“You call her [the midwife] right now.  I’ve done a lot of crazy [insert expletive] in my life but I am NOT delivering a baby.”

Guest Post by Alyssa Chirco

This was my husband’s response when I realized that the irregular contractions that I had been experiencing all day were getting stronger and coming routinely every four minutes.  He had agreed to the home birth of our second child, but he was adamant that he would not be the one doing any sort of catching or delivering.  It was obvious that the whole thing still sort of freaked him out.

What is it about husbands and home birth?  Most of the women I know have had to either talk their husbands into home birth, or have compromised their own desires and been talked out of home birth by their skeptical partners.  Why are men so afraid of home birth?  And how do we convince them that, for many families, it can be a safe and viable alternative to birth in a hospital?

My own husband’s journey began with my first pregnancy, when I was planning a hospital birth with an obstetrician, but was also intending to have an unmedicated birth.  I hired a doula, and signed us up for Bradley childbirth education classes.  Most of the information in the classes was not new to me, as my sisters had been born at home and I had already read a lot, but the classes were incredibly eye-opening for my husband.  He learned about how birth really works, and realized why so many hospital policies and procedures are often unnecessary and even detrimental to the birth process.

My first birth experience was not ideal, but as a young, first-time mom giving birth in a hospital, I fared pretty well.  I refused an IV, was allowed to walk and use the shower, and received electronic fetal monitoring only twice during the few hours I labored at the hospital.  Thanks to my doula, I was never offered an epidural, and didn’t have any episiotomy.  And because my entire labor lasted less than eight hours, the obstetrician only made in time to catch a healthy baby girl.

This easy delivery (and lack of hospital interventions) made it a lot easier when it came time to casually mention to my husband that I wanted to have baby #2 at home.  As supportive as he was of my desire for natural childbirth, and as much as he understood the difficulties that come with trying to have a natural birth in a hospital, he wasn’t really comfortable with the idea of having a baby at home.  But I was able to point out to him that the doctors and the nurses at the hospital never really did anything at my first birth.  I never utilized any of the interventions that you need to be in the hospital to get; my body did it all on its own.

My husband agreed to a home birth the second time around because had witnessed a safe, natural birth first-hand and because, ultimately, he trusted that I had done my research and knew what was best for our baby (and, yes, I consider myself extraordinarily lucky that he has this much faith in me).  He also felt more comfortable after meeting with our midwife and hearing first-hand about her experience and how she handles emergency situations.  And when I finally got my hands in a copy of The Business of Being Born and he was able to see the safe and peaceful home births of so many babies for himself, he was more fully convinced that we were doing the right thing.

He still didn’t want to be the one who had to deliver the baby though, and he still had his doubts.  He worried that it would be messy, he worried that something would go wrong, and he worried about what the neighbors would think . . .

My second birth experience was far better than my first.  I labored at home.  I was allowed to eat and drink.  I didn’t have to fight to avoid interventions because my midwife didn’t believe in them in the first place.  When my son’s head emerged but his body didn’t follow, my midwife knew exactly what to do, and within a few minutes she had dislodged what she termed “sticky shoulders” and he slid easily into the world.  From my perspective, it was a great birth.

Overall, my husband found the home birth experience to be a positive one as well.  He particularly enjoyed the fact that he got to sleep in his own bed and not on a hospital couch.  But I also learned afterward that, at one point, he had been afraid that my son and I were going die right there in our bathtub (which was never even close to happening).  If we have another baby, I know that he will support my desire for another home birth.  But I also know that, on some level, he would still feel more comfortable if I chose to go back to the hospital.

As birth activists, it can be hard to see women who have given up on their hopes for a home birth because they can’t convince their husbands.  It’s easy to judge men who are hesitant about home birth, and criticize them for being unsupportive.  But, in fact, I think we are the ones who need to be more supportive and understanding.  Most men aren’t being trying to be difficult, or actively deny their wives and babies a safe and positive birth experience.

They just don’t know any better because no one has told them any better.

We talk a lot about how women in our culture know so little about birth and are rarely exposed to it before they have a baby themselves.  If American women know so little, doesn’t it stand to reason that American men know even less?

The notion of medical superiority is deeply rooted in American culture.  We tend to believe that doctors, hospitals, and procedures can make everything better, and this thinking is applied to birth as well.  Most Americans assume that interventions always help the birth process, and aren’t familiar with the idea that interventions can actually be harmful.  In many cases, pregnant women don’t even know that they have options and choices when it comes to birth.

Women come to home birth in a variety of ways – disappointment with a prior birth experience, reading books, participating in online forms, talking with other women at mom’s groups or playgroups, just to name a few.  But husbands don’t often share these experiences.  Men don’t have to heal from cesarean scars.  Men rarely participate in chat groups or attend support groups about pregnancy and birth.  Men don’t share intimate details of their birth stories with other women, and don’t hear about the experiences of others.

Instead, men mostly hear the messages from the mainstream media that home birth is dangerous.  Chances are they have never met or even heard of anyone who has had one.  So when husbands hear their wives start to mention the idea of having a baby at home, it’s no wonder that they’re skeptical.  Given what they know, concern and opposition actually seem like perfectly logical responses.

I don’t believe that husbands oppose home birth because they want to be difficult.  In most cases, it’s because they love their wives and they’re unborn children.  It’s because they have only been exposed to the mainstream media message that home birth is dangerous and hospital birth is always a safer alternative.  It’s because they haven’t read the studies and met the women and heard the empowering stories of birth at home.

As birth activists and home birth advocates, we need to change this.

My question to you is how.

If you had a home birth, did you have to convince your husband?  If so, how did you do it?  Or, did you want a home birth but agree to give birth in a hospital or birth center because you couldn’t convince your husband/partner?  How do we help men to be more comfortable with the idea of home birth?

Alyssa Chirco is a stay-at-home mom and freelance writer who lives in St. Louis, Missouri with her husband and two children.  She is active in both birth and breastfeeding education and advocacy, and combines her love of writing with her love of everything parenting-related in her blog St. Louis Smart Mama (www.stlouissmartmama.blogspot.com).

This often starts out innocently enough.  Things start catching her eye, like the extra layer of dust on the bookshelf that she hadn’t given much though to before, or the pile of old baby clothes at the bottom of the linen closet that were meant to be sorted years ago.  Some women nest very practically, preparing the nursery, washing clothes, cooking and freezing meals and putting the house in order.  Some women, like me, nest totally impractically.  I ignore the laundry, the dusty rugs, the messy closets, and instead feel an inexplicable need to polish the silver.  Many women experience what I call “consumer nesting”, and find themselves wandering up and down the aisles of baby stores like a kid trying to pick out a birthday present, or obsessively surfing the Internet for hours on end to find just the right baby carrier.

As time goes on, this need to prepare the nest can slowly develop into a kind of existential panic about everything needing to be ready right now.  Last pregnancy I found myself standing in the middle of a baby store crying to my husband that “We need SOMETHING, I don’t know WHAT, but WE’RE JUST NOT READY!!!”  (To his great credit, instead of laughing or rolling his eyes at my pregnancy-induced insanity, he very calmly explained that we have everything we need, if we need anything else our parents will be around to get it for us, and why don’t we buy this package of diapers and wipes to make me feel better.)  To me it wasn’t enough to know that the resources were out there.  I needed to know exactly where everything we needed was going to be and have a precise plan ready for Birthing Day.

It was to my great fortune last time that I had done great mental preparation for the possibility of giving birth late… and ended up giving birth quite early.  I didn’t really have a chance to put much thought into the timing and logistics of the birth.  This time, due to a number of annoying circumstances including moderate bed rest from 34 weeks and my midwife being absent for the first week and a half of my being considered full term, I have had far too much opportunity to freak out about backup midwives, the High Holidays and exactly how we would be able to fit the birth into these things.  The Jewish New Year being next week we have finally sorted out our plans and we have two backup midwives on call, one of whom delivered the previous baby and one of whom we will be meeting this evening.  Our gear is almost all together and I am finally starting to feel relief.  But getting to this point was not easy at all.

I think the most important thing in dealing with this type of “nesting anxiety” is to recognize it for what it is: a biological need for security.  Like a cat scouting out linen closets, I am preparing my environment for the upcoming birth and the new baby.  Once I understood this and was able to help my husband understand, it was easier to sort out what needed to be done to help me feel more secure and ready.  It was strange to him that I had a desperate need for the homebirth supplies to be bought and stowed in one place before I was even full term, especially given that there was a real possibility that we would have to have a premature hospital birth.  Once he understood that like many pregnancy-related things, logic had nothing at all to do with it… he was able to take my need seriously and help me prepare.

And yes, in case you’re wondering.  I did end up polishing the silver.

What crazy things did you do when you were nesting?

Yuck! $100 bucks every month or so? That’s 280 diapers at $80. Twelve months of diapers for two kids is $960.00 plus wipes put you well over $1,000 for diapers, per year!

Now let’s talk about waste. Here’s a little environmental tangent: If you are going through about 280 diapers per month (2 kids), that is 3,360 diapers that you are putting into a landfill a year! Putting this in a landfill creates hazardous waste (human urine and feces), creating an immediate public health hazard. Diapers containing viruses from human feces (including live vaccines from routine childhood immunizations) can leak into the Earth and pollute underground water supplies. In addition to the potential of groundwater contamination, air-borne viruses carried by flies and other insects contribute to an unhealthy and unsanitary situation.

Material waste is yet another consequence of reliance on single-use diapers. From the time a single-use diaper is put on a baby, it may have a useful life of a few hours at most. Since there is no other application of the single-use diaper, use of this product in the U.S. alone wastes nearly 100,000 tons of plastic and 800,000 tons of pulp derived from trees.

Add to these material losses the cost of collection and disposal. With the average U.S. landfill tipping fee about $27 per ton of material (some landfills are over $100 per ton), and the average transportation cost to landfills about $48 per ton, we pay an average of $75 per ton or $350 million annually in the U.S. to get rid of single-use diapers! For every consumer dollar spent on so-called disposable diapers, an additional, hidden cost of $0.10 on average goes to pay for disposal.

Few quantitative studies are available that provide numbers on the amount of diapers and fecal matter that end up in landfills. However, assuming that approximately 18 billion diapers are sold year each, and that over 90 percent of this end up at landfills, this translates into more than 4,275,000 tons of disposable diapers trucked to landfills each year. Add the remaining 10 percent that end up in resource recovery plants for a total of 4,500,000 tons of single-use diapers thrown away this year!

Okay, these numbers are a bit startling and we all wish we could “do our part” but it seems like something that so many of us don’t even consider.

A friend let me borrow a stash of different diapers to try. It took me a couple of weeks to ready myself to use them. I was worried, like most moms are about the convenience of use. I was worried about the washing process and specifically dreading cleaning up the poop.

I have to say that after just two days of use, the diapers won me over. It really is easy to wash them. The cloth diapers that I tried are All-In-One – AIOs are fitted diapers that have a waterproof outer layer. This layer usually consists of fabric that has a PUL (Polyurethane Laminate) backing, fleece or wool. These are the closest in similarity to disposable diapers since they are a one-piece diapering system. The absorbent soaker material is often sewn into the diaper; it may also be detachable.

There are many different cloth diapering options that allow for flexibility and affordability. Here is a cloth diapering terminology reference:

http://www.diaperjungle.com/cloth-diaper-terminology.html

When the diaper is wet, you simply take it off and put it in a diaper pail or a waterproof bag if you are away from the house. If it is soiled, you should shake or scoop the poop off into the toilet and then rinse the diaper before putting it into the diaper pail (garbage pail with liner or garbage bag will work). If you are away from home though, it can wait until you get home to be taken care of, you can just stick them in the waterproof bag. The rinsing is to prevent both stink and staining.

These diapers go through a pretty easy wash cycle and the cycle’s directions vary according to the make of the diaper. For the diapers that I purchased, it is recommended that they go through two washes (cold, than hot) and a double rinse with 1/4 the recommended amount of detergent. Then you can just stick them into the dryer or line dry them. Once a month, it is recommended that you add bleach to a load to sanitize them.

There is a recommended detergent list for cloth diapers. This is because it is better for the diapers to be free of any added perfumes, dyes, or other additives. This can prevent absorbency, be bad for baby’s skin, and do some wear and tear on the material.

Detergent list: http://www.diaperjungle.com/detergent-chart.html

So far, my experience has been really positive. As a mother of a one year old and another baby on the way within the next month, I can gladly say that I have no hesitation that cloth diapering will work for our family. It really does not seem like extra work to me, saves us a ton of money and helps out our mother earth.

Thanks to those who have supported this life change! I believe we’ll be happier and healthier because of it.

Amy

I have to say I was more than skeptical about this film purely based on the title. However, I was impressed by the quality and amount of information that the film provided. For those who have not seen the film, it does discuss the possibility of orgasm during birth but also discusses the possibility of ecstatic birth which to me, seems more realistic.

As Dr. Sarah Buckley in 2005 explains  http://www.sarahjbuckley.com/articles/ecstatic-birth.htm

“Giving birth is an act of love, and each birth is unique to the mother and her baby. Yet we also share the same womanly physiology, and the same exquisite orchestration of our birthing hormones. Our capacity for ecstasy in birth is also both unique and universal, a necessary blessing that is hard-wired into our bodies, yet that requires, especially in these times, that we each trust, honor, and protect the act of giving birth according to our own instincts and needs”

“Giving birth in ecstasy: This is our birthright and our body’s intent. Mother Nature, in her wisdom, prescribes birthing hormones that take us outside (ec) our usual state (stasis), so that we can be transformed on every level as we enter motherhood.

This exquisite hormonal orchestration unfolds optimally when birth is undisturbed, enhancing safety for both mother and baby. Science is also increasingly discovering what we realise as mothers – that our way of birth affects us life-long, both mother and baby, and that an ecstatic birth — a birth that takes us beyond our self — is the gift of a life-time.

Four major hormonal systems are active during labor and birth. These involve oxytocin, the hormone of love; endorphins, hormones of pleasure and transcendence; adrenaline and noradrenaline (epinephrine and norepinephrine), hormones of excitement; and prolactin, the mothering hormone. These systems are common to all mammals and originate deep in our mammalian or middle brain.

For birth to proceed optimally, this part of the brain must take precedence over the neocortex, or rational brain. This shift can be helped by an atmosphere of quiet and privacy with, for example, dim lighting and little conversation, and no expectation of rationality from the laboring woman. Under such conditions a woman intuitively will choose the movements, sounds, breathing, and positions that will birth her baby most easily. This is her genetic and hormonal blueprint.

All of these systems are adversely affected by current birth practices. Hospital environments and routines are not generally conducive to the shift in consciousness that giving birth naturally requires. A woman’s hormonal physiology is further disturbed by practices such as induction, the use of pain killers and epidurals, cesarean surgery, and separation of mother and baby after birth.

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My personal experience was not an “orgasmic birth” but I would call it an “ecstatic birth”. I never felt painful contractions. I was able to go “inside of myself” and concentrate on meeting my baby.

Here it is. I wrote this story down after my daughter Ellen’s birth to share with friends and family.

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The film points out that many women that have positive birth stories, feel like they should not share them because so many women have negative birth experiences with endless interventions, cesareans, etc. But I believe that we need to all share our birth experiences so that women are aware of the many different ways birth can be. No two births are the same and there are many ways to give birth.

The film is worth watching. You can “rent” it for 7 days on Amazon for only $1.99 and please read the full article from Dr. Sarah Buckley

Amy

When my daughter was born, I assumed that this normal, natural function of my body & partnership with my new baby would happen easily, seamlessly. I had the right attitude, I had the right equipment & now I had the baby. Boy, was I wrong. Gretta was born ‘tongue-tied’ – the little piece of skin that attaches our tongues to the bottom of our mouths was too short – and she had terrible difficulty latching on. It went undiagnosed in the hospital and for five long, miserable days after she was born we struggled with nursing. Struggled to the point that if she was held cross-body (for any reason), she’d start crying (and so would I).

I think many moms would have given up at this point, opened up a can of formula and never looked back. Again, I was lucky – I had the support you’d expect of my mother, my midwives, my husband, and also health insurance that covered the rental of a hospital-grade pump. But also, and maybe most importantly, some unexpected support: our pediatrician.

At our first doctor visit a couple of days after she was born, Gretta had lost several ounces – he was surprisingly unconcerned. I told him we were really having trouble nursing, that she would take a little pumped breast milk, but not latch on despite the efforts of two midwives and the advice of many La Leche moms. Without blinking an eye, opened up his closet, took out a formula feeding kit (my heart dropped), REMOVED THE FORMULA (my eyebrows went up), leaving bottles and a carrying case for pumped milk, and then gave me the number of the mother of one of his clients who happened to be a lactation consultant. It was so simple – he acted like what we were going through was normal, to be expected & FIXABLE. That simple act – removing the formula from that free-sample case – demonstrated so clearly to me that despite Gretta’s weight loss & continued difficulty latching on, he was confident that breastfeeding was the best choice & that we’d get it worked out. It was in a word: awesome.

The lactation consultant we saw was nothing short of magic – she had us breastfeeding in 20 minutes, no looking back. At the time she was my savior, manna from heaven, my breastfeeding goddess. In retrospect though, I think the real hero of this story is that pediatrician. He was in a position to make or break my breastfeeding relationship with my daughter & he chose to support us. Had he been an alarmist, had he been overly concerned with Gretta’s weight loss, had he sent us home with formula, if he hadn’t trusted the lactation consultant – I’m not sure, even given my resolve, my upbringing, and my education if I would have been able to go on to develop the care-free, amazing nursing relationship Gretta and I shared.

I’d like to celebrate this year’s World Breastfeeding Week by giving kudos to those people in our lives whose help we needed to do one of the most normal & rewarding things on the planet: feed our babies. Please take a moment to add a comment with the names and contact info (and stories if you want!) of breastfeeding-friendly professionals who helped you along the way.

Pediatrician:
Izak Reischer MD
Phone: (718) 268-6200
72-38 113th Street
Forest Hills, NY, 11375

Lactation Consultant:
Catherine Watson Genna, BS, IBCLC
Email: cwgenna@covad.net
Phone: 718 846-2323
Location: Woodhaven, Queens, NY
More info: http://lactspeak.com/speakers/CatherineWatson%20Genna/

The rules are simple:

• Write a post featuring your thoughts on giving birth, labor and the like
• Send us a link to your post at birthactivist@gmail.com by September 3
• The blog carnival will run on September 6, 2010 (Labor Day)
• We’ll send you a link to include in your post!

I have always been a woman that is rooted strongly in the liberal side of the political spectrum. My footing comes from a very liberal women’s college that I attended where I “found myself”. The thing is, if you asked me in the first half of my first pregnancy about “radical” ideas like natural birth, baby-wearing, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, cloth diapering, & selective vaccinating to name a few, I was too new to parenting to have formed strong opinion. You just don’t know until you are there. They don’t teach you this stuff in school (or out of school for that matter). No matter who you are there is not a “parenting 101? class that women take, you learn what parenting styles fit you along the way.

My point is that women need to be more trusting of their instincts to learn what is right for them. Parenting is not a “one-size fits all” job, as we all know. What worked for me with my first pregnancy and first baby, I am now adjusting to better fit my current beliefs. I find that sometimes mothers get hung up on “what’s best”. Have you ever asked yourself these questions?

- What brand of ______ is best for the baby?

- What should I and shouldn’t I do during pregnancy?

- What way of birthing is best? (Natural, medicated, C-section)

- What is better, breast milk or bottle?

- What is the best way for my baby to sleep?

- What do I do about vaccines?

We need to be cautious that what we are asking is not “what’s best” for ALL mothers but “what’s best” for you. We practice a lot of unnecessary comparison.

Let me give an example: I am having a baby shower and registering for gifts. Out of curiosity, I choose the registry button that says something like “see what other mothers picks are” and when I do this, I find that what I would like for this baby is vastly different from what the “majority button” thinks that I need for my newborn.

One of my biggest pet peeves is unsolicited parenting advice. You know, you’ve been there. We all try our hardest to do things “right” for our children and then someone comes along and knocks you off your rocker.

What is right for that mother may not be right for you. We make unnecessary comparisons all the time. As women, we are sadly programmed to do this. We compare ourselves to others all the time.

We grow along the way. We find mom friends that we feel comfortable sharing our mothering ideas with (no matter how radical), and then we hit the sweet spot where you get this instinctual feeling that you know something (an idea or a parenting philosophy) is right for you. This comes from trial and tribulation, from being naive, vulnerable, educated, and sometimes radical. It takes effort to change one’s thinking. Because your neighbor, friend, relative, doctor thinks you should do things one-way because it is “right”. Take a step back and ask “right for whom?” The only person that is able to determine who it is right for is you.

Accept education in all forms, just be cautious of getting caught up in ideas that don’t feel “right”. Trust your instincts. Give advice when asked for your OPINION (not know-all), and don’t judge others for choices they make.

Amy

Kristen is a counselor, doula and childbirth educator working in Omaha, Nebraska. She is the mother of three children, three year old twin boys Alex and Nate and her VBAC baby Becca, 1 year.

OK now that THAT is out of my system….

How then do we make the change that we so want and need?  Of course we blog, we tell friends, we assault strangers in the grocery store, But on a larger scale I do believe we have an  ally that is both a powerful voice and an authority on the subject of birth, babies and medical safety, Pediatricians.

With overwhelming science showing that birth in the Nuevo-traditional American settings  can be dangerous for both mom and baby, we are sitting back and allowing the obstetrical community to do as they please.  I have time and time again encountered pediatrician grumbling about pre-term babies with breathing issues and other such aliments all because the OB sectioned a mom at 37 weeks because. well because “it was good enough.”  These physicians, are being left to deal with possibly avoidable issues because an OB was not patient enough to wait or worse yet, because they convinced the mother that SHE was not patient enough to wait.

I assure you that if you surveyed pediatricians in your community many of them would have stories much like those of my husbands.  My “favorite” (wince) was the c-section at 35 weeks because the mom was complaining of lower back pain and the OB said “it’s ok…that’s what we have NICUs for.”  While not every pediatrician will be an advocate for home birth, I have found them to be receptive to talking and on a large scale wanting to see some change in the labor units in order to have healthier babies to visit.

Engage pediatricians in your community.  Show them the ACOG bulletin and the local section rates.  It may be a back door, but it might be our way in.