An on-line community that I take part in had a post from one of the pregnant women today. She had seen a birth in her birthing class last night and was now terrified. Yes, the first time (or first several times) you see that birth it can be really traumatic. Especially depending on the video (seeing the women in labor screaming first doesn't help). But, I highly, highly recommend getting over this by watching more, and more, and more births. Watching until it's no longer shocking and seems commonplace. It's totally not the same as being there for a birth (particularly your own), but the more normal it seems, the less it will shock you when it's your turn, too. This was one of the many, many things I loved about my Bradley class, we watched a TON of births. Natural births. And honestly, watching a medicated birth kind of freaks me out more. And if you want nightmares, watch a c-section. I wish they made all women watch those as well as a natural birth in those "education" classes that hospitals run.
The only birth movies that I've seen that Netflix has are The Business of Being Born which is more about the industry than about births and doesn't have the best birthing examples, and Orgasmic Birth which I just watched two weeks ago and is fantastic. Lots of beautiful, natural births. Home births, hospital births, supportive, loving births (and no crotch shots, so less disturbing for the uninitiated). There is also the medicated birth, but don't worry, it's not balanced at all. I'd love to hear of more if anyone has any suggestions in the comments.
And as a parting thought: WHO (World Health Organization) recommends a c-section rate of about 10%, which means that 90% of women can have healthy, unmedicated births without any problems. It's your body, and your body knows what it's doing.
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I've been afraid of having kids for at least 10 years. I watched a whole lot of Birth Day on The Discovery Channel and feel a bit better. Also, reading about natural births and reading your blog is helping a lot. I really want to try for a natural birth. Shadi is down, but of course we'll do whatever is best for our baby.
ReplyDeleteI think it's so sad that in general, women are made to be afraid of birth. We're so disconnected from it since births are no longer an event that all of the womenfolk attend in the family/community. You can totally watch my birth (we're videotaping this one). And I recommend, again, Orgasmic Birth, most of them are really so beautiful. The best was a couple giving birth on their deck in the back yard. They wanted to be in nature and it was just perfect. If I were in our backyard, half of our neighbors could watch.
ReplyDeleteIt's not that I feel disconnected to it...it's just the fact of something moving around inside me that first gets me all freaked out...and then my vagina getting so big that a head can fit through it. But I do agree that people really are so disconnected with it. I mean, people don't even talk about sex and it's like against the law for some people to even hug one another (obviously over exaggerating, but Christians have now the "side hug" because a normal hug can cause impure thoughts.
ReplyDeleteSide hug: I think sex gets so fetishized here that it becomes a bigger deal. I want to make sure that we take our kids to European beaches when they're impressionable and they realize nudity isn't a big deal. Yeah, how do men get to the point that they're uncontrollably turned on by the sight of a woman's ankle? By never seeing any ankles!! Speaking of which (and I should probably just message you, but whatever, we have all of these Bikini Barista drive-through espresso stands around here. One of them was busted for prostitution. What morally depraved act where these girls committing? One girl licked whipped cream off of another's nearly exposed breast for a bigger tip. It took two months of covert surveillance before the cops could find them doing anything wrong. I am so sick over what the poor girls have had to go through. Four pleaded guilty to lesser charges but the main one was sentenced to jail time, to be served as house arrest. And she's probably going to lose her job since the judge also informed her she wasn't allowed to work in only a bikini anymore. So this was about two miles from our house. Meanwhile, neither the burglary nor arson cases were ever solved (same cops). Hmm, priorities???
ReplyDeleteI didn't know your house was burned because of arson! I thought it was some sort of accidental fire!
ReplyDeleteYea the priorities of cops is annoying. It's mostly pressure from complaining "Fat Linda's". America gets more and more conservative with Christians (Okay mostly Christians) screaming about everything. I mean pretty soon we wont have any colors or smiles and we'll start covering our hair and yea, ANKLE PORN!
Accidental in that I doubt the idiots setting off illegal fireworks in an empty house on the hottest day ever recorded during a three-month drought thought that the house would burn down in less that 30 minutes.
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