His and Her Health

TRUE natural childbirth, meaning childbirth that is allowed to proceed in its own way and in its own time, does not cause incontinence or any of the other problems Jennifer wrote about in her article. However, MEDICALLY MANAGED childbirth does. All of my babies have been born at home without doctors or midwives. I pushed when my body felt like pushing and consequently my body was not damaged in the process. Forced pushing is one of the many ways women can be injured in birth. Artificial time constraints is another. Women need to be free to give birth when and how they want. I would like to see Jennifer do a show about the unassisted childbirth movement. Numerous women are discovering they can indeed trust themselves to give birth safely without outside "assistance." The true danger in childbirth comes when it is interfered with, either physically or psychologically.<BR>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR><font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by laurashanley:<BR><B>TRUE natural childbirth, meaning childbirth that is allowed to proceed in its own way and in its own time, does not cause incontinence or any of the other problems Jennifer wrote about in her article. However, MEDICALLY MANAGED childbirth does. All of my babies have been born at home without doctors or midwives. I pushed when my body felt like pushing and consequently my body was not damaged in the process. Forced pushing is one of the many ways women can be injured in birth. Artificial time constraints is another. Women need to be free to give birth when and how they want. I would like to see Jennifer do a show about the unassisted childbirth movement. Numerous women are discovering they can indeed trust themselves to give birth safely without outside "assistance." The true danger in childbirth comes when it is interfered with, either physically or psychologically.</B></font><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I agree that doctors often interfere more than anything. Women have been giving birth forever and most of us have instincts that cannot be improved upon. I have had both my sons by c-section as I failed to progress after an epidural. I never made it past 5 centimeters. With my second son a c-section was just scheduled. For a while I was quite dissapointed and felt like I had missed something. But, years later, after hearing so many of my friends complain about sex being really different and less pleasurable and hearing some of the bad jokes that men make to women who aren't stretched about women who are, I am really really glad that I had c-sections. I am also angry that no one tells you what can happen you just hear the stories. Anyway, sex feels exactly the same as it ever did. I wear the same diaphragm size and recently a radiologist asked me if I had ever been pregnant(transvaginal)until she saw my nice frankenstein double cesarean scar! Nothing really changed for me because my first son never entered the birth canal. He didn't even drop into my pelvis until I went into labor. Sex is so important to me. I think it is for a lot of women. I think that it is unfair that women cannot choose what to do with their bodies in any case. I nursed my sons both for 2 years (over 4 years total). I would say that that was the one of the most important bonding things that I did. I am so glad that I nursed my babies. But, I am not sorry that I have not been through natural childbirth.....at all! It should be our choice. whatever your opinion is about natural childbirth vs. cesarean.<BR><P>------------------<BR>poppykrause