Birth Without Violence: Trailer

Frederic Leboyer has been talking about birth from the baby's perspective for over 30 years. He acknowledges both the innate wisdom and consciousness of the newborn baby. I am grateful that I was shown his film at school when I was 15 and it created in me a desire to have beautiful births. I didn't understand what that meant at the time and I always thought I would be in a hospital or birth centre, however it was something that I drew deeply on once I actually became pregnant over 20 years later.

Breech Home Birth

Finding out our baby was breech completely rocked my world.  I couldn't believe that my perfect home birth was not going to happen.  I was so committed to having a home birth that I started to research everything that I could about natural breech birth.  I found out a lot of things in that research and the most important was that the reason most hospitals in the western world recommended a c section for breech babies was due to the findings of a 30 year old Canadian study.  I then discovered that the Canadian study was flawed in its design.  The women used often had other conditions such as pre eclampsia or placenta praevia and that the women were in a hospital situation, being monitored, lying on their backs and not being allowed to move around.  All factors that are contra indicated for a breech birth.  It is any wonder that a C section turned out to be the safest option.  I couldn't believe that no more recent or better designed research had been undertaken since this one flawed study.  As far as the medical profession was concerned, this was a definitive study and 30 years later, trainee obstetricians were accepting its validity without question or exploration.  I had the pleasure of meeting one such trainee obstetrician at Guys hospital in London.  He was trying to convince me that I should have my baby in hospital.  I responded with "As soon as I walk in these doors you will have me on my back and on the way to theatre for a c section before I can even draw breath"  He spluttered and then said indignantly, you can try and have your baby naturally and then he quoted the Canadian study.  I told him what I knew of the study and then he threw in his trump card, "Well if you are willing to risk the life of your unborn child....."  At this I nearly exploded in rage and stormed out of the hospital, more determined than ever to birth her at home!
I also read from cover to cover Maggie Bank's book, Breech Birth, Woman Wise.  Her incredible wisdom and experience convinced me once and for all that I could birth my breech baby at home.  The only issue was that I had to hire independent midwives.  I feel so incredibly grateful that we were financially able to afford two very experienced midwives, who offered us the most wonderful support from the moment we hired them @ 36 weeks to several weeks after the birth.
Their confidence, calm demeanor and wisdom in birth allayed all of our fears, even my mother's.  I then just had to grit it out while friends from all around offered all manner of judgements, fears and "just you wait until you are screaming for an epidural".  I metaphorically put my fingers in my ears and went la, la, la, la, la.

Interestingly, Zenya's birth was my most text book, everything progressed just like all the books said and she was born safely at home in "normal" time frames for a first baby.  At no stage did I feel the need for pain relief or other interventions.  Even though I had never birthed a baby before, my body instinctively knew what to do.  Second stage (pushing) was a little long at 2 1/2 hours and I know now that was due to me holding back.  The energy and power of the contractions so blew me away that I felt that I couldn't completely go with them in case my body ripped in two.  Once I decided to really work with the energy then everything happened and she was born 20 mins later.  The difference with a breech delivery is that you have to birth ALL of the baby as the largest part, the head, comes last, however as my midwife told me, there is an advantage to having the smaller part pave the way and create the opening just like a wedge.
The Moral of this story is DON'T just accept what you are told at face value, do your own research.  The truth is you don't have to have a lot of knowledge about natural birth to know more than most of the physicians and obstetricians out there.  Remember their expertise is trauma and surgery!

Why I Chose to birth my babies at Home!

Two years before I became pregnant with my first child, I undertook training to become a holistic practitioner.  During the training I learned about the "power of the mind".  I also learned that we are "conscious beings" from even before we are born and that a baby is consciously aware of the birth process, although the memories are supressed and held in the subconscious.  When I was 16, I had an experience which changed my perception of the medical profession and the safety of hospitals.  I badly injured my knee, my parents insisted that I consult our local GP, although all the sporting professionals and Phys Ed teachers at my school said that I should go to an "expert".  As my parents paid the bills, I had to go along with their wishes.  Our GP completely misdiagnosed my knee injury which led to me further damaging it and requiring a major operation.  During my two weeks in hospital, I experienced less than expert or compassionate care from the nursing staff, I contracted a Golden Staph infection and experienced far more pain and discomfort than I should have.    I concluded that the medical profession are not always "right" and that hospitals were not nice places to be.  This contributed to my willingness to avoid the medical profession when it came to birth, especially as I realised that birth is not a "medical" condition.  I did not want to put myself at the mercy of others, especially those who did not have the same beliefs about birth as I did.

After I married, I started reading birth literature and Christiane Northrup's book "Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom" had a profound effect on me.  Her chapter on pregnancy and birth was all I needed to convince me that as long as all things were normal, then a home birth was the best way to birth a child.  The fact that she was an obstetrician and not just an alternative health practitioner helped convince me of the truth in her words.  I asked my husband to read the relevant chapters and he agreed to support me in regards to having a home birth.  I was elated and some months later when I found out I was pregnant, it was a no brainer and we signed up for the community home birth midwifery program.  The rest is history as they say!

TRUST is the KEY

Human beings have been created with the most amazing physical capabilities.  A woman's body has been designed to grow another human life and also to birth that new life into the world.  In Ancient cultures this was a well recognised and celebrated fact.  Women were revered and considered extremely powerful because of their ability to a) bleed without dying (menstruation) and b) give birth to a new life. What has happened between then & now? Over the millenia we have completely lost trust in the female body's ability to give birth naturally.  Women in the developped world have so little TRUST in their own bodies, so little faitb in their own intuition that they place all their POWER & TRUST in the hands of the medical professionals.  Obstetricians, doctors, nurses and even a lot of midwives these days are not trained in Natural birth.  They expect something to go wrong and they don't understand the unique and perfect physiology of a natural, uninterruupted birth.  The "birth system" is so perfectly balanced and sensitive, that any interruption or intervention to it causes it to stop functioning properly.  This is where we get the scenario that one intervention then leads on to another and then another until the system has completely shut down and a c section or forceps delivery is the result with both mother and baby traumatised and disempowered.
Things that interrupt the "birth system" can be going to the hospital, being induced, being monitored, drugs of any kind, epidurals, not having freedom of movement, lying on your back, change of support staff, loud noises, harsh smells.  Anything that increases the mother's level of fear or anything that interferes with her natural hormonal response to birth will disrupt this perfectly balanced system.
It is TIME for women to once again learn about their own bodies and TRUST in its ability to birth.