Fast Food, Assembly Lines and the Myth of Home Birth in the Hospital

I was eating today in a fast food chain restaurant (to remain unnamed of course)
and struggling to pick something out on the menu that I could eat. I have been restricting my diet lately to see if it would improve a little annoying health issue I have been having and so I have removed dairy, gluten, eggs and sugar from my diet.

First, I felt like a freak. When I asked the guy behind the counter if dressing XYZ had dairy in it he didn't seem to know anything. I was obviously not your average customer. I was a little embarrassed too because I was holding up the line and people behind me were starting to get irritated about my neurotic ways.

Finally I decided on a salad with no croutons and a balsamic dressing on the side. It seemed like it should be be fine with my restrictions.

When I got the salad it of course had cheese all over it. I had not known that would be on it. I scraped off what I could but inevitably there was some left over on top. I ate it anyway and it filled me up even though it would have been easier just to make myself something at home.

And your point is...


I have recently been hearing the term "home birth in the hospital". I have even seen a local hospital midwife use it in her advertisements. It is a nice idea when you think of it. You get all the benefits of the hospital (drugs and surgery available on demand) but you also get (hopefully) natural birth in a home like setting (you know, there are curtains on the windows).

Natural Birth

 I am not saying that you cannot have a natural birth in a hospital. You can. I have done it. It is done every day. It is however, generally not easy. Women usually have to work very hard for it and know their stuff but - it is totally doable.  (This is where the serious importance of hospital choice and care provider choice really comes into play- policies vary widely.  It is hard to buck an actual hospital policy, so pay attention and ask questions.)

What they experience is generally akin to what I experienced in a fast food restaurant today. You can go to fast food joint X and ask for a gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, egg-free meal, but they do not have it on their menu. That is not what most of their customers want. The people that work there do not know how to "deal with you".

You might be able to get something close to what you were looking for, but it WILL NOT be exactly what you wanted because that is simply not what fast food joints do.

How does a fast food restaurant make its money? They make burgers fast and cheap and they sell them all the same: two pickles, special sauce, and a piece of lettuce on a white bun. Guess what- modern US hospitals, work much the same way. Birth is now a money making, assembly line business.

Home Birth

Food is more than white flour and grease and corn fed beef. Food can be amazing. It can taste good, it can make you feel good, and it can feed your body exactly what it needs.

Birth, like a burger, can be assembly line. It can be a money maker. It can be sped and slowed and controlled. It can be timed, planned and kept in a box.

That is not however what a burger should be like, and it is certainly not what birth should be like. Birth can be so much more than this.

It can literally be orgasmic. Life changing. Amazing. Trans-formative. Beautiful. Empowering. Birth can be the best experience of a woman's life. It can make her feel more powerful and womanly than anything she has ever experienced. It can also, like that burger, make her feel sick, depressed, violated and disgusted.

Now if you want a home birth- HAVE ONE. I am going to say it again, because I hear so many woman say that they WANT a home birth, they are medically able to have one, and yet they don't. They do not do it because they feel safer in the hospital (just in case) and because they believe the idea that you can have a home birth in the hospital. Hospital birth is a VERY viable option and can be a wonderful choice.  The vast majority of my students have fantastic hospital births.  But, if you want a home birth, you can only have one at home.

You can have a natural birth in the hospital, but you can not have a home birth in a hospital. I have had both. The first home birth I attended made me realize that I would not (unless I needed to or felt deeply that I must) have another hospital birth.

My hospital birth was amazing, but my home birth was untouched, un-technical, uninterrupted. It was a home birth. It was magical. It was birth as all it could be and all it is meant to be. And it was much better than a greasy burger.

Coming Home

Sometimes I come across a woman contemplating a home birth but still unsure of the decision.  I always want to express to them the joy that this can bring without being pushy and pushing my values onto them.  These are simply the reasons why I loved my home birth.  

Thrice Blessed

I have been lucky enough to have had three wonderful natural births in three different places.  My first was born in a hospital, my second in a free standing birth center, and most recently, my third at home.  

All were wonderful experiences, which sadly is more than most women can say.  I do feel like I could have a natural birth in a hospital pretty easily.  Many women can if they have enough knowledge, speak up for themselves, are dedicated, and arrive at the hospital very close to delivery.  I felt like I could birth in a hospital again, but knew that I definitely did not want to.  

Why?

Choose Your Friends-

I think that the scariest thing about a hospital birth for many women attempting to go all natural is the fear of things that will be done to you.  You can choose a natural friendly hospital and care provider and all of that, but unfortunatly, almost every OB or midwife in a hospital works shift work.  Your care provider will only be there if it is their shift.  Essentially you don't know who you are going to end up with.  

Step back from our culture and think about that for a minute.

 You are going to go have a baby- something that is intensely private, sacred, incredible, and rare, and you are going to do it with whoever is on call.  Maybe somebody you have never met.  Maybe somebody you don't even like.  Or - I will go ahead and sound sexist and say it- maybe even a man.  (I personally have never really understood the desire to birth with a male attendant).  

With a home birth you choose your midwife, and she (baring some act of fate like vacation or another birth) shows up!  Not somebody you have never met, not her partner with weird breath, your midwife.  The one you have a relationship with, a person you trust to be a lifeguard at one of life's most soul changing experiences.  Small detail- but important.  

Choose YOUR Power

I don't quite know how to put this in words but when you have a baby in your home- there is a subtle (or enormous) power difference than in having a baby in the hospital.  Anybody who comes knocks on your door.  You choose to let them in.  You are on  your turf.  You are the expert and you are in charge.  Obviously, a trained midwife will make choices that may need to be made sometimes that a mother can not- but things are very different.  

Choose Your Fear

I will get slammed for this but I will say it- there is some inherent risk in birth.  Occasionally even with sanitation  and modern medicine sometimes mothers or babies die.  I truly believe that this is rare when birth is handled as little as possible and a mother takes good care of herself- but it does happen.  

Could you die having a baby at home?  Yes- you could.  Could you die having a baby in a hospital.  Most certainly.  Statistically the likelyhood of this happening is about the same no matter where a healthy mother gives birth.  

My Choice

I choose the possibility of something going wrong in my home over the one in three chance of a c- section in a hospital (and all the risks associated with that).  I choose a midwife who encourages me to make educated choices about vaccinating, circumcision, and cord clamping- and then (shocker!) respects my wishes.  I choose this over threats that child protective services will be called because I refused eye ointment in the hospital.  

I choose a midwife who is comfortable sitting in the corner and checking the babies heartbeat intermittently and then allowing me to labor how or where I would like over being strapped to a monitor and having an unfamiliar nurse look at my printout every time she comes in the room.  

I choose to deliver in whatever position feels good to me without having to worry if that is against policy.  

I choose to deliver a baby naturally- and I mean allowing the baby to come out of my body without being yanked or pulled on.  

I choose to hold my baby for two hours after birth before checks are done in the room with me by two loving women over a baby that is taken to a seperate room and poked at so I can "get some rest honey".  

I choose home birth because it is beautiful and it is worth it.  

New Study on the Safety of Home Birth

Here is a link to a new study on the safety of home birth- slightly safer with fewer interventions than hospital birth. (Maybe fewer interventions make birth safer... just a thought)

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/rapidpdf/cmaj.081869

Birth Centers Lose Medicaid Funding in Texas

Please go to the website listed to sign a petition to once again fund Birth Centers in Texas.

www.birthcenters.org

Recently legislation has been passed ending the funding of Medicaid to Birth Centers in Texas. This is such a tragedy for many reasons.

1. This was certainly not motivated by a desire for fiscally responsible government. Birth Center births are far less expensive and also have much lower C-section rates.

2. Medicaid funding gives low income women the option for out of hospital births. Most midwives already do not accept Medicaid for home birth because the pay is so little.

3. Cutting off this funding could potentially put some Birth Centers out of business. Those that accept Medicaid are limited already because Medicaid does not pay as well as insurance.

4. It will force more women to either birth in Texas hospitals (which frankly are shameful in their treatment of women and their disgusting interventions).

5. It will hurt babies and women as those hospital births have higher C-section rates, NICU stays, interventions, and drugs.

I am grateful that when I lived in Texas I had the option of a wonderful Birth Center birth at Inanna Birth Center in Denton. I could not afford a home birth and was not willing to birth in the nearby Texas hospitals. The ones closest to me had C-section rates of 50%, induction rates around 95% and epidural rates close to 100%. Successful breastfeeding was rare, and women were still delivering in stirrups, with episitiomeys, continuous fetal monitoring, and IV were standard.

Please sign the petition to find Birth Centers again in Texas.