The Truth about Birth, Part 2

Click here to read Part 1.

The average woman giving birth in the hospital today is subjected to a wide variety of needless and, in fact, dangerous interventions. Numerous books and web sites have been devoted to the subject, so I will only deal with two of the major ones here: Pitocin and epidural anesthesia.

Pitocin is given to women in the hospital either to induce labor, or speed up a labor that a doctor has "determined" is proceeding too slowly. Both excuses rarely hold up, as most women can safely go weeks beyond their due date, and once a labor has begun, there is little justification for rushing it. Pitocin is artificial oxytocin, a substance the body produces naturally when a woman is relaxed and unafraid. Oxytocin is produced not only when a woman is in labor, but also during breastfeeding and sex. This is why some midwives recommend having sex to get a labor started. They know that when a woman's nipples and clitoris are stimulated, her body will produce oxytocin.

Stimulation resulting in orgasm is even more powerful. According to Ann Douglas and John R. Sussman, M.D., authors of the book The Unofficial Guide to Having a Baby, a single orgasm is thought to be 22 times as relaxing as the average tranquilizer. Often, it's exactly what a woman needs in order to relieve the tension that is preventing the birth response from doing its job. Most doctors, however, are either unaware of this fact, or prefer more artificial methods.

What most women don't realize is that Pitocin is not only unnecessary, it's potentially dangerous. Doris Haire writes in her article, "Update on Obstetric Drugs and Procedures: Their Effects on Maternal and Infant Outcome," (Birth Gazette 13:1, 1996)

the American manufacturer of Pitocin points out in its package insert that oxytocin can cause: a) maternal hypertensive episodes, b) cardiac arrhythmias, c) uterine spasm, d) titanic contraction, e) uterine rupture, f) subarachnoid hemorrhage, g) water intoxication, h) convulsions, I) coma, j) pelvic hemotoma, k) postpartum hemorrhage, l) afibrinogenemia, and m) fetal death. Uterine stimulants that foreshorten the oxygen-replenishing intervals between contractions by making the contractions too long, too strong, or too close together increase the likelihood that fetal brain cells will die. The situation is somewhat analogous to holding an infant under the surface of the water, allowing the infant to come to the surface to gasp for air but not to breathe.

It's no wonder that so many babies in the hospital are determined to be in distress. They're literally suffocating.

Pitocin-induced contractions are often extremely painful. Most women who receive it end up getting an epidural, even if they had previously decided on a natural birth. Despite what most women are told, epidurals can result in the following:

• a slowdown of labor requiring additional drugs to speed things up
• a drop in the mother's blood pressure with life-threatening consequences for both the mother and the baby
• the elimination of the pleasurable sensations of birth
• unresponsiveness of both the mother and the baby after the birth
• inability of the mother to push the baby out resulting in a forceps delivery
• head and neck aches for the mother that may last several weeks
• breathing and sucking difficulties for the baby
• dulling of the mind and the body resulting in the inability of the mother and the baby to bond after birth
• vomiting and inhaling of the fluids resulting in death for the mother
• impaired muscular, visual and neural development of the baby
• permanent brain damage and mental retardation of the baby
• permanent paralysis of the mother
• infant death

The routine administering of Pitocin and epidural anesthesia is directly responsible for many of the "complications" women in the hospital experience. The C-section rate in this country is high not because vaginal birth is inherently dangerous or difficult. It is high because birth is not designed to be medically managed.

All this being said, there is no denying the fact that many women successfully give birth in the hospital. However, I truly believe they are doing it in spite of hospital procedures rather than because of them.

Of course, nearly all doctors would disagree with this premise. They would instantly point to the many "problems" they believe they have "fixed." What they fail to admit, however, is that many of the so-called problems they are claiming to fix, are actually caused by them in the first place. For instance, doctors pat themselves on the back for the fact that they're now saving more premature babies than ever before. They fail to mention that according to Midwifery Today magazine, the biggest cause of premature birth today is induction of labor. Doctors are "heroically" saving babies who should still be safely tucked within their mother's wombs!

I am not condemning all doctors. Some of them are kind and caring people. And the sad fact is, although there are many women who feel they have had medical intervention forced upon them, there are many who expect and even demand it. Doctors who do not comply with a woman's wishes may be sued if something goes wrong.

However, I think it is safe to say that the majority of doctors in American hospitals believe that birth is a dangerous ordeal that needs to be managed, controlled, and manipulated. There is also a financial incentive to keep it this way. Giving birth is the number one reason people go to the hospital. It is a fifty billion dollar a year industry in this country, and you can be sure there are people who would like us to continue believing that birth is a dangerous ordeal that can only be made safe by medical intervention.

There is no denying the fact that doctors do indeed save lives. True emergencies do exist. But every birth is not an emergency and there is no excuse for treating it as such. As writer Jeannine Parvati Baker so aptly stated, "Birth is not an emergency. It is simply an emergence."