It's Baby's Birth Too

Every day, all over the world, women get pregnant and start making plans for how, and where, they'll give birth.  For the average woman, this decision involves no more than a phone call to her OB scheduling her first prenatal appointment.  The average woman will give birth in a local hospital and will follow the hospital practices and protocols for births... fetal monitors, pitocin, epidurals, Vitamin K injections, vaccines, etc. 

Some women give birth more thought.  They've read books like Henci Goer's "The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth."  They know about the dangers of hospital interventions, and so they may choose to birth at home.  Or, they may have a hospital birth, but choose to birth "naturally," without drugs.  They might take classes preparing themselves for natural birth, like Bradley or Hypnobabies. 

But no matter how much research they put into it, women focus on birth from only one perspective: theirs.  How it's going to feel.  What's going to be done to their body by medical personnel.  Where they're most comfortable giving birth.  What will cost the least.  What's the most convenient.

Problem is - birth involves TWO people.  Mom and baby.  It's baby's birth too.   Sadly, very very few parents take baby into account at all.

 Can you imagine how scary it must be to be born? To be expelled from the dark, warm comfort of the womb with contractions that squeeze your body and force it down a tight passageway? To burst out of this passageway into blindingly bright lights and loud excited voices and into a pair of latex gloved hands? To feel the burn of air as it enters your lungs for the first time? To have your skin - previously untouched except by gentle, flowing water - rubbed and washed and blanketed? To have your newly-seeing eyes blinded with goo? To have your virgin, all sensing body poked with needles?

And what of those babes that are born more violently than this? Can you imagine how scary it must be for babes who have their heads pulled out of the birth canal with forceps or vacuums? Or who are grabbed from the loving safety of the womb - without warning - when the mother delivers by ceasearan section?

 My heart aches for the newly born - for the traumas they endure in even the most natural of births.

We can - and must - do far far better for our children than we're doing now.  When we start planning our births, we must take our child's perspective and our child's needs into strong account.  We must do everything we can to make that frightening birth journey as peaceful, and easy, as we possibly can.

We can start while we're still pregnant.  We can talk to our babies, regularly, about the upcoming birth experience.  We can tell them what, exactly, is going to happen to their bodies.  "Little one," you can say, "pretty soon it's going to be time to come out of my body and join me and your dad in the world, where we can hold you in our arms.  You're going to feel my body squeeze you really tightly.  You're going to feel your body moving down a tight passageway.   Don't be afraid baby.  I am right there with you, loving you.  Don't be afraid."  When we're in early labor, do this again.  Ask your partner and friends to do this.  Have everyone send their loving consciousnesses to that little baby in the womb.  We humans - born and unborn - are all connected.  Your baby will feel all that love... and it will lessen his fear.

We can make birth choices that will make baby's transition from womb to world more gentle and peaceful.  In the birth room, keep the lights low, keep voices soft and quiet and to a minimum, keep the room warm.  Birth your baby in water if you can - water births make the transition out of the watery womb far more gentle.  Have your birth provider use slow, gentle movements when handling your baby's body.  Have your baby placed on your naked body immediately after birth and left there until your instincts tell you your baby has gotten over the initial shock of birth.  Nurse her as soon as she shows interest.  Avoid having anyone poke or prod or rub or weigh or do anything to your baby as long as you possibly can. 

It is very difficult, in most hospital settings, to give your child the gift of a truly gentle birth, as few OBs and hospitals will allow the kinds of ideas I suggest here.  If you birth your little one at home, however, you can birth in a warm room of your choosing by candlelight.  You can have your baby in a bathtub or birth pool.  Midwives, being holistic care providers, will honor your mama's intuition and respect your wishes for your birth.. she'll keep her voice low, she'll use soft gentle movements with baby, she'll place baby on your chest and let you snuggle together, undisturbed. 

While babies cannot speak to us, we know that they can feel - and that they feel deeply.

Frederick LeBoyer, author of the best selling book "Birth Without Violence" wrote:
The nightmare of being born is not so
much the pain as the fear.
For the baby, the world is a terrifying place.
It is the vastness, the enormity of the whole
experience of being born which so terrifies this little traveller.
Blindly, madly, we assume that the newborn baby feels
nothing.  In fact, he feels . . . everything.
Everything, totally, completely, utterly,
and with a sensitivity we can't even begin to
imagine. Birth is a tempest, a tidal wave of sensations
and he doesn't know what to make of them.
Sensations are felt more acutely, more strongly by the child,
because they are all new, and because his skin is
so fresh, so tender, while our blunted deadened senses have
become indifferent.

If we are to be truly responsive parents, we must stop being indifferent.  We must stop pretending that our babes are not an intregal part of birth.  We must meet their need for love, comfort and peace by giving them a gentle, beautiful, easy transition from invisible - to visible.

I strongly strongly urge expectant parents to read Leboyer's book, "Birth Without Violence."  Leboyer gives voice to the unborn child and his feelings and needs unlike any thing I've ever read.  The book reads like a beautiful, epic poem, and it features poignant black and white pictures of newborn babies to elucidate his points.  It's a quick - but very powerful and life-changing read.  Best yet, you can read it here - for free.  Do it now!!

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