How to stand your ground with birth choices

Why are we so afraid to say that we are afraid?

So, I’m prompted to write this after reading a longer article on medium.com about the larger issue of vulnerability around child birth (read it here). The big thing for me while reading this insightful piece was realising that many women (well, me, and I imagine many others!) really want a home birth (or a C-section/water birth/whatever it is they want) but they are worried they’ll be ridiculed and imagine they’d need whisking off to hospital because they couldn’t handle the pain, or couldn’t deliver baby themselves etc.

I had a minor but significant medical issue which made it difficult for me to safely achieve a home birth, so I chose a hospital birth and it was honestly a joyful experience. But I had to accept that it was my choice to have my baby in hospital, otherwise I might have had some baggage about that.

What bothers me is that even women with straightforward pregnancies are not usually encouraged to give birth at home or in a midwife led centre (where they might have a better birth experience and potentially better outcomes). It is kind of a taboo. Even today, in 2015, with so much evidence that home births are safe for low-risk pregnancies. Having birth at home might be the best option for a woman. But it’s seen as kind of hippy-ish, so she doesn’t consider it because she doesn’t want to be “difficult” or pushy, or laughed at by her friends who say “what, you think you can do it without an epidural? Ha!” (by the way epidurals increase the chances of needing either assisted delivery or C-section, but that’s for another article!).

The message I want to leave you with is a simple one. Do your research. Make it your mission to be the expert, and then you can make an informed choice. Then do what is right for you. That may not be what is automatically offered to you and you may even have to fight for it, but stand up for yourself and don’t just assume you are not strong enough. Women are strong. And we have a choice.

The fear of being laughed at or looking naive may be there, but it’s what you do with that fear that counts.

And on a lighter note something to make you smile…

The above cartoon is from theunnecessarean.com (entitled What is an exoticized image of a woman of color giving birth?)