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Natural Birth
natural wants
Posted on a few other message boards but not about this. I was wondering if anyone here has had natural childbirth? Does it mean only vaginally or vagnially without any and all drugs. I want to go drug free and not have an episiotmoy or be hooked up to a bunch of machines and IV's. Does it hurt as badly as I have heard about? What if any breathing or other techniques did you use to get through it all? Are there any good Lamaz classes to take in NYC? Welcome all remarks.
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Re: natural wants
welcome! the definition of a natural birth is different for a lot of ppl. for some it means no pain meds, for others it's vaginal birth, what does it mean for you?
i would ask on your local board about resources in your area. there are other breathing techniques and methods that you can do online and by reading books and listening to cd's. research the different options and do what feels right to you.
i think you would benefit from reading some of the older posts to get a feel for the board and have a lot of your questions answered!
For me natural birth is an unmedicated vaginal delivery without unneccesary interventions.
Lamaze classes seem to be all inclusive (ie, pain management, etc)...and wouldn't necessarily prepare you for a natural birth. I would look into Bradley or Hypnobirthing/babies.
Welcome! There are different definitions of 'natural childbirth'. Some would say any birth that happens vaginally is natural, while others would say a birth with no medical interventions is a natural childbirth.
The first thing I did when I started preparing for a med-free birth was to watch, "The Business of Being Born" with my DH. It's live-streaming on netflix. I did some reading I read, "Hypnobirthing: The Mongan Method" and "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth." I also frequented this board and read as much as I could online. My DH and I took a hypnobirthing class together and I did a lot of practicing. As time went on I drew up a birth plan and went for a hospital tour to get an idea of what to expect.
It's good that you are starting to think about what you want and don't want. I would suggest that you run this by your Doc/MW and see how it is received. Find out what is hospital policy, that kind of thing.
I don't know much about Lamaz, but a lot of girls on here have found Bradley to be effective and I had a great experience with Hypnobirthing. I would check your local board to see what the girls on there recommend.
In terms of natural pain relief, the thing that helped me the most was to relax my whole body when I felt a contraction starting. A lot of times women tense up and start to fight their bodies, which can make it significantly harder. I would relax my whole body, concentrate on slowing my breathing, and use visualization. I also did things like sitting on an exercise ball, spent a ton of time in a warm bath, etc. Everyone's experience is different, but it wasn't as bad as I was expecting
I had my son completely naturally - I didn't even take any Tylenol. It was not that bad - I just breathed really deeply through it all. I had not had any type of child birth classes or anything, and instinct put me in the right position and my body did what it was supposed to do. I automatically breathed the right way and even held up my own legs. It feels like really bad cramps and I was sort of sore in my hip joints. It felt like they were getting pulled apart. I didn't push until my contractions were so strong that my water broke. I waited until the beginning of a contraction, pushed for like 15 seconds. During this time I could feel a burning sensation. Then all of the pain is completely gone in between contractions. This felt like a long time. I had time to talk to my husband and tell him I was ok and that everything was going to be ok. I had time to pray and then the next contraction started again. I waited until it started and pushed as hard as I could, then my son was completely out! I remember his body was so much warmer than mine.
I will give you a little back story. I had been going back and forth about whether or not to go natural. I really wanted to go natural, but everyone including my husband and my mom acted like I was crazy. My mom had me and my brother naturally, but she just didn't want me to go through that and thought there was no reason to do it.
When I was 32 weeks along, I woke up with very mild contractions and went to the hospital. They gave me medicine to try and stop the contractions and some sort of fool proof test that said I definitely was not having a baby for at least two more weeks. Forty hours later they had taken me off all monitors and everything and told me to stop trying to time my contractions they weren't doing anything. I kept telling them the contractions were getting closer together, lasting longer and getting more intense. They told me this wasn't labor and I could go like this until my due date (they even said this up until an hour before I delivered my son). I told my husband that if this wasn't labor I didn't want to go natural when I really do go into labor (this was an hour before I delievered my baby). I know that if I had known I really was in labor and had a goal and a finish line ahead of me, I would have not felt like I couldn't deal with the pain. I would have been able to say to myself, I am making progress and will meet my baby soon. Instead I was thinking this is crazy I can't go like this for two more months!
30 mimutes before I delivered my son, I asked my husband to get a doctor, not a nurse to come talk to me because I couldn't keep having contractions like this for two more months and I felt like a needed to push. The doctor came in and freaked out when she checked me - I was 9 cm. They had moved me out of the labor and delivery section of the hospital since I wasn't going to have a baby within the next two weeks. They started hitting all sorts of STAT buttons and running down the hall with my stretcher. My water broke as they were pushing me into the OR room. The scary thing was nobody had talked to me about what if the baby came. I was unprepared when he was born that because he was two months premature I wouldn't be able to take him home for a month. The next time I have a baby I will definitely go natural. It was only really intense during last hour, and I kept telling myself the pain will go away, it's not going to kill me, and I get to meet my baby! It was amazing being able to feel everything. It was also wonderful to be able to get up and walk by myself 30 minutes after he was born.
I'm in the same boat as you, wanting to go drug-free and intervention-free unless an emergent situation arises spur-of-the-moment, and then obviously I would reconsider based on benfits/risks/alternatives, etc. I'm very wary of the difficulties surrounding natural childbirth in a hospital setting (my insurance doesn't contract with any birth centers or reimburse if I were to hire a homebirth midwife out of pocket), but I was very fortunate to find a nurse-midwifery practice at a local hospital and all of the ladies there (as well as the support staff) are very accomodating of natural childbirth. Their c-section rates are 4-5% compared to 30-40% for the rest of the hospital (it's a trauma hospital so their rates are higher than usual since they get mamas that come in from car wrecks etc).
My plan is to labor at home for as long as possible -- the sooner you check into the hospital, the higher the likelihood of those interventions happening. Many facilities also have limits on stages of labor, so it's good to clarify those time limits with your doctor or midwife ahead of time.
I'm hiring a doula -- I found a gal who is recently certified so her rates are lower than most, though she had still attended a fair amount of births and also birthed two of her three children naturally (and one at home.) She's provided me with a lot of great resources, reading materials, and activities to prepare -- it's almost like having a private childbirth instructor on call!
I'm actually only doing the childbirth class at the hospital (it's free, and all the other childbirth classes were in the $300 range which in my opinion is way too much.) While I understand this class will mainly be geared toward teaching people how to be good hospital patients, they do include a whole section on natural pain management and self-relaxation techniques which is great.
I read Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way, but for me the Bradley method is a big no-go because of the demand it places on the husband/coach. My boyfriend is not too keen on anything to do with pregnancy, labor, or delivery (unfortunate as that may be) so it would have just been depressing to sign up for Bradley classes and see all the supportive couples in the room while I'm dealing with him. Ina May's Guide to Childbirth has been extremely affirming and very helpful as a means to prepare, and remind myself that the body knows what to do, and women have been giving birth naturally for thousands/millions of years.
Of course, we'll see how this all holds up once I'm in the midst of a contraction dilated to 7 cm... ha!
This! I plan on doing this. I am reading on Bradley & taking Lamaze.