Source: www.PRWeb.com

7 Alternative ways to prepare for childbirth and cope with the intensity of labor.

Carlsbad, CA (PRWEB) — As the shift toward self-education continues to grow, large numbers of American women are choosing alternative ways to prepare for childbirth and cope with the intensity of labor. Instead of waiting for the doctor to tell them what they need to know, women are doing more research on their options and exploring ways to make pregnancy and birth less painful.

Here is what they are choosing:

1. Birth Networks – These organized, regional groups of pregnant women and birthing professionals meet regularly to educate, empower and support each other and advocate for the improvement of maternity care in their communities. What started as a grassroots movement has exploded across the county.

Evidence of a growing trend: Amy Romano of Lamaze International estimates that the number of birth networks has doubled in the past year. Since 2004, the Lamaze Institute for Normal Birth has awarded grants to form and expand birth networks. It also offers organizational resources for birth networks through their website, www.normalbirth.lamaze.org.

2. Birth Stories – Expectant women are hungry for information on labor and birth, and the mainstream media is responding with birth stories. These stories offer much more than entertainment; they provide information on birth options, tools, classes and techniques. The impact of birth stories on expectant parents is quickly coming to the attention of the birth professionals, and many are actively discouraging patients from watching the highly-dramatized birth programs on cable television. Because the level of fear in a laboring woman directly impacts the progression of her labor, birthing professionals are directing patients to read only empowering, inspiring birth stories, such as those found in Journey into Motherhood:
Inspirational Stories of Natural Birth http://www.journeyintomotherhood.com (White Heart Publishing, 2005).

Evidence of a growing trend: There are now 7 programs on cable television that highlight the experience of labor and delivery. Most pregnancy magazines now feature birth stories on a regular basis, and many birth networks and childbirth educators now sponsor birth-story nights.

3. Hypnosis for Childbirth – Since a 1999 segment on NBC’s Dateline featured hypnosis for childbirth, interest has steadily grown. The HypnoBirthing Method and Hypnobabies are two of the oldest and most popular programs, but with the growing interest in this method, there are now several different programs available, as well as supplemental products such as Journey into Childbirth: Hypnosis for Empowered Birthing by Sheri Menelli. While no program promises a pain-free birth, this is a frequent result.

Evidence of a growing trend: In the late 19990s there were only a few hundred educators, and as of this year, there are over 3000.

4. Prenatal yoga – Prenatal yoga strengthens and stretches the muscles that are used in childbirth, and teaches breathing and focusing techniques that help women through labor.

Evidence of a growing trend: In San Diego, California, prenatal yoga instructors are reporting an increase in class attendance of approximately 50% over the last three years. Much of the increase is attributed to growing support from doctors, midwives and childbirth educators who send their clients to yoga classes to relieve back pain, reduce tension, and cope with high blood pressure. A number of prenatal yoga videos are now available to women who prefer to practice at home.

5. Water-assisted labor – Widely known as “nature’s epidural,” warm water can ease the discomfort of labor by helping a woman relax. A “birthing tub” counters the effect of gravity on her contracting muscles, and even a warm shower can provide soothing comfort to tired and tense women.

Evidence of a growing trend: In the last 10 years, water-assisted labor has grown exponentially. In 1995 there were only three hospitals in the country that offered it. Now it is offered in more than 260 hospitals – 15% of all U.S. hospitals. In the last year alone there was a 4% increase, and this number is expected to grow in the coming year.

6. Doulas – A doula is a professional who is trained to provide emotional and tactical support a family through pregnancy, labor, delivery, and newborn care. Studies show that the presence of a doula reduces the need for medication, as well as the possibility of a Cesarean-section birth.

Evidence of a growing trend: Every doula organization reports phenomenal growth in membership, and in the number of students in doula training classes. Doulas of North America (DONA), just one of several doula organizations reported a 10-fold increase in the number of certified doulas in the last 7 years.

7. Pregnancy Massage – A specialized form of bodywork, pregnancy massage addresses the specialized needs of a rapidly changing body. It enhances the function and alignment of muscles and joints, improves circulation and muscle tone, and relieves mental and physical fatigue. These benefits translate to lower levels of stress hormones, as reported in a study by Dr. Tiffany Field at the University of Miami School of Medicine.

Evidence of a growing trend: Instructor Elien Alexander from The School of Healing Arts in San Diego, California, reported a 10-fold increase in the number of students becoming certified in pregnancy massage in the last 5 years.

Image Source: http://flickr.com/photos/amandabel/2302960016/

From an article titled “No love for labor” found at www.DeccanHerald.com

“More and more women are opting for fast-track deliveries through elective C-section. Rising affluence, limited time and desire for pain-free birthing has spurred this unhealthy trend.

In keeping with Delhi’s dizzying urban growth trajectory, its would-be-moms are also rooting for fast-track deliveries. In fact, a first-of-its-kind childbirth survey, conducted by Delhi’s leading hospitals, reports an alarming and unhealthy spiral in the number of cesarean section (C-Sec) deliveries among the city women. They are up from 40 per cent in 1997 to 65 per cent.”

Click here to read the full article at www.deccanherald.com

Sheryl’s comment:
Should I be relieved or appalled that the United States is not the absolute worst place to give birth? What is truly depressing about these numbers is the fact that many of these unnecessary C-sections are elective. I can’t even blame the OB-GYNs for this one. The media and the medical community have done a bang up job in the last fifty years of convincing women that being gutted, filleted and butchered is somehow cleaner, quicker and more civilized than a natural birth.

What if the medical community decided they wanted a piece of the conception pie? I am not talking about the fertility challenged mind you. I am talking about those couples who are perfectly willing and able to conceive on their own. The medical community could push a new procedure called a T-section where rather than waiting for the rather messy and unpredictable act of ejaculation, they slice open the testicle and remove the sperm! What a fantastic and civilized way to conceive! Attempting an ESAT - (Ejaculating Sperm After T-section) would be considered very dangerous due to the risk of “testicle rupture” among other things. The few fools who attempt to ejaculate in their home after a T-section and suffered a testicle rupture would be widely publicized and ridiculed.

It would be wonderful! There will be no questions about conception! No waiting! No wondering if this is it! No fuss no muss. Some brave souls may attempt a “clinical natural ejaculation” while lying on their backs with their legs locked tightly in stirrups under the watchful eyes of the “ejaculation team” who will shout out orders to the ejaculating father in order to keep the process moving along. If the patient fails to ejaculate in a timely manner then the T-section team will be ready and waiting to slice open those balls!

I’m sure it will be a tough sell trying to convince all men that ejaculation is a dangerous and uncivilized procedure, one that is best left for the “clean and civilized” confines of a hospital setting but if the media and modern medicine work together then anything is possible.

Image Source: http://flickr.com/photos/tianderson/282363027/

Source www.PRweb.com

Moms: Do you really need that C-section or epidural? Registered nurse and midwife Breck Hawk, author of “Hey! Who’s Having This Baby Anyway?” reveals why these procedures are often unnecessarily prescribed during labor and shares how you can
avoid them.

San Diego, CA (PRWEB) — Studies show birth is most common Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Is this just coincidence or is it a contrived effort by providers to control personal schedules?

Pregnant women are encouraged to welcome the chance to have their baby on a scheduled date for the convenience of their provider. But often they’re not told the risks and side effects involved. They don’t realize that some interventions – such as pain medications, epidurals, C-sections, or birthing the baby with forceps or vacuum extraction - may not only be unnecessary, but also dangerous.

“Moms-to-be may blindly trust providers, thinking everything suggested is good – but this isn’t always true,” says registered nurse and midwife Breck Hawk, author of “Hey! Who’s Having This Baby Anyway?” (Metropolis Ink, www.HeyAnyway.com). “Unless it’s anatomically necessary, women deserve and need to be told they probably birth babies vaginally and naturally.”

Hawk has over 27 years experience as a midwife, doula, prenatal instructor, and registered nurse specializing in maternity and neonatal intensive care. She has helped hundreds of women give birth. Here she reveals how to avoid common interventions and have a successful birth.

-Hire a doula or professional labor support person.

-Exercise during pregnancy. This strengthens muscles and prepares your body for the long stress of labor.

-Consider a birth center or having a homebirth with a midwife.

-Attend childbirth classes that teach non-pharmacological methods of pain relief such as yoga, HypnoBirthing, Lamaze, and others.

-In the hospital, ask to be assigned to the nurse who is the strongest supporter of natural childbirth.

-Before taking pain medication, ask for a vaginal exam. See how far your cervical dilation has progressed. You may be further along than you thought and decide to forgo the medication.

No matter what’s on your provider’s personal agenda, remember it’s your body and your baby and it’s your right to have the last word regarding your baby’s birth!

How birth-savvy are you? Take the 12 Question Quiz for Moms-to-Be or purchase your copy of “Hey! Who’s Having This Baby Anyway?” at www.HeyAnyway.com.

Image Source: http://flickr.com/photos/s4xton/1791633553/

Click here to read the full article

Sheryl’s comments:
And people think unassisted birth is uncivilized??? This is a classic example of why using a midwife is no guarantee of a natural birth. Even the best intentioned midwives frequently interfere with the natural progression of birth.

Midwives have financial incentive to avoid sending the birthing mother to the services of an obstetrician and they often have to adhere to an arbitrary legal birthing time line so to avoid a hospital transfer for “time reasons” midwives often do all sorts of things to women to “speed things up”. Midwives are also trying to avoid lawsuits and many are admittedly in as much of a rush to go home to their family as any obstetrician.

Some midwives, particularly “medwives” (CNMs who practice in a hospital setting and fancy themselves obstetricians) also engage in the barbaric and insane practice of immediate cord clamping. In a natural birth when the cord is done pulsing and the baby has received their life giving oxygenated blood and the baby has successful transfered to pulmonary oxygenation (lung breathing) and the baby begins breastfeeding and oxytocin floods the mother’s brain (not from a poisonous shot of Pitocin) then the placenta will naturally detach. There is simply no need to yank on the cord!

DO NOT LET YOUR OB-GYN OR MIDWIFE CUT OR CLAMP THE CORD IMMEDIATELY!

Up to 1/3 of your baby’s blood (that belongs inside your baby’s body) is still contained in the placenta. This is the leading cause of infant anemia. This final blood transfusion is a backup plan for delayed breathing or complications and provides critical oxygen before the oxygen from breathed air hits the baby’s brain.

It absolutely infuriates me that these birth attendants are in such a damn rush that they can’t let the baby have its own blood and oxygen. If I am fortunate enough to have another child and unfortunate enough to have another person in attendance, I will knock them out cold before I let them touch the cord.

If you are going to let someone else attend your birth then please:

1. Make him or her sign the birth plan stating that you insist that they do not touch the umbilical cord until it is done pulsing
2. Do not let him/her convince you that they will “give you two minutes”. It takes 10-20 to stop pulsing.
3. Threaten legal action if he/she clamps the cord, even for a cesarean
4. Get a new OB-GYN or midwife if they refuse to let your child keep the oxygen/blood that is rightfully theirs. How on earth can ten minutes of that person’s time be worth blood and oxygen from your baby’s body? Ten lousy minutes when they are making thousands of dollars off of you. Are you willing to risk a lifelong birth injury from oxygen deprivation to your baby’s brain? Your midwife or OB-GYN is certainly willing to risk it unless you stop them.

Or you can make the civilized choice and try unassisted childbirth or homebirth with a midwife who values cord blood, to ensure that no one inflicts this harmful procedure on your innocent and helpless child.

The midwife in attendance does not touch the baby, violate the mother or hinder the birth in any way. If something (God forbid) precludes me from having an unassisted birth the next time around then I swear that I am going to fly to the Netherlands to give birth because those midwives seem to understand the birthing process better than any other midwife I have seen.

Notice how easily the baby comes out. Notice how the mother’s vagina opens naturally with gravity helping out (and not a mutilating episiotomy). Notice how the baby turns naturally, all on its own. Notice how there is no blood. Notice how the midwife does not need to yank the baby out by its head. Notice how there is no epidural but the mother almost sounds like she is having an orgasm.

How can anyone even consider having a hospital birth after watching how perfect, natural and wonderful this birth is?

Childbirth is like sex in that it is much more than a physical act and it requires privacy and intimacy. Childbirth is not just about a head coming out, just as sex is not just about a head going in. Sexual intercourse has medical risks as well (one of the partners contracting AIDS or gonorrhea, for example), but that doesn’t justify having a doctor in the room. In order for a woman to have a personal, private birth experience, it is essential to get her out of an institution that by its very nature is impersonal and not private—the hospital.

Women in the United States have become victims of a medical vision of female reproduction, and that needs to change. The most effective way to avoid this medicalization of birth is to stay away from where it goes on—the hospital.

Click here to read the full story at American Sexuality Magazine Another fantastic article explaining once again that if you want the best possible outcome and birth experience for the baby and family then you absolutely, positively cannot give birth in a hospital (unless you have a true medical need). We believe that you cannot have midwives or doctors in attendance at all (unless you have a legitimate high risk pregnancy) if you want to have the safest, most natural birth experience. Please remember that while midwives are often a much safer choice than obstetricians (from an intervention standpoint) they still engage in dangerous interventions such as routine pitocin shots after delivery, yanking on the umbilical cord, immediate cord clamping, invasive & painful pelvic exams, episiotomies, cervical manipulation and other unnecessary, dangerous practices. They do these things for the same reason that your OB-GYN will (to prevent a lawsuit because you didn’t deliver fast enough for the law, to keep you from transferring to the services of a medical doctor or (my personal favorite) because they are in a hurry and want to go home. (wow).

This point is made in a very dramatic way if you watch hospital birth videos side by side with home birth videos. Thank you Laura!

Adults have their own rhyme and reason for birth choices. Doctors and midwives make choices for convenience, scheduling, to avoid lawsuits or for profit. You may make decisions based on personal beliefs, research, the influence of others, your own benefit, and quite likely for what you believe to be the good of the baby.

Doctors and midwives may claim to “first do no harm”, but that apparently does not hold true in childbirth which is evidenced by the United State’s embarrassingly high infant mortality rate and intervention rate. It is your job as the parent then, to distinguish fact from fiction to uncover what is really in the best interest of your child. What is really best for your baby? What is your baby thinking or feeling during childbirth? What does your baby really want?

BABIES WANT TO AVOID PAIN
It is fairly logical to assume that your baby does not want to experience pain. Many birth interventions such as breaking the water, labor inductions, forceps or surgery can cause the baby pain by forcing the babies skull against the mothers pelvis, crushing the baby with intolerable and relentless contractions, nicking the baby with a scalpel, or the unimaginable pain of forceps dragging them out of the birth canal by their head.

Labor inductions can cause crushing contractions which smash the babies head into the mother’s pelvis repeatedly. For some barbaric reason anesthesia is rarely used in circumcision which is clearly excruciating for the baby not to mention totally unnecessary. Vaccinations are also painful. Some of these procedures are so painful and traumatic that the baby fails to make eye contact with its parents or breastfeed at all.

BABIES WANT OXYGEN
Babies also seem to enjoy adequate blood and oxygen. Anything that compresses the umbilical cord which is quite literally, the babies lifeline, will understandably cause fetal distress and if not resolved can cause potentially irreversible brain damage. This is the worst nightmare of any parent but I am quite sure the baby didn’t sign up for it either. A combination of broken waters and a supine (on the back position) can cause the baby to lie on its own cord and compress it.

The supine position also compresses the mother’s vena cava which is the main vein supplying blood to the uterus. Pregnant women dutifully sleep on their side through pregnancy only to get to the hospital and start suffocating their baby to give the doctor a better view.

Many interventions used in hospitals restrict blood flow to the uterus either through contractions or from the fight or flight response of the mother. The violent contractions brought on by Pitocin and Cytotec restrict or eliminate the blood supply to the uterus causing dramatic fetal distress often “necessitating” a cesarean section. Overly long or strong contractions essentially suffocate the fetus by only allowing the fetus to “breathe” briefly between contractions.

By far the single most common intervention that literally robs a newborn of up to one third of their blood supply is the insane practice of immediate cord clamping. There is not one scientifically valid reason to clamp a cord immediately. The cord pulses for approximately 15-20 minutes following birth and this pulsing is the babies final and vital blood transfusion. The cord blood is rich with stem cells, iron, and oxygen and it is 100% the property of the baby.

The cord continues to pulse during the baby’s crucial transition to pulmonary oxygenation (breathing through the lungs). It can take several minutes for the oxygen from breathing air to reach the baby’s brain and the oxygenated cord blood compensates in this critical time. As you can imagine, cutting the babies lifeline literally starves the babies brain of oxygen until the lungs can take over. In addition to potential irreversible brain damage, immediate cord clamping also robs the baby of vital iron and causes widespread childhood anemia. The easiest way to avoid anemia? Let the baby retain the blood that is rightfully theirs.

BABIES WANT SECURITY
Babies want to stay in the comfort and safety of the womb until it is time to come out. Inductions and C-sections that are scheduled for convenience or some other arbitrary reason are quite simply removing the baby prematurely. Birth will happen when the baby is done growing. Babies stay inside the womb for a reason and they want to remain there until they are done growing. Some studies indicate that doctors are the leading cause of premature births in the United States.

The unfortunate truth is that virtually all medical interventions carry risks to the mother and baby. In fact, many of the interventions are so harmful to the baby that they lead to fetal distress which puts parents under pressure to submit to even more procedures that carry even greater potential for harm. Almost no parent will say no to something that will save their child when the baby’s heart rate is dropping precipitously. The fact remains that the doctor or midwife caused the distress in the first place.

BABIES WANT A LOVING WELCOME
Try to imagine that you are coming into the world for the first time as a baby(or an alien if that is easier for you). You feel yourself being blasted from the sanctity of the womb to the shrieks of agony of your mother and the militant shouts of others as you are suffocated on and off for twelve hours while your head is rammed repeatedly into bone. Then you feel your body become heavy and unresponsive as you are drugged into oblivion. You are suddenly exposed to blinding light and a crowd of eyes peeking between mask and cap as your mother is filleted to rip you from the safety of your mother’s body. 1/3 of your blood supply is drained from your body as your primary life giving organ is cut from your body without painkillers. Your lungs are not fully developed since you are a few weeks early and since you didn’t travel down the birth canal the amniotic fluid was never squeezed from your lungs. You are whisked away in the latex gloves of uncaring, unresponsive hurried strangers who ram a syringe up your nose, weigh you on a cold metal table, inject you with toxic chemicals, blind you, and irreversibly mutilate your penis without any painkillers. You are finally handed to your mother who is too tortured, butchered and drugged to hold you much less breastfeed.

Conversely imagine coming into the world for the first time in a homebirth setting. You stay in the uterus until your mothers highly evolved and naturally intelligent birthing mechanism understands that you are ready to be born. You feel the strong and gentle hugging squeeze of the uterine contractions as they gently but firmly propel you into the birth canal. You can hear the familiar sounds of your parents and maybe some music. They are talking to you, encouraging you, telling you they love you and cant wait to meet you. You feel the familiar rhythm of your mother’s body moving into various positions that give you ample room to comfortably rotate into the perfect position to be born in. You are squeezed out with a final hugging push or two into the loving warm waiting arms of your parents (perhaps to the sound of your mother’s orgasm) and you are placed on mom’s warm waiting chest within seconds. You blink a bit in the semi darkness and hear your mothers voice without the buffer of the womb for the first time. You hear her love and see into her eyes as you instinctively latch on. Meanwhile your body is being infused with the final blood transfusion that will give you all the oxygen, blood, stem cells and immunity you need for the healthiest start in life. While you latch on to your mother’s warm, waiting breast, her body releases oxytocin which improves your bonding, releases her breast milk, and causes the cord to stop the transfusion, the placenta to detach from the uterine wall and deliver itself naturally. The colustrum from your mother’s breast is all the Vitamin K you need especially since no one will be mutilating your penis. There is no Hepatitis vaccine since you aren’t sexually active quite yet and your penis stays happily and gratefully intact.

There are many arguments for and against natural birth but from the baby’s point of view there is undeniably no contest.

Image Source: http://flickr.com/photos/silversldr/2451035644/

Why an Unassisted Childbirth (UC) or Homebirth is the Superior Choice over Hospital Birth for the Vast Majority of Women.

A woman in the United States today has three options for giving birth.

• Hospital Delivery
• Midwife Home or Birthing Center Delivery
• Unassisted Childbirth

Although all choices can be appropriate depending on the circumstances, the vast majority of babies can be brought into this world at home without the assistance of a midwife or doctor. We will show it is without question the safest and sanest option.

Hospital Delivery
The first location most people think of for giving birth is of course, the hospital. The hospital is probably the best place to be if you are having a heart attack or if you were in a car accident but the worst place you can be if you are trying to give birth after having a healthy, uneventful pregnancy with no complications.

If you have been told your entire life that the only place to have a baby is the hospital, you probably have a hard time digesting what we are telling you. You may automatically object with scenarios you have been brainwashed with. We were all brainwashed. Don’t feel bad. You have the opportunity through reading this to educate yourself and seek the best possible care for yourself and your child.

What exactly is wrong with a hospital birth? Primarily, interventions. Interventions that are, in the vast majority of cases, totally unnecessary and totally harmful. For some reason hospitals and their personnel only consider something unsafe if it causes death or permanent quantifiable disability or damage (ie: if they can be sued).

Depriving a fetus of oxygen for example can obviously cause damage but since the damage cannot be measured or proven unless they kill the baby or cause a cerebral palsy, unconscionable obstetricians and midwives continue to regularly use interventions that always compromise the babies oxygen.

Picture a neonatal nurse covering your newborn’s face with a pillow two minutes on, two minutes off for twelve hours or twenty four hours or more. Ridiculous right? She would go to jail, lose her job and license. But when medical “professionals” do the same thing to a baby in utero nobody questions them. Pregnant women trust that the doctor or midwife is doing what is absolutely necessary. When in a horrifying percentage of the time they are suffocating the baby for their own convenience.

Interventions include labor induction, fetal and maternal monitoring, epidurals, forced pushing, and C-sections. These are just some of the interventions and all are harmful to the mother, the fetus, or both.

Unfortunately you cannot escape the interventions by using a midwife in a hospital setting. Once you are “on their turf”, just like obstetricians, they feel they can do anything they want to you despite verbal or written directions to the contrary. In a hospital they will induce, perform episiotomies, and pretty much do everything an obstetrician does except a C-Section. They are sell outs, not to be trusted. A midwife in a hospital is nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing. A wolf who didn’t go to medical school mind you.

Keep in mind that the majority of doctors and midwives have been brainwashed as well and they actually believe the bunk they are telling people. This does not excuse their behavior. They are torturing, mutilating, butchering, and suffocating innocent women and children. This is beyond inexcusable. It is outrageous. We would like to think that they pay attention to facts and current studies since it is their livelihood but apparently once they have a belief in place they will cling to it no matter what the evidence.

The most important lesson, therefore, is to educate yourself. Don’t believe anything they tell you. They often don’t know what they are talking about or don’t care that what they are telling you is false.

If you have a normal low-risk pregnancy then please seriously consider avoiding the hospital at all costs. Make the hospital a place to go when something goes wrong, not the place to go to ensure that something will go wrong.

Every time you get in your car you risk getting in an accident. But the overwhelming odds are that you will be safe and accident free. You still drive, you don’t live in fear, you don’t require police escorts everywhere you go, you drive yourself with confidence and you take common sense precautions like using seat belts and not using cell phones. Think of this analogy anytime someone says “what if something goes wrong?” when you talk about home birth.

Midwife Assisted Childbirth
The second place a woman can choose to give birth is a birthing center or at home with a midwife. This option is far and away a better choice than the hospital. Many studies have shown this option to be as safe if not safer than a hospital delivery.

The problem again lies in the interventions when nature should be left well enough alone. Some wonderful midwives have trust in a woman’s body and patience to wait out a natural childbirth. If you know of one of those spectacular women, congratulations. They are a rare and wonderful breed. We mean midwives that are willing to wait days for labor to start without any pelvic exams or “natural” inductions. Those midwives are extremely rare, valuable and very hard to find.

Many midwives will intervene for a variety of reasons ranging from guidelines they must adhere to before sending a client to the hospital to impatience at the birth process. Some midwives even admit they will perform unnecessary and dangerous procedures such as using Pitocin or immediate cord clamping because they want to go home as soon as possible.

Whatever the reason, these interventions are not in your best interest. They are not in the best interest of your child. Do you care even a little bit about your doctor or midwives schedule? Is their convenience worth compromising the safety of yourself or your child? It is ludicrous to even make that comparison. Of course you can (and should) fight back and argue and kick and scream and yell and rip out IVs and check yourself out of the hospital or fire your midwife at the 11th hour but wouldn’t it be easier to choose the third option?

Unassisted Childbirth
The third option, unassisted childbirth is not new to the world, but the idea is likely new to you. Proponents of unassisted childbirth or UC feel that a woman’s body is perfectly capable of delivering the baby and does best with no interference at all from outside “help”. Childbirth should be a private, magical moment (just like making love to create the life in the first place).

What a delightful and liberating option! It makes so much sense. This may be heartbreaking for those who have already lived through a horrific hospital birth or even a moderately invasive midwife birth. You may feel twice as violated knowing what your gut already told you. Nobody should be staring at your vagina and violating it repeatedly. Unnecessary. Is it really that far off from rape when you know that you didn’t need to lay on your back with your legs spread? The reality is too horrible for many people to face.

If you are pregnant you can still save your privacy, your dignity, and your safety. If you know someone who is pregnant by all means educate them. At the very least tell them this is a possibility. This is without a doubt, hands down the best option.

Read the research, study the evidence. Prepare yourself for contingencies. Educate yourself. Go to Laura Shanley’s fantastic website www.unassistedchildbirth.com for UC stories and empowering information. Better yet buy her book. Get all the books on natural childbirth you can get your hands on. Read Ina May Gaskin and Henci Goer. Watch The Business of Being Born and read the book Pushed. Get them from the library, beg, borrow, or steal them, but just read them.

Plenty of women wish that they would have had this information even as late as the morning of their delivery and they would have NEVER gone to the hospital. It is not too late even if you are already in the hospital. Women have checked themselves out when faced with dangerous interventions and you can too.

Image Source: http://flickr.com/photos/bbaltimore/43118436/