1. Please give me your full name, how you want to be identified (full name, first name only, anon, etc.), your general location, number of children, number of cesareans, number of VBACs, anything else pertinent to your story.
Heidi Stone, full name, Ohio, expecting fifth baby, 0 cess./VBAC, 4 natural births, 2 homebirths and plans for a third, 1 unassisted birth.
2. Did (do) you ever believe that you might have a cesarean? When did you first think that a cesarean was a possibility for your birth?
I feel that, given the current procedures in hospitals, cessarean is always a possibilty and so I have always tried to do what I could to prevent that.
3. When did your practitioner bring up a discussion about cesarean? Before labor? During labor? Was it a surprise?
N/A
4. If you had a cesarean, do you think you could have done anything to prevent it?
N/A
5. If you had a cesarean, did you or your baby experience complications? If yes, which ones and how did you feel about this?
N/A
6. If you had one good piece of advice for pregnant women or women considering having a baby, what would it be when it comes to cesarean prevention?
Be really picky about your doctor and your hospital. FInd out their cess. rate. To be perfectly honest, from my own experience and those of women close to me, I feel that going with a midwife or someone who supports your body doing what it knows how to do naturally and uninhibited is the best way to prevent. The more intervention used(including drugs) takes your body and your baby's body further away from that instinctual knowledge.
7. What is one sure way to have a cesarean?
intervention
8. Did you try to prevent a cesarean? If so, how? (Did you switch doctors or midwives? Did you pay out of pocket for a homebirth? Did you stay home longer than you normally would have? Hire a doula? Stuff like that...)N/A
9. Advice for pregnant women in talking to those offering birth horror stories?
Every woman's body is different. Every birth is different. There are so many contributing factors in how a woman's labor progresses, we cannot be compared.
10. Where did you get a positive view of birth? Where should others turn?
Aunts who birth at home with their families, other countries who do itdifferently,and our ancestors who managed to have healthy babies without the doctors and hospitals.
11. If you have had a VBAC, what resistance did you have? (If any.)
12. What is the hardest part of having a VBAC?
13. Anything else you’d like to add?
I feel very fortunate to live in a country where, given a real emergency situation in childbirth, I have the very best of technology and specialists available to me and my baby. However, childbirth is a natural process and it has become so medicalized with the levels of intervention at a grotesque proportion that they are actually causing a perfectly healthy progression to become an emergency situation. That is why I have chosen to have my babies naturally and in a more health supported environment.
By Guest (not verified) at Tue, 10/23/2007 - 9:20am |
cessarean:a new book
Questions:
1. Please give me your full name, how you want to be identified (full name, first name only, anon, etc.), your general location, number of children, number of cesareans, number of VBACs, anything else pertinent to your story.
Heidi Stone, full name, Ohio, expecting fifth baby, 0 cess./VBAC, 4 natural births, 2 homebirths and plans for a third, 1 unassisted birth.
2. Did (do) you ever believe that you might have a cesarean? When did you first think that a cesarean was a possibility for your birth?
I feel that, given the current procedures in hospitals, cessarean is always a possibilty and so I have always tried to do what I could to prevent that.
3. When did your practitioner bring up a discussion about cesarean? Before labor? During labor? Was it a surprise?
N/A
4. If you had a cesarean, do you think you could have done anything to prevent it?
N/A
5. If you had a cesarean, did you or your baby experience complications? If yes, which ones and how did you feel about this?
N/A
6. If you had one good piece of advice for pregnant women or women considering having a baby, what would it be when it comes to cesarean prevention?
Be really picky about your doctor and your hospital. FInd out their cess. rate. To be perfectly honest, from my own experience and those of women close to me, I feel that going with a midwife or someone who supports your body doing what it knows how to do naturally and uninhibited is the best way to prevent. The more intervention used(including drugs) takes your body and your baby's body further away from that instinctual knowledge.
7. What is one sure way to have a cesarean?
intervention
8. Did you try to prevent a cesarean? If so, how? (Did you switch doctors or midwives? Did you pay out of pocket for a homebirth? Did you stay home longer than you normally would have? Hire a doula? Stuff like that...)N/A
9. Advice for pregnant women in talking to those offering birth horror stories?
Every woman's body is different. Every birth is different. There are so many contributing factors in how a woman's labor progresses, we cannot be compared.
10. Where did you get a positive view of birth? Where should others turn?
Aunts who birth at home with their families, other countries who do itdifferently,and our ancestors who managed to have healthy babies without the doctors and hospitals.
11. If you have had a VBAC, what resistance did you have? (If any.)
12. What is the hardest part of having a VBAC?
13. Anything else you’d like to add?
I feel very fortunate to live in a country where, given a real emergency situation in childbirth, I have the very best of technology and specialists available to me and my baby. However, childbirth is a natural process and it has become so medicalized with the levels of intervention at a grotesque proportion that they are actually causing a perfectly healthy progression to become an emergency situation. That is why I have chosen to have my babies naturally and in a more health supported environment.