The midwives at the hospital couldn’t believe she didn’t take any drugs. And we couldn’t believe how rare a natural birth is these days. It is ridiculous. The caesarian rate in Australia is pushing 30% and in some hospitals 90% of women have an epidural. According to a wonderful course we did it can largely be avoided.
I know this is an organic blog, but this entry is very fitting because it is about a natural organic birth, a process that humans have been doing for hundreds of thousands of years and which every other animal on the planet does all the time.
Being a guy I’m not in a position to talk from first hand experience, but I was in the labour ward with my wife and I saw what she did and I can tell you it was amazing. Far from the tear jerker that I thought it was going to be, the birth was so natural and calm that I found myself wondering why I wasn’t getting emotional. The reason was quite simple, the mother was calm, the baby was calm and it was so natural that it wasn’t an emotional roller coaster. When little Maximus arrived it was meant to be, I was expecting him so no tears needed.
12 months ago Katrina was scared sh*tless about giving birth, the thought of it sent shivers down her spine because she did not want to go through such a painful experience. This is what child birth is like for most women these days, a frightening experience that gets placated by drugs. It is what we see on TV, it is what we hear about and it is the conditioning that we are taught to think.
Now I know some of you reading this will say “how ignorant. What would you know? I have given birth and it IS a dreadful experience”. I’m not going to get into a full blown debate here but I can honestly say that your experience was largely determined by your knowledge. Obviously everyone is different and complications can arise, but I promise you that if you knew the truth about child birth and how to approach it with the correct mindset, you will understand that a natural birth and a shorter labour are achievable. Friends of ours who gave birth 2 weeks ago had a 2.5 hour labour with a 6 minute 2nd stage!
I’m not talking about a hippy style water birth in the river either (which is also cool), our son was born in a private hospital. Natural birth is achievable, I have seen it first hand and we were taught how to do it.