous thought and experiences from the birth.
Now in the case of Lyn, I did make a judgment regarding the epidural she received. And I will say that my judgment was based on the notion (which may or may not be true) that she desired a natural birth. And I stand by the judgment, not that she made the wrong choice, because I just can' t see myself having the right to say that, but that she wasn't supported, in the end, on the choice to have a natural birth. There was nothing done in that moment to help her achieve this. I know it may sound silly, but I did get emotionally investing in what I was seeing, partly because birth is just so emotional, but also because I saw a woman giving birth for the first time. She was working so hard, so well, so focused and then it just stopped (until it was time to push, which was great for me to watch too). It stopped and with the way things were going it more than likely didn't have to. I felt let down for her.
I didn't get to see the birth (which sucks, and I'm grumbly about that), so I can't say anything specific about the birth or the attitudes/actions of the labor support staff - but I do want to say something about the comment if a person hires a midwife and doula, isn't that a pretty big indicator that going natural is important to her?
My DONA birth doulas training taught me that I'm hired by a client to help her achieve the kind of birth she wants. That doesn't mean that, universally, people hire doulas to ensure an unmedicated birth. One of my local doulas says there have been times when she's seen an epidural make a positive change for a woman in labor, give her back confidence when she feels eroded by pain and exertion, confidence that she could not achieve otherwise. And I've been an asset to a client who's had an epidural and needed positioning help for second stage.
Doulas can assist in many different ways depending on the needs of the mother and her family. There is a place for doulas at the side of mothers who are having interventions as well as mothers who are seeking an unmedicated birth experience. When I'm asked about the benefits and drawbacks of intervention, I give my clients the most complete, research-based information possible so that they may make the best decision for themselves. It may be that the midwife and doula had already spoken with this mom long before labor began about the pros and cons of epidurals.
I was happy with my epi with my first birth, but it was because my husband wasn't able to be there to support me (the timing was horrible, he had to be taking the bar exam on the same day I went into labor, there was no other choice) so my doula and my sister in law were my support team at a hospital with something like a 90% epi rate. I also had an OB group who weren't cut-happy persay, but they were very pain-relief-happy. So, I got the epi at like 9cm and I wavered back and forth for a long time about whether I was disappointed with myself or not. But then I realized the true reason I got it - I had gotten to 9cm without needing to vocalize through contractions and was starting to feel out of control. And without my husband and with my SIL there, I couldn't do that. I emotionally couldn't let go enough to feel ok with being as primal as I needed to be. I chalk it up to just bad luck - if she hadn't come on her due date, my husband would have been there, and it would have been ok with me to give in to the primal part. The biggest thing that sucked was a 2nd degree tear and coached pushing.
With my 2nd birth, I did hypnobirthing and had a bigger baby (the 1st was 9 lbs 1 oz and the 2nd was 10 lbs 6 oz), but had no epi and no tearing (my husband compared it to how ballplayers who get cortizone shots to play through an injury often injure themselves worse b/c they can't feel what is happening to their body). I was far happier with that birth, and needed the ability to move around given that he had mild shoulder dystocia and I had to use different positions.
But even with the natural 2nd one, I can't hate my first epi. I needed it. Not for pain, but for emotional comfort.
I birthed my son in a birth centre. I'm not sure if you have those in the USA, but here in the UK they're midwife-led units which to me felt a lot like being at home. There are no doctors at all. The centre I birthed in had no men working in it. There are no C-sections, no epidurals, no forceps or ventouse. The strongest painkiller they can give you is pethidine, and at least in my centre they allowed me to birth exactly how I wanted to. I know that some birth centres here are attached to hospitals, and they can be a little too eager to ship you off to the maternity ward because you're having 'failure to progress' but the centre I birthed in was situated in a hospital which had only geriatric wards. The nearest place with OB doctors and surgeons was a good half hour to forty-five minutes' drive away.
I recall that about an hour before I started pushing, I was begging them to bundle me into an ambulance, take me to St Mary's (the hospital I just mentioned) and give me an epidural. The midwives explained that that was a long journey and a lot of effort when I didn't have long to go now, and they were really supportive. I do know though, that had I been in a hospital where an epidural was readily available, I'd have taken it. Looking back I'm glad it wasn't available, but having been there I can totally understand why some women choose the epidural.
Amen to CRP. What I'm getting from these comments is that a lot of you are theoretically for informed consent, but really only if they consent to the same things you would.
I'm not going to justify my Bradley-classed, midwife-assisted decision to have an epidural placed. I'll just tell you it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, and it's not because I was unaware of the risks, ignorant about birth, scared, or unsupported. And it worked fine as pain-relief. Did a cascade of interventions lead to my section? Maybe, or maybe the fact that she was so stuck and destined for a section lead to the long, difficult labor that would lead me to have interventions.
It's just not a black and white thing. In a perfect world, maybe I could have birthed my daughter naturally. Or maybe not. But it certainly does not help matters to imply that anyone who gets an epi is ignorant or does not sufficiently trust her perfect woman-body.
I am from the Twin Cities, and I may have a little insight on this birth. First, it is not uncommon here for women to see a CNM who have no intentions of having a natural birth. A lot of clinics have a CNM practice, and a lot have just one or two on staff. When I had my son, I didn't realize this and I thought that seeing a CNM would ensure that I was supported through a natural birth. I was very wrong, most of the CNM's around here do not give a hoot about natural birth, and many women see them who are not by any means planning a natural birth. I am not sure if Lynsee was planning a natural birth or not, but seeing a CNM is not necessarily an indication of that. Second, did she have a doula or not? I think everyone made an assumption that the women with her was her doula, but she is actually her mom. Also, she delivered at Abbott. Abbott is a high risk hospital in the Twin Cities. It has a high c-section rate (which is very uncharacteristic of other hospitals around here which are below the national average) and it is known for being natural birth unfriendly. If you have a complication, or become high risk, you may end up at Abbott. A doula would likely never recommend Abbott to have a natural birth. I am actually really surprised that the hospital appeared as progressive as it did, because I certainly would never think that Abbott would have a birth tub or allow a woman to eat in labor, etc. I am not sure if they just did that for the cameras or if they actually have those policies. So, it doesn't mean that Lynsee did not want a natural birth by choosing Abbott. She very well could have, and chose to see a CNM not realizing that the hospital that the CNM works through is an important factor to achieving a natural birth. This is not something most first time moms, or a lot of women in general would know. I am making the assumption that a midwife who works through Abbott would not be the most naturally minded of midwives, so helping a client achieve a natural birth was probably not on the top of her mind. Also, the midwife knew she was being watched. Most people would criticize her for not giving the epidural at the first signs of Lynsee wanting it.
Also, I just have to comment on RMB's comment above where she states, "Ideally, ALL women would trust their bodies, and understand the natural process of birth, but that is not the case. A clueless fearful woman would possibly be traumatized by natural birth and hate the experience, instead of enjoying and being uplifted by it." Just so you know, this is really, REALLY offensive. A "clueless fearful woman" would possibly be traumatized by natural birth? Many women are traumatized by their natural births. I assure you it is not because they are clueless and fearful. It is usually because they are unsupported or abused. To turn this around on the woman herself is a dangerous way of thinking. Any woman can be abused or unsupported in the moment, but only certain women go in to their births as what you would term "clueless and fearful". Perhaps you feel protected by that way of thinking, but it is extremely hurtful to women who went into their births very prepared and came out traumatized. Also, this just isn't true. I see more women traumatized who were extremely educated then I do who were "clueless".
I consider myself to be a natural childbirth advocate. When I was going to give birth to my first child, I traveled 1 1/2 hrs from my home in order to birth in a birthing center attended by a midwife and to avoid a hospital & medicalized birth. I had a midwife and a doula and while generally I would say that I could have been better supported even with these individuals, the complications of my labor could not be controlled by them. I vomited profusely for 8-12 hrs during early labor and became severely dehydrated (I'm medically prone to dehydration). My body could not recover and the labor became erratic. Moreover, I was exhausted, beyond exhausted, and verging on really bad shape. The midwife (who has a transfer rate of like 3%) recommended that I have an epidural because she was so concerned about my condition. While perhaps encouragement alone could have gotten me through, I don't think so - our main concern was avoiding an emergency C-section. So we agreed, and I had an epidural. I have no complaints about my experience. It was a great epidural, which they turned off for pushing, so I could feel the peaks of my contractions and felt my son's head emerge. What's often missing from the debate about epidurals is that they CAN serve a MEDICAL function. They don't necessarily exist only for the "convenience" of the mother.
Moreover, I'm troubled by the assertions that women don't deserve pain relief. While I want to live in a world where every mother in labor is supported, I would never, ever tell a woman in excruciating pain - you have to stay in pain, even though there's pain relief available. To me this barbaric. I understand all the medical concerns about epidurals, but like all medications during pregnancy, sometimes their use is *warranted* and medically justified. Every individual feels pain differently and experiences labor differently. We have to respect each other and the decisions we make. I do not want another epidural and wish the rates of epidurals were reduced in this country by following the Lamaze recommendations for birthing practices. I wish women were supported during labors by OBs and nurses. They should be. I understand that much of the strong opposition to epidurals is connected to how over-medicalized birth is in this country. But we should also all remember that just as there is no textbook labor and birth, there is no one way to give birth.
I am in total agreement with everyone who pointed out there should have been more support from the midwife and doula. If the birth plan was to go natural, all involved should have been prepared to encourage the mother, especially in transition time. That is the time for a mother to be in doubt of her ability to get through the labor and delivery. But, then again, maybe it was hard to refuse this mother's request for some relief.
My view on epidurals:
I believe they cause MANY problems for laboring and delivery.
1. Your option to move around to encourage labor to progress is gone.
2. Pushing stage becomes difficult. The mother should know when and how to push, but the epidural takes that away. The body will do its job to safely push baby out if left alone. The epidural totally impedes upon this natural and perfect process.
3. Epidurals raise your risk for a C-Section.
Basically, I think epidurals Interrupt a perfect process. It causes unnecessary complications. More mothers need to be informed of these complications, as well as how transition will be for them. If they knew that at the point in laboring when it gets TOUGH that it means pushing stage is just around the corner, maybe more moms would opt out of the epidural route.
But! If you are a mother who chooses the epidural, I am in no way condemning you! I just think more information about the course of labor and epidurals needs to be more readily available.
Since I got one, I can hardly stand on my high horse and look down on any other mom who did! But then, I'm pretty sure my epidural was part of a long chain of interventions which led to my c/sec. So my feelings are decidedly mixed.
Here's the deal; numbing your lower half does indeed help with contraction pain. It also immobilizes you, and that makes pushing out the baby harder and your chance of surgery higher.
And I love how she was told it would "give her rest" but it really didn't. It didn't make me feel rested either, just numb.
I think that, as labor aid, epidurals are not super-effective. As pain-relief, they are effective but often obstruct labor.
But I am not against pain relief, in any way, for laboring moms. It's just that epidurals are a clumsy, problematic form of pain relief. I don't know if we can invent a better one, but this one is definitely not all it's cracked up to be. Which to me, means that hospitals shouldn't be pushing it so hard in lieu of more effective and less problematic methods, like tubs, massage, movement, and support.
I regret that I don’t have a lot of time to spend on interacting on this thread today. Here are a handful of my thoughts off the top of my head on the comment furor.
The compassion is… where?
The respect for diversity is… where?
The respect that others own their own reality and that may differ greatly from yours is… where?
The original title of this post was “Why I do or don’t think epidurals are a crime against humanity.” It was too sarcastic, but not far off the mark. Do people really believe that human beings, particularly babies, are not resilient enough to form meaningful relationships with their caregivers unless they had immediate skin-to-skin, nursing, no medication during birth, etc., etc.? Those are the arguments I want to hear. I had to chuckle because not only were people criticizing Lynsee for looking detached after her birth (which she did not) and for not getting immediate skin-to-skin, but then started ripping on the father for not bonding appropriately with his baby in that first hour. Hey. Make up your mind. And while you’re at it, what exactly is the awful long-term fate that her baby will meet by being wrapped up like a burrito? Have people really thought that one through in their heads? I’ll admit that I was waiting with bated breath for her to start nursing, assuming that she planned to breastfeed, and I sighed with relief when baby latched on.
I find the “my birth is your birth” mindset terrifying. I love the feeling that we are all connected and supporting each other. However, my body is not your body, my fetus is not your fetus and my baby is not your baby. We don’t truly own a lot of things in the world but I do own the rights to my body and to my memories. Know what I mean? If the women at the hospital (docs, midwives) felt this way about my body and baby when I refused a cesarean, wouldn’t that have been just the mindset that would have them pick up the phone to get a court-order issued?
I don’t understand scoffing at another woman’s happiness by saying she couldn’t possibly be happy with her birth because she didn’t __________ or because she ____________. Really?
Did the midwife do the right thing by offering an epidural in transition? I don’t know. I don’t know what their relationship was beforehand, what they had talked about, Lynsee’s hopes for her birth, anything. I know that I personally would have been really bummed if my labor team hadn’t replied to me when I said “I can’t do this!” with “You are doing it! You’re doing great!” In fact, I missed the entire birth broadcast so I’m going on second hand info. Some feel it would be cruel to say “You can do this” instead of offering an epidural. Others think it’s weird to not encourage a woman who expressed interest in an unmedicated birth to push through transition. I know I would have wanted encouragement. Not everyone does.
Jill, I love you so much. (and that no longer feels weird and vain to type, LOL)
I, too, was annoyed by how it seemed that the baby would be doomed to never breastfeed and grow up to be a sociopath because she wasn't placed naked on mom's chest the millisecond she emerged from the womb. Talk about overreacting.
I think so many of us are caught up in our homebirth ideals that we forget THIS HAPPENED IN A HOSPITAL. They have their silly hospital protocol to worry about. Do I like it, no. But I don't think the sky is going to fall when it happens either.
When we limit what is acceptable to a very small scope of events and throw a wall-eyed fit when they deviate even slightly from our notions of perfection, we're no better than the other end of the spectrum. Extremism never works no matter what side you're on.
I'm currently a doula and an apprentice midwife. So obviously I prefer and support unmedicated birth and mother-baby bonding time and feel it's in the best interest of both mom and baby. But I know from personal experience that babies can and do develop very intimate bonds with mom, even if they aren't put immediately on mom's chest (or even get experience that skin to skin contact for the first month of life, as in the case of my prematurely born son). I think that cry it out sleep training, baby buckets, and other means of getting newborns to be "independent" have a much greater bearing on bonding. But that's a whole other can of worms :)
I just want to mention that the woman did not have a doula. She has her nurse midwife, her husband and her mother. She was only allowed to have three people on the floor at a time. I also want to mention that the commentary accompanying the birth was far less critical than is being assumed. Read back. What I saw was a large population of doulas and midwives who started a discussion reacting to a birth they could not attend. This was a first time for everyone. I have never watched a birth live and not been able to give the mom a hug, or say the words that came to me at a specific moment. So we reacted. Because we weren't attending the births we were able to discuss amongst ourselves what we would do/or be saying if we were in that room as part of the support team. It also provided an excellent example of modern American birth for us to discuss. In my opinion, the discussion that was about the mother specifically was almost ALWAYS "WOW, she is doing so great!" and any critical thinking was applied as a discussion on the normal medical system of birth in our modern times, how that made us feel and what that means for birth and women as a whole.
This woman gave so much of herself. I was amazed at her ability to birth on live camera and she opened the door to so much conversation. Conversations that need to happen because the division amongst us isn't going to help anyone. The doulas and midwives I know are usually the most staunch advocates of making sure women have choices, but we are also the people watching all the women birth. We are seeing what happens when births are over medicalized, mothers are misinformed or under informed and we are trying to figure out how to help mothers have better births. We are also the women sitting with women afterwards and processing with them. Wondering if it's worth telling them what the doctor did was without consent or could even be considered abuse. Or should we mention that we are highly suspicious that her C-section was b/c of a certain timeline rather than a medical emergency. Or maybe to just tell her she did wonderful, because she did and why bring up the ugly when she has a beautiful baby to take care of. But who is this serving to keep quiet? There are so many questions...so much gray area.
It is my perception that the average American woman has a very low bar when it comes to expectations of her birth experience. She doesn't expect complete respect, support that keeps giving, evidence based information, or an empowering experience. She just hopes to get through it. This is of course a generalization, but from my perspective it is the pervasive attitude among us and I for one encourage all sorts of discussions. Even ones that are politically incorrect so that we can figure this out amongst ourselves and raise the bar. Yes we want healthy babies, yes we want healthy mamas, but there doesn't have to be a trade off.
I am very thankful that Lynsee shared her experience and that so many of us are now wading through our feelings and beliefs surrounding it. I think the situation has the potential to move as forward as thinking, self-respected, strong and confident mothers and I hope that we can heal more than we hurt.
Hillary,
When I returned to the original FB thread and there were 350 comments, it was still mild. That is exactly what it felt like... women remembering their own birth experiences while watching and birth workers feeling excited about watching a woman sharing her birth. I wrote something to that extent before in some comment thread-- they're all kind of morphing into one in my head at this point.
As I was posting screenshots and the next 80-ish comments rolled in quickly, I started getting messages that comments were taking a negative turn. Between e-mails and messages, people expressed protectiveness of Lynsee and were ticked that I hadn't moderated or deleted some of the mean-spirited comments. It was tough because some women were clearly triggered and frustrated about the typical hospital protocol. For such an uncomplicated birth, there were so many more mother-friendly steps they could have taken, but as Jennifer said above, it's a high-risk hospital at which a more intervening approach might be more likely. I don't know if you agree that things started getting spiteful toward Lynsee at the end of those threads and crossed the line on something I was willing to host on a public forum for which I am responsible.
I'm really grateful that she shared her birth. The only reason I've kept the discussion going is because this is clearly something that has to be discussed and that people want to discuss and, as uncomfortable as it might be, it’s better discussed than not. I’ve learned some interesting things, one of which is that moderating is kind of hard! I want everyone to have their say and I honestly respect the many viewpoints expressed, but I had to draw the line at She got an epidural because she wanted to look good for the cameras and check Facebook or whatever that was and the whole thing about how the dad was doing a bad job at bonding. That was just getting nasty.
Anyway, I was very happy that everyone felt safe chatting about her birth on the fan page. I’m really bummed I slept through it!
I noticed one little tidbit- here that I found interesting- something along the lines of: "the mother in labor did not get more support from her doula and midwife" and I guess the poster surmised she then and therfore chose an epidural. People, she was in a hospital. I mean this in the nicest way- this is wher hospitals excel. They see people in pain and rush to stop it- hopsital birth training and out of hospital birth training are completely different. Hospitals manage birth, home birth midwives attend births (and I feel confident saying that more HB midwives need to attend and MANAGE births a little more) A CNM who delivers babies in a hospital may or may not deliver an authentic midwifery model of care. (there's a part of me that wants to insert a "get over it" right here) The CNM may be in just as much of a stranglehold as a doctor who supervises her and they are probably terrified of a "suboptimal" outcome as it is a virtual poop storm for everyone involved.
I understand our passion about this way to birth or the ideal birth but babies do not always tumble out - so mothers choose what they choose based on what is going on in their labor, how they are/ are not being advised and they do the best they can. We are "not there" and I feel like this increasing misplaced birth bashing in just plain ole cruel. It isn't constructive, it hurts feelings.
First and foremost we should applaud her courage for sharing one of the most intimate moments in her life with all of us. She is holding a healthy baby and believe it or not the more folks "bash" the more I believe a healthy baby at the end is most important how we get there is a "reproductive right."