Ok so I have just barely dipped my toes into the water that is the natural birth world and am feeling a little overwhelmed by ignorance! I just cannot believe what is happening in our country or even around the world. It insane what peoples doctors are telling them and even worse the fact that most of these women take what the doctor says at face value without finding out any information on their own. The topic that affects me the most is of course induction.
First I must address the fact that I am not against ALL inductions. Inductions that are truly medically necessary for the safety of the infant and the mother are of course important and I am grateful that the technology is available for those few cases. However not only are those cases rare I am angered that some of those emergency cases could have been prevented if the mother was better educated and had better prenatal care. Secondly I would like to point out that 40 weeks gestation is just an average. I don't mean to be giving a math lesson here but an average is all the numbers added up together and then divided meaning if you have 7 mothers who each give birth at different gestational weeks (37,38,39,40,41,42,43) all averaged together you get 40 weeks! Often from a statistical standpoint it often excludes the outliers, meaning that those that are too far on either side get removed from that data all together and are often not even figured into the average. Therefore, it may not be outside of the norm for a mother to go into labor naturally at 35 or 43 weeks and have perfectly healthy babies. There are so many variations of what is normal in our species yet when there are natural variations in birth we are told that something must be wrong. The average height of an American female is about 5'3. So does that mean that if you are an American female and are 6'2 or 4'10 that you should take drastic measures to "fix" yourself so that you fall into this average? I would assume that most women would think it absurd to take medical precautions so that they did not ever get to 6'2 or consider taking growth hormones so that they could be taller than 4'10. Yet we often take drugs or even undergo major abdominal surgery when we are pregnant and go beyond the average 40 weeks of gestation no matter how well the baby may be doing inside the womb.
So why is it ok to pump pregnant women full of drugs to force a baby out of its safe home before that baby is ready to make its appearance? Why do doctors insist that they know better than mother nature? It is just maddening that doctors are making women feel inadequate by telling them that their body must be doing something wrong, that their bodies are not functioning properly because if it were they would have gone into labor already! This is Wrong! Women you need to reclaim your voice for yours and your babies well being. There are cases were medical intervention is necessary but it is much more rare than your OB would like you to believe, especially if you are getting good prenatal care. For example how many women are told that they can avoid having such a risky complication like pre-eclampsia simply by having a good well balanced diet. Yes it can really be that simple sometimes. Eating well while you are pregnant who would have guessed!
I am just so angered by the ignorance that abounds when it comes to natural birth. We as women are smarter than this, however we allow doctors to tell us that we must be wrong our bodies must be broken we simply cant give birth naturally. Oh what utter Bullshit!
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