This One's For The Babies

For months before the birth of my son Sean, he spoke to me in ways that were very painful and beautiful. He would tell me quiet intimacies that broke my heart, again and again- the feelings of which translated into word form; words that I shared with readers of my BirthLove columns in the OBCNEWS. I wrote ripping laments about my own births- I wrote from a passion of a mother in sorrow; but also from the sweetest anticipation of my newest love. The words were the conscious manifestation of the instinctive wisdom of the baby growing inside me; the baby who wanted a safe, sacred birth. And thank goodness, I listened. His birth was the safest I could have given him- he was born unassisted by doctors, nurses or midwives- just me and his daddy, comfortable and happy at home.

It went like this: at 2 am at about 45 weeks pregnant, I got up to pee. I sat on the toilet, then felt a sudden, intense contraction. This came completely by surprise; I had been waiting for weeks for a sign of labor- water leaking, bloody show, anything- but only had my usual late pregnancy, heavy-rich contracting (prodromal labor- a cervix-ripening, uterus-exercising gift from the gods). The sensations grew less manageable almost instantly: it seems like I only had about seven good contractions from start to finish before my water broke in an explosive, husband-drenching rush of the fantastic. The baby's head crowned.

After his head was out, everything stopped. He stayed like this, head out and nothing else, for about eight or ten minutes (though it felt like only a moment to me). I felt no fear, no stress- the lull just seemed like a nice little rest. I reached down and touched his damp, spongy hair and felt his head moving around a bit. I got thirsty, had a drink- then I felt a spark in my uterus, just below the naval; I felt a roar flow through my body from what seemed to be the center of the earth. I roared from my soul to my mouth- then my wise, beautiful uterus pushed my baby out into his father's hands. My son was floppy and gray- I put him to my skin and rubbed his back, I kissed his hair and welcomed him into his new world. After about a minute, he was pink and thriving. He made a little mewing sound- and I fell totally, hopelessly, completely in love with him. We went to bed.

Had I not been at home, with only my calm, patient husband behind me, I'm certain that my child would have either died in childbirth, or been terribly wounded. In the hospital, his birth would have been a mess. He appeared to be "stuck", a victim of the dreaded shoulder dystocia: the staff would have reacted with terror in what would have appeared to be a crisis situation. His head would have been roughly manipulated in attempts to find his shoulders; then he would have been yanked out of me by his arms. If that didn't work, someone would have been trying to pull him out, full strength, by his head- while someone else was pushing with all their weight on his bum. Once he was out, his cord would have been cut immediately; then he would have been thoroughly resuscitated. Next he would have been whisked down the hall to be "observed" in a special care nursery- where, because he was so big, over twelve pounds, his heel would have been pricked over and over again to test his glucose levels. Glucose water would have been given instead of my colostrum.

Any of this may have killed him... all of this would have injured him. The violent extraction of his head and arms could have left him with fractures, or damage such as cerebral palsy, or Erb's palsy. The vigorous resuscitation could have punctured his lungs. (This whole area of medicine- resuscitation- is being revisited now because it is starting to dawn on the medical profession that they are causing more harm than they ever knew.) The forced fasting would have put him at risk of fatal hypoglycemia. His birth and neonatal period would have been so traumatic that he would have been up to five times more likely to commit violent suicide later in life, as Swedish researcher Bertil Jacobsen has found. (And I don't even want to think about the bloody mess my vagina and perineum would have been in after all of this; or my bad back.)

With fast births like mine, it is common for the uterus to have a rest- especially if the mother is a bit dehydrated. After the rest and some fluids, the uterus gathers up its strength and contracts. The baby comes out, and if the birth process is left alone, the baby does very well. My baby did very well. Now this is where a homebirth can be dangerous: the cord must never be cut before the placenta is expelled. The rich placental blood that flowed into my baby was his lifeline just after his birth, his breath before he was ready to breathe. Had I cut it, he would likely have died. (Deaths mostly happen in homebirths when inept, unproven hospital birthing procedures are brought to home. This is why lay midwives have better outcomes than certified nurse-midwives.)

No- I don't want to hear "but if you were induced at 42 weeks, none of this would have happened!" Of course it would have, and to a terrible conclusion. My baby's lung and brain function would have been suppressed by any Pitocin in me, making him less able to survive his birth and the resuscitation just after; my VBAC uterus would have at risk of rupture with Cytotec in my stomach or Prostin smeared on my cervix; had my membranes been ruptured prematurely, his descent would have been affected adversely, and his cord could have prolapsed as well. My grand multiparous uterus would have worked feverishly from any induction jumpstart- then would have needed even more of a rest in the second stage after all the frantic work of the first, and there it is, "shoulder dystocia"- with all the nasty extractions and terrible interventions that accompany it.

And had my baby been made to be born before he was truly ready, he may not have survived any of the interventions or the delay in my birth canal at all. At ten months pregnant, he was big, strong, resilient and healthy- a child born the moment he was ready to be.

Birth works. If left alone, women's bodies push babies out just fine. Doctors dangerously extract babies all the time- and babies are injured in their births all the time. Modern obstetric models are based on false hospital outcomes- interfered with, mismanaged, hazardous birth is all that is understood by medicine and by most women- and this hurts babies terribly. Birth itself is blamed for needless injuries; women's bodies are blamed for "needing" such violent birth extractions in the first place. And when our babies are wounded, we are grateful to the doctors for saving them from the injuries that the doctors themselves inflict- through their own impatient, self-interested, poorly-researched birth attendance and perverse trust in technology over women's bodies.

I instinctively chose to be away from anyone who could have harmed my baby in his simple and obvious, yet potentially catastrophic birth. Even a midwife at home may well have panicked, and reacted in a way that would have either delayed his birth, or stopped the birth process altogether. (I know that had I felt any stress or anxiety, my uterus wouldn't have given that final, incredible, expulsive contraction.) My baby spoke to me about what he needed in his birth; he spoke to me through my own bitter remembrance of doctors and hospitals. He spoke to me through my instincts to be left alone. I trust in Nature, I trust in babies, I trust in my body to work beautifully in the births I am intended to give- births that modern medicine has deemed to be less safe than all the drugs, tubes and knives they so routinely prescribe. Babies desperately want to be born gently into loving, ungloved hands- and they speak this truth to their mothers. They tell us what they need through our tears, our moods, our cravings and desires. The phantasm of emotion and instinct that pregnant women feel cannot be written off as "just hormones"- this is how our babies speak to us. And if we listen, they tell us amazing things.

Our babies want to be born into warmth, flesh, emotion and love. They want their mommies and daddies to nurture and protect them in their most primal, important time- their births. They want to be left alone- they don't want internal monitors screwed into their scalps; they don't want toxic drugs poured into them through their mommies' bodies that can kill them or damage them irreparably; they don't want to be handled roughly by strangers. They want us to know that they don't want their precious amniotic sacs to be punctured by fingers or hooks: I touched my baby's amniotic sac as it was bulging out of my vagina just before he was born, and it was clear to me that it was a part of him. It wasn't my flesh I was feeling- it was his. And piercing that tissue would have been piercing him!

While babies can't speak with their mouths, they do speak with their hearts. Newborns in terror can't do anything at all to protect themselves- they can barely move their little arms in front of their faces. They suffer so badly in hospital births, so often- but their mothers are inert to their pain; too drugged, too docile, too subservient, too passive to the medical personnel who inflict the pain in the first place. And so are the fathers! Fathers make themselves impotent to punching these "lifesavers" in the face because they regard their own roles in birth with such distance, helplessness and reserve.

Just because a baby is flat on her back and not making a sound doesn't mean she approves of the pain of a suctioning catheter. Just because she can't say "no" doesn't mean a baby approves of bright lights, and needles and lancets and tubes. Listen to your hearts and feel your babies screaming into your souls for you to save them from the pain of the examining table. Listen to your babies when you feel a dread of birth, a paralyzing, unearthly fear of pain and dying. Because the fear is real... it is as real as the emergency entrance to a hospital. Feel your baby's terror, and give birth in safety for God's sake.

Everything that a baby needs in birth is within a mother's own body, and in her own home. Nature is so wise this way- she only wants women and babies together, peaceful and ecstatic, cuddling and cooing warm and in love in bed. The babies will tell us this. Gentle, warm, beautiful, irreplaceable- birth is best given in sacred simplicity at home.

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