childbirth is an amazing process that has fascinated me since my stepmother became pregnant 6 years ago. I know one day I want to be a mother, my current boyfriend is just the kind of guy I want to father my children. What I want to know the most is 'Why the horror stories?!'. Why do people love to tell you how horrifically wrong it can go? And can you give me some insight into what's gone wrong in hospital birthing? Thank you so much!
Hello!! Thanks for the question!
I love to hear about people who love childbirth! Your question is a great one.
Why do people only focus on the horror stories of giving birth? I guess most people do it because horror stories are more interesting than births where everything goes perfectly! I also think that there is a culture of fear surrounding childbirth right now, especially in the US. The thing that I don’t understand is when women (especially ones who have already given birth) try to scare the wits out of other women. This annoys me, because seriously, women especially should be supporting each other and talking about how awesome birth can be!
Unfortunately a good amount of women don’t have great birth experiences and so they may be deeply unhappy with the birth that they got. This may be another reason why they talk about their horror story, because they’re dissatisfied with how it turned out. Birth trauma is a new term that is being explored to represent women who feel very unhappy or traumatized by their birth experience. I think that it’s great that women’s birth experiences, both good and bad are being validated.
So how can you combat this horror story mentality? Research, read blogs, see the things that can and do go wrong in childbirth and try to understand why these things happen (sometimes its completely unpreventable, but other times there is a reason). Also, read about all of the great birth experience that women have! Then when someone pulls out a horror birth story you can counteract with a great one that you read. Or simply avoid having conversations with people that only want to talk about horrible births. Some people, no matter what you say, will never change their opinion about birth (good, bad or otherwise).
The second part of your questions was what has gone wrong in hospital birthing. That is a huge question. There are many, many answers and people will spend years researching and writing about this subject.
In my humble opinion some things that are wrong with hospital birth currently (mainly in the US):
Women have accepted that everyone MUST give birth in the hospital, regardless of whether they have any pre-existing conditions, risk factors, etc. Many women are not even aware that it is possible to give birth at a birth center or with a homebirth midwife.
Women don’t realize that OB/GYN’s are trained surgeons. They were trained for the women that had difficult births and needed surgical intervention (a c-section). Many OB’s see very few (or NO) natural, unaugmented births in their training.
Women don’t realize that they have the power to say NO to interventions that are routinely done in the hospital. In some hospitals it’s very hard to decline interventions or monitoring, but in that case you should seek out an alternate hospital or doctor that is more open to your choices.
Women often don’t take the time to educate themselves about the routine interventions that are common practice in hospitals. Epidurals, pitocin, induction, continuous electronic fetal monitoring, etc are things you can usually (again dependant on the hospital and your doctor) say NO to. These interventions are so widely accepted in the general population that many woman submit automatically and without question.
There is a lot of mis-education about homebirth and birth centers. They may be portrayed as dangerous and unsanitary but they have been proven to be safe when attended by licensed and trained professionals.
There is often little focus on the mother in hospital birth. Choices that are made in the hospital are often to benefit the doctors and nurses rather than the mother. Women give birth flat on their back because it’s the easiest for doctors to work with. Women have continuous EFM because nurses and doctors can remotely monitor all of the laboring mothers from the nurses’ station. Women routinely have augmentation like pitocin because it makes their labors progress faster enabling doctors to not have to stay at the hospital forever.
There are sooo many more things I could talk about regarding hospital birth in the US but I’ll leave it here. I’m hoping to write some more entries about different subjects like hospital births, doctors, epidurals, EFM, etc, etc.
Definitely shoot me an ask if you’re interested in a particular topic!
Here’s a great list of blogs to read.
I also recommend watching the documentary The Business of Being Born to anyone interested in childbirth and how it moved from midwifes at home to doctor’s in the hospital.
