Does Your Uterus Need Help?

Excerpt from Born In The USA by Marsden Wagner, MD, MS, pp. 95-96.

“When an obstetrician sets out to convince a pregnant woman to consent to an induction, he is almost always successful. All he has to do is communicate his own fears by conveying directly and indirectly all that might go wrong with a natural birth. The baby might suddenly die in the uterus. The baby’s heart might suddenly stop. All these tests we’re doing are to make sure that the baby is okay. When the woman is finally asked to sign an informed consent form, the form is likely to list every disaster that might happen if the induction is not done, but it does not list every disaster that could result from doing the induction.

“So when the doctor suggests induction, the idea is appealing to the woman because it appears to end a dangerous situation for the baby – remaining in the womb. Women are rarely told that every day the baby remains in the uterus, it grows bigger and stronger and becomes less likely to develop complications during the birth. They are rarely told that a woman’s body knows when the baby is ready. Women are not told that only 3 percent of pregnancies, if left alone, will go beyond 42 weeks and that only 10 percent of those babies past 43 weeks get into trouble – 10 percent of 3 percent = 0.3 percent of babies will get into trouble.

“Yet in the United States we are inducing labor in more than 40 percent of all pregnancies. It’s like taking a baseball bat to a mosquito. The obstetrician’s fear that a pregnancy will have trouble if it goes “too long” dovetails nicely with the great convenience of being able to schedule an induction.

“A Maternity Center Association survey found that in 2004 we were inducing labor in 44 percent of births. If we add to this the 16 percent of cases in which drugs are used to stimulate or speed up a labor that has already started (augmentation), the total number of pregnancies in which powerful and dangerous drugs are used is 60 percent, or nearly two-thirds of all births. It is ridiculous to think that two-thirds of American women have such lousy uteruses that they must be whipped into shape with drugs in order to have babies.”

OB or Midwife?

“Scientific data have proven that for attending low-risk births (that is, births without complications), midwives are not second-class obstetricians, but rather obstetricians are second-class midwives.”

- Marsden Wagner, MD, MS in Born In the USA, p. 103.

Film Screening: Orgasmic Birth

WHEN:  Sunday, September 7th, 3-5pm

WHERE:  The Plaza Theater, 1049 Ponce de Leon Ave.

ADVANCE TICKETS:  $10         AT THE DOOR:  $12
Expecting Couples:  $6 per person

PURCHASE TICKETS:  The Pregnancy Massage Center, 1164 N. Highland Ave., Atlanta, GA  30306 or www.pregnancymassage.com

Contact:  Kai Martin-Short   404-514-6558

Orgasmic Birth dismantles untruths about labor and birth that women have been told for generations. This extraordinary documentary film captures stunning moments of women riding waves of pleasure in the ecstatic release of childbirth. Through interviews with the couples and more than a dozen international experts in birth, we come to understand that labor and birth were intended to be enjoyed, not merely endured.

The film demonstrates ways in which modern society, by subjecting healthy women to the medicalization of birth, denies them a prime experience that is their right.

Among the dozen birth specialists interviewed in the film are Sarah J Buckley, MD, author of Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering; Elizabeth Davis, director of the National Midwifery Institute; Marsden Wagner, MD, former director of Women’s and Children’s Health for the World Health Organization; and other physicians, midwives, and experts in the field.

In the film, Ina May Gaskin, founder/director of the Farm Midwifery Center in Summertown, Tennessee, explains,  “Women can be completely surprised by the change in them from giving birth. You have something powerful in you—that fierce thing comes up. Babies need moms to have that fierceness. You feel you can do anything.”

Pascali-Bonaro’s goal in making the film was to educate people about their options and the implications of the circumstances of birth for women’s and babies’ health and well-being lifelong. “Undisturbed birth is an integral part of woman’s sexuality and a widely neglected human right,” she says. Yet as Christiane Northrup, MD, cautions in the film, we have been brainwashed to view birth not as a natural process but as “an emergency waiting to happen.”

On the contrary, Pascali-Bonaro asserts, the body is well prepared to handle birth. During labor and birth, oxytocin, the hormone of sex and love, rises to peak levels in both mother and baby. The same elements that would create a sensuous experience with a lover—dim lights, privacy, a sense of safety—facilitate birth.

Orgasmic Birth’s evocative soundtrack was created by John McDowell, composer of the score for the Oscar-winning documentary Born Into Brothels.

National Perinatal Association’s Position Paper on Choice of Birth Setting

Quote from the position paper:

“A 2008 Cochrane Database review of ‘Home vs. Hospital Births’ concluded that there was no strong evidence to favor planned hospital birth vs. planned homebirth for low-risk pregnant women.  ‘Planned hospital birth may even be increase unnecessary interventions and complications without any benefit for low-risk women.’  In the United States, 50% of all labors are induced, an ever-increasing number of births are through major surgery, and there is a recent epidemic of late pre-term births.”

September Meet Decatur Doulas

Come by for an informal time to learn what birth doulas do and meet several at once.  Ask your questions, meet other pregnant moms, etc.  We’re meeting in Avondale Estates at 3pm on Saturday, Sept. 6.  Please call or email Jenn Purdy for exact location and to RSVP.  Husbands, moms, friends are all welcome.