why do so many women prefer to go through natural childbirth instead of getting a medicated one?
ByI’m only 12 weeks pregnant, so I have a little while to wait until I have to choose which birthing option to go for, but I cannot find ANYTHING on the reasons people choose to go through it naturally when there is medication that will ease pain. I was leaning more toward epidural, but there must be something wrong with doing that because if that’s available to people, why is it that they choose natural childbirth over epidural or some other kind of medicated childbirth?
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6 Comments
April 15th, 2010 at 4:43 am
People say the baby comes out SCREAMING an crying very loudly with no birthing meds.. They also say with the Epidural the baby comes out crying alittle bit an tired..
I guess it’s just your prefrence. I’m Im 11 wks pregnant with number 1, and I will have an epidural!
April 15th, 2010 at 5:32 am
i had an epidural and have major back issues since birth. anyway.. some people are just “crunchy” and don’t believe in medication or they don’t want their child to be drugged when it comes into the world. also it is never guaranteed you won’t feel it. they had to turn the epidural off because i didn’t know when to push i was so numb. so i ended up having my child with absolutely no medicine.. it was awful. definitely get something!
April 15th, 2010 at 5:51 am
The chances of risk to the mother or baby from medication, and some women are more scared of needles than childbirth.
April 15th, 2010 at 6:22 am
I had a natural birth for the following reasons:
1. if they miss with that shot- I am paralyzed
2. my baby was healthier and alert since I didn’t have the shot- which would have made her drowsy
3. I had a great support system to help me breathe
4. I have the worst period cramps so I knew that I could do it
5. with the shot you cannot feel your lower body to “push” when you need to PUSH
6. my daughter didn’t cry until they washed her
Good luck with which ever choice you decide. Never understood good luck until I had my daughter and the learning channel has nothing on real childbirth!!
April 15th, 2010 at 6:26 am
Natural childbirth is safer for your child as well as you. Once you start with interventions, you open yourself (and your baby) up to a downward spiral of interventions. It’s also easier to recover from a naural birth as opposed to a medicated one.
There are a LOT of risks associated with pain medications as well as epidurals. Epidurals increase the odds of a cesarean by 50% (thanks to the continuing interventions such as constant fetal monitoring, internal fetal monitoring, catheter, decels in the baby’s heart rate, side effects, etc). With pain meds, you not only drug yourself, you drug the baby. This can be very dangerous.
April 15th, 2010 at 7:02 am
I have decided on a completely natural childbirth. I just happen to feel that my body will know what to do. I however will be giving birth in a birthing center and will be able to move around however my body feels it needs to move around. I will also be able to labor (not birth) in water, which is a huge help in easing pain. I will not be hooked up to a continuous monitor and will be able to eat and drink as I please. Natural labor and child birth when you are allowed to move, eat, and drink, is completely different than natural labor and child birth in a normal labor & delivery setting. In L&D you are normally hooked up to monitors and an IV, are restricted in your movements and unable to eat or drink, and this makes it very hard for your body to do what it needs to do to cope with labor. Also, with medication you could push up to 2 hours due to the loss of feeling and control, and non medicated women push for far less time (yes I know it isn’t true for everyone but the point is most women push a lot longer with medication).
Also, there is the whole part about it being natural. Meaning from/by nature. I just refuse to believe that anything synthetic is better than what nature has designed and provided. Don’t get me wrong, there is a time and place for all of our medical advance, and I am grateful for that, I just happen to believe that we should turn to Mother Earth first.
EDIT: I highly recommend you watch ‘The Business of Being Born’. It is a documentay on childbirth in the US (it is actually available instantly on NetFlix right now…). If you haven’t been able to find out why people choose natural childbirth, which honestly surprises me, this movie will give you a good idea.