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Running Time:
1:09:05
- New is not always advancing
- If technology is not used in the right way it can be harmful
- The majority of children born in the world today are born naturally
- Intervention can lead to an outcome that a woman never expected
- The people you have around you at birth matter
- Everything you do after you get pregnant is a potential sacrifice for your baby
- Doctors may not have your best interest at heart
- Natural labor can take over 36 hours
- Hospital births depend on a lot of things lining up right
- I don’t want to have to make peace with my birth experience
- Ask your doctor their cesarean rate and if it’s more than 10% then get a different doctor
- You should never settle in marriage or in birth
- Look up “Birth Plan” on Google and make one for yourself
- What is right for one woman is not right for another so you must find the person and the book that speaks to your heart.
- Look at countries that don’t have the issues we have with childbirth and ask what they’re doing right.
Environment matters. Education matters. - Spend less time shopping for the stroller and more time researching labor.
“I think in a lot of ways, we’re (Americans – not you) asking the wrong question – Why do we want to stop having babies the way we have for centuries? Why do we want to have babies differently than the majority of the world? There should be a good reason for change, but instead the medications we add to the labor process often hinder labor and result in further medical interventions.
I don’t know any woman who chose a natural childbirth and wanted to add medication in another labor. I do know far too many cases where a woman said, “why not” to pitocin, then an epidural, and before she knew it she was headed in for a c-section, post-partum depression, and difficulty making peace with her birth. A woman is completely capable of having a healthy baby; however, when we add medication, her body isn’t able to follow it’s natural intuition.
It doesn’t bother me if a woman has researched medicated pain relief and chooses it knowing what it will and will not do. What drives me crazy is when a woman goes into a hospital assuming the staff have her family’s best interests at heart. Doctors like to make things easy for themselves and they don’t mind using medicine to get the baby out in time for them to make it home for dinner, not to mention they’ll get paid a little more for each added medical procedure. It’s a mother’s job to stand up for her child and it’s a father’s job to stand up for his wife.
It is so important for every woman to educate themselves about the options available for childbirth and the risks associated with each. As soon as you’re pregnant, every decision you make for the rest of your life is not just about you, but your child. If you gave up coffee or wine for nine months, why would you want to give your baby a narcotic similar to cocaine to help take your mind of the pain for a few hours?”
