Birth Well Doula

My mother-in-law is dealing with chemotherapy for breast cancer.  The cyst was removed and now the chemo is to attack what technically does not exist, all to get her statistical chances of recurrence down from an unacceptable 30 percent over the next 10 years.  She debated strongly the pros and cons of doing chemo at all.  Would you be able to live with those odds and not get the therapy?  She’s doing it, because 30 percent is too high for comfort.

First time mothers face a 30 percent chance (or higher in many hospitals) of an unintended cesarean section.  Women go willingly into those odds, not even considering the statistically superior route of home birth (the only other option in Atlanta) because they feel safer surrounded by the technology.  But are you safer?  Why is 30 percent acceptable?  Ask yourself if that technology and available medication is saving you from being one of the 1 in 3 or making you be the one.  By medicalizing birth, problems are created that the medicine and machines and “experts” then save you from.  And you leave feeling happy to be one of the 30 percent.  Think about it.  Think about how you will approach your birth (physically, emotionally, spiritually) and the medical aids that are available.

Read Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Childbirth to learn more about acceptable statistics.

I attended my first birth since taking a sabatical for my daughter’s birth and babyhood.  It’s been 2 years almost to the day but being back at a friend’s childbirth seemed like I had been at it last week. It was a beautiful natural VBAC at Crawford Long.  There were no issues relating to the previous cesarean, except for the continual fetal monitoring, but the mom got there at 8 cm (as she hoped) and the restricted movement was not much of an issue.