Somehow, we all got hooked into thinking that “quick was better” when it came to birth. When women tell their birth stories, it seems to be a point of pride to be able to say “I gave birth in 5 hours”, “I barely made it to the hospital”, “even with my first, it was so fast”. We hear these stories and may envy the women thinking that they performed in a fast, efficient manner and we view them as having a coveted talent.
I’ve been observing women giving birth for thirty years and I have given birth three times. From my experience, I don’t think that quick is necessarily a good thing when having a baby. Often fast births afford the woman no time to get her breath and regain her strength. Some women describe their fast births as feeling like they have been whipped around in a blender. In a rapid birth, the woman’s body sometimes displays the symptoms of transition after the birth of the baby (shaking, feeling hot/cold, vomiting). When a baby comes slower, there’s a building up of the intensity of the sensations so that the woman can adjust herself to the process that’s happening and, even though most women would like to shave a few hours off the whole thing, nevertheless, they know they can cope and that they will get to the finish line of birth. When the baby comes slower, the woman often dozes between her pushing sensations and seems to derive a great deal of energy from those short snatches of sleep even though they are interrupted often. The hormones of birth seem to allow the woman to operate in a different domain of sleep, energy and strength. I’m fond of telling women who are tired and discouraged at transition “You’re going to get a big burst of energy when you get the reflex to push” or “you’ll get an energy rush when you feel the baby’s head at your perineum”.
This trust in the process and knowledge that energy can ebb but then be regained in the birth process seems to be greatly lacking in today’s Western obstetrics. Slowing down or taking a long time to dilate is simply viewed as a problem and it’s a problem to be fixed by hurrying the woman’s body along. There’s no such thing as a resting phase, going in and out of the process, or simply a looooonnnnngggggg, slow birth process. This is not allowed and it’s viewed as pathological.
It hasn’t always been that way.
In his book “The Farmer and the Obstetrician”, Michel Odent does a comparison of big agri-business to modern hospital obstetrics. When we see the environmental disaster that large scale agri-corporations have produced and we know that the hospital obstetric system has produced a North America wide cesarean rate of 30% and rising, it’s clear there’s been a severe skewing of priorities and principles. We have to re-order our thinking about farming in order to survive: local organic farms, 100 mile diet, moratoriums on genetically modified crops, co-op gardens, raw diets—all these things have grown in the past few years as the few who knew they were important have held onto the knowledge (and the seeds) for the ones of us who were slow to catch on to the urgency.
Instead of talking about “fast food” that seemed so sensible a while back, we’re talking about slow food. Food that takes time, patience, work and integrity to grow, sow and cook. Some are even talking about “slow money” to fund “slow food”, the kind of financing that doesn’t look for a quick return and a scheme but rather looks to the quality of neighborhoods, children, the air we breathe and the long term future.
For those of us who know there’s something terribly wrong with the state of obstetrics in North America, we must call for a return to SLOW BIRTHING. Birth which understands that some women will wait for several days after releasing their membranes and have no pathology. Slow birth means returning to a time when induction of birth was reserved for very seriously ill women and undertaken with great trepidation. Midwifery would be patient beyond all known limits . . . practitioners only steering the birth process in the most rare cases. We would return to a time when practitioners used to say such expressions as:
“Every birth is different, every woman is different and every baby is different.”
“Don’t let the sun set twice on a woman who is in active labor (past 4 centimeters dilation).”
“Don’t practice “meddlesome midwifery”.”
“A good obstetrician does not pick unripe fruit.”
“A good practitioner has two good hands and knows how to sit on them.”
These are all things I heard when I first started attending births 30 years ago and, now, I never hear them. We must get back to those times when the cesarean rate was below 15% or we will perish. As a society, we cannot withstand the damage that is being done to large numbers of women, babies and their extended families. The idea that we can “turn hospital beds” in order to make maximum use of the dollar cost of that bed is insane when it comes to giving birth.
The notion that a woman can be induced with all the pursuant cascade of interventions simply for the convenience of scheduling staff or room availability is a crime. We must wake up and recognize that giving birth to a baby is one of the most powerful transformative events in a woman’s life. This process is so important to the family and the rest of society that all efforts must be made to have it flow normally. Our priority must be the well being of the newborn baby and the conditions that are favorable to a long, satisfying breastfeeding experience. What we are doing right now with inductions, surgeries and the mass use of narcotics used in childbirth is as harmful to the planet as fish farms and DDT. The small band of people who have kept the notion of SLOW BIRTH alive so that society at large can get back to what we know is the holistic way to treat new mothers and babies must be listened to and appropriate action taken. Childbirth is not a frill, it’s not an expendable experience, it’s a fundamental lynch pin in forming the family and, without it, we are doomed to being a sick society.
“Don’t let the sun set twice on a woman who is in active labor (past 4 centimeters dilation).”
That’s a nice one
My membranes released almost three days before my daughter was born, but I couldn’t find any info on how that was “okay” or “normal”…but I stuck took procautions (no hands in or near the vag) and the birth went very well, baby and I were very healthy. Also, the contractions weren’t “regular” or “closely spaced”. At most they were only ever 8-10 minutes apart, even during the pushing stage. I’d never heard of a labor pattern like mine before.
It might be normal, but as long as more than 90% or labors are augmented, we’ll loose sight of what “normal” could/should be.
I’m always saying, “Every baby is different, every mother is different, and every birth is different.” Sometimes I even say, every pregnancy is different. It frustrates me when women tell the pregnant woman, this is what happened to me, and it’s perceived as the way it always is. I definitely would have liked my posterior baby to be faster, but I wanted my second labor to go slower and allowed to progress w/o the pit. since I was already having contrax 2-3 min. apart, but you know how it is in a hospital with PROM. Stupid 24hr. rule. Anyhow, my last 2 were very quick and I was able to fall asleep in between contrax. but I would have liked to get in the tub, have more massage, hang on husband, ect. Basically enjoy it more. For me, I didn’t tear at all with my 5 min. pushing for the last 2 kids and I loved how quick that part was, but every woman is different and every baby’s head is different so I completely agree with the slow labor concept. I wish I would have known back then what I know now and I would have absolutely had a homebirth with all my 3 kids, allowed to progress at my own pace.
People are going to think I am crazy but the whole time I was pregnant with my 3rd son (he is 19months now) I was hoping to have a long labor. I wasn’t as much in the moment with my first labor (which technically was about 7-8hours) because I spent so much time second guessing whether or not I was really in labor. I got to the hospital at about 11pm and 8cm, and had my son at 2:14am. My second labor was augmented with pitocin, because of my water breaking, no labor starting and being GBS positive. Even still, my labor was rather short..water broke a 1pm, got pitocin at about 7pm had my baby at 11:14pm. With William, my 3rd. I longed for a longer natural labor, that I didn’t second guess. I know it’s sounds crazy, but I was grateful for all my contractions, even the pitocin-filled ones, with all my births because I never felt more alive, strong, and feminine. Unfortunately, my last labor was also rather short. I started having contractions at about 6:30pm and had him at 1:19am.
Thanks for this wonderful reminder!
I agree wholeheartedly. I had a whole 20 minutes of active labor with my son, and it was so difficult to adjust to the fact that I had just had a baby. I was lying on the bed feeling mild contractions, then my water broke and a couple minutes later he was born. No pain, no pushing, no waking the children to tell them “this is it,” no nothing. It was hard to grasp what had happened to me. He was over 10 pounds and pretty much just fell out. He was my last baby I so wish I had had a labor. I never got a chance to play any music I had prepared, to light any candles, to even go to the bathroom.
It does make for an exciting birth story though. I think I will be telling that story for my entire life.
Thank you for writing this. I think a large contributing factor in idealizing fast births is the popular idea that giving birth is the most agonizing pain a woman will ever undergo so of course a shorter period of agonizing pain is better, right? While those of us who choose natural childbirth speak out about the common misconception of agonizing pain, I think we still buy into shorter is better idea.
I always feel awkward talking about my 23 hour labor regardless of whether I’m talking to a woman in the NCB community or not. Even by saying “23 hours” I exclude a lot of the early labor that I know other women include. Of course when people express their dismay, I only half-jokingly tell them I was the only person who actually slept during that whole time.
“Every birth is different, every woman is different and every baby is different.”
“Don’t let the sun set twice on a woman who is in active labor (past 4 centimeters dilation).”
“Don’t practice “meddlesome midwifery”.”
“A good obstetrician does not pick unripe fruit.”
“A good practitioner has two good hands and knows how to sit on them.”
These are all ace except #2. How did that sneak in there?
1. Who’s “letting” anyone do anything? Women should make the decisions, not careproviders.
2. Who gets to decide that “active labour” starts at a certain definable point?
3. Who had their hand in that woman over and over in order to determine how long she was at the naughty dilation?
Tsk tsk.
As a woman who has had the sun set twice and still just birthed, tsk tsk.
I’m prepared to sign off on the other points and yes, we should hear more of them along with “Just don’t interfere ffs.” which should be on billboards around hospitals and drummed into staff who should know to turn healthy women away from their doors with the phone numbers of the local homebirth midwives. Ahhh how much better would birthing be?!
Love you, Gloria. *mwah*
Janet xx
Hi Janet, big mwah to you, too! I just put that one in there to see if you were paying attention
I definitely wish I’d had a longer labor with #3 (37 minutes from first contraction to birth). I even remember realizing when I hit transition and thinking, “Wait a minute. Pushing is next. I’m *so* not ready for this.” I had been looking forward to labor, and I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t much to it. My husband didn’t even have time to get in the water with me.
Next time around my midwife and I have a list of things we’d like to do to try to slow things down a bit. I’m ok with it. We’ve always done natural birth and have had only two interventions (one necessary and one not) among the three births, and everything we’ve got on the list is natural (i.e. no drugs, etc.), but I still wonder sometimes if that makes it ok, or if we shouldn’t just let nature take its course, at whatever speed it chooses.
But then I also think about the fact that God must have put a wonderful, loving, caring, trained, experienced midwife in my life for a reason. Shouldn’t I listen to her advice? Does refusing every intervention, simply because it’s an intervention, make me any different from the mainstream mothers who do whatever the doctor says, simply because the doctor said it?
This was really nice and reassuring to read. Thank you.
I have one child (now 20 months old) and my labor was about 27 hours. I was 39 years old and gave birth in a hospital, but with a midwife.
The more I learned about labor, the more I was afraid of a quick one. But I definitely feel in the minority. Well-meaning people are always wishing pregnant women a quick delivery (I don’t like that word, either). Another pet peeve is those who act like everyone should “take advantage” of the modern drugs available to “assist” in childbirth.
I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to stay in sync with the process of labor, that the contractions would get ahead of me and I wouldn’t be able to focus on and work with what my body needed to do. Fortunately, I labored at a slow and steady pace. I remember my husband asking our midwife just prior to me being ready to push how I was going to be able to push. I seemed so out of it to him (but I was eager to hear her response, too). She assured him that I would get a second-wind, a burst of energy. I remember thinking, “I have to believe her.” And I did! Four pushes/18 minutes later, our son was born. And then I got a third wind that lasted for hours–what a natural high!
Regarding the element of pain, I was afraid of the unknown, and of loss of control, but felt as prepared as possible to handle it (thanks to prenatal yoga, childbirth prep classes, great support from friends and midwives). Now that I’m on the other side of the experience, I wouldn’t classify my experience as pain like we think of regular, everyday pain. Mine was manageable, if you will, particularly because I was able to think through nearly every contraction as a mark of progress. Regular, everyday pain usually has no positive result. It’s often senseless, accidental, surprising. My labor was the opposite. So it seems like the word “pain” doesn’t convey the right meaning.
I feel lucky to have been able to labor the way I did.
I am seriously considering a homebirth for our second.
Hi Gloria,
Since you both live in Vancouver perhaps you already know (of) one another, but I’ve been enjoying Jacquie Munro’s blog “Vancouver Doula (…and Slow Birth)” http://www.vancouverdoula.blogspot.com/.
Dana