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Natural Birth
lizzybean
member
Help me please-- DH is skeptical of Natural Birth
lizzybean
member
Hi ladies,
I have never posted on here before, but I am having a crisis in my plans for a natural birth. I have wanted a natural birth ever since I spoke to my Mother a few months ago and she informed me that all three of her children were born naturally. That really inspired me to so the same.
Apparently I haven't kept DH in the loop as much as I thought I was with my birth plans. We got in a huge fight tonight (currently) about my birth plan. He's totally freaked out by having a natural birth, and to be honest, I haven't done enough to convince him otherwise. I dont have anything to give him, like statistics, or reasons that natural is better than epidural.
We went on our hospital tour tonight and I was the only one out of 6 couples who was planning a natural birth. She focused on me a lot more on the tour, and that scared the sh!t out of DH. I dont know why, but this triggered all these thoughts in him about how natural is the wrong way to go, and that Im putting my body through more pain than necessary, etc, etc.
Do any of you ladies have any online resources that DH and I can look over together to calm him down? I am so upset right now, I feel like he's not being supportive, but I also know that I guess I haven't given him enough info for him to feel comfortable with all of this. He is just being such a downer.
I have not read any of the books like hypnobirthing or any other techniques. I just plan on using lamaze breathing techniques and moving around to many different positions, including the tub, birthing ball, etc. I think this will work best for my body.
Sorry this is so long, Im just so upset and need a quick fix to make DH feel better about this so we stop fighting. I dont have anyone else here. I need him behind me 100%.
Any information you have would be greatly appreciated. TIA
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Help me please-- DH is skeptical of Natural Birth
I am a Certified Nurse Midwife so I deal with this a lot with my patients. First- what is he afraid of? Start by just hearing him out. You will be the minority when you are planning natural childbirth because most women in the US are too afraid & have years of negative stories told by others to want to try it.
Since you planning to birth in a hospital its going to be just as safe (if not safer) than if you had every medical intervention on the planet.
I would watch The Business of Being Born with him. I watched this movie with my husband- then boyfriend- when we first started dating to explain why I am a midwife and why my work is so important to me.
Then I would consider a specific childbirth method- I teach Hypnobirthing. Even if you are taking a birth class now- a specific natural birth technique is really helpful. I know you said you have a plan and thats great but this class gives BOTH of you tools to help get you through. And the more prepared you are- the more confident you are going to be. It is essential that you have support during labor- so if he's not into it- consider a doula to fill the gap.
He's probably just terrifed. Don't doubt the birth you want- listen to your gut. Good luck!
BFP 7/2009 m/c
BFP 9/2009 m/c
Clomid IUI 12/2010, 1/2011, 2/2011 All BFN
IVF #1 6/2011 BFN, no frosties
IVF #2 2/2012 BFP
DD born 10/2012
IVF # 3 11/3/13 Canceled after retrieval d/t severe OHSS, 3 frosties
I remember getting in the car to go to the hospital, my husband was so freaked out that I wasn't screaming like everyone you see in the movies. After my 100% natural birth my husband tells people that DD just popped out. He exaggerates, but it was way less traumatic than he anticipated.
Reasons why natural is better. My main one was I wanted to feel in control and have feedback from my body during labor and pushing. Imagine you were very constipated. Would you want go to the bathroom while temporarly paralyzed from the waist down, or would you want to be able feel if you were doing harm to yourself. Exact same thing, exact same sensation.
Also there is a hormone feedback loop. The hormones that cause contractions, cause the production of endorphins and other natural pain killers that stimulate bonding after the baby is born.
There are lots of reasons to want to avoid medical intervention:
There are risks associated with an epidural (and other pain meds) to both yourself and baby. From paralysis (obviously rare) to headaches that take a few days to go away.
Epidurals can interfere with baby's ability to latch if you plan to BF. It is recommended that you have skin to skin contact immediately after birth and BL within the hour. Your own response to any pain meds could make that difficult.
Also some interventions can lead onto other interventions, ultimately resulting in a c-section which of course is major abdominal surgery that can take weeks to recover.
And epis don't always work or "take" properly.
This is obviously worst case scenario, many women have epis and have no issues recovering and BF.
I'm sure ladies here will have links to resources etc
I would ask your DH what his concerns are. Is he worried about seeing you in pain? Does he think natural childbirth is more risky? Is he worried that they'll be pressure on him to support you? etc etc
If you know what his actual concerns are then you can address those concerns.
FWIW I've had two wonderful natural births and wouldn't do it any other way for the sense of empowerment, well-being and connectedness it gave me with my husband and our babies.
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
Thank you so much for your responses ladies. I think he just has such a fear of the unknown right now, and I do need to step up and do what I can to educate him and comfort his fears.
I really appreciate you all taking the time to respond.
This was the single most effective tool in getting my DH on board with a natural birth. I highly recommend it!
Good luck!
I just read this short article and sent it to my husband.
https://www.bellybelly.com.au/birth/but-i-want-drugs-drugs-in-labour
I've always wanted a natural birth and my family has all had natural births. Where I'm from you can't have an epidural if you go into labour between 11pm and 7am anyway so it makes my decision easier.
Thirding (or fourthing?) this!
DH was completely against a natural birth because he didn't want me in pain (which was weird to me since I associate hospitals with being in pain). I tried using verbal reasoning and logic, but he's a visual person. After watching BOBB he was completely on board with a home birth and said he had no idea how ignorant he was about birth and admitted all he knew about it up until then was from movies and TV.
I'll also mention this, because I think it was useful in the way my DH works. I didn't bring up the topic of birthing options and my stance on it for several weeks. One day when he was at work I sent him a link to the BOBB trailer saying, "Hey hubbypie! Hope you're having a great day. Can we watch this tonight?" and didn't provide any other details.
During the viewing I didn't offer any opinions until he offered them first. Since the things he said were in line with my way of thinking, I readily agreed with him.
I recognized that he needed more information in order to come to an educated conclusion and me butting in with my thoughts on it wasn't going to help him do that. Also, he really enjoyed seeing how he could participate in labor at home with massage, helping in different positions for labor, possibly even catching the baby... it really opened up a lot of discussion.
You ladies are all so wonderful! Thank you so much for the supportive responses, its really exactly what I needed to hear. Its tough because my family is so supportive of a natural birth, but they live in Vancouver and we live in Florida so I really need DH to be on board with all this.
After seeing how upset I got about it last night, we have made an agreement to watch TBOBB together, and I am going to gather more info for myself as well, so I feel more empowered and can answer any questions he has in the coming weeks.
You are all such a wealth of knowledge, I will definitely be frequenting this board more often. Thank you again!!
I don't have much to offer that these other ladies didn't already. I agreed BOBB was an excellent resource, as is ACOG.org. They show advantages and disadvantages to ALL types of births. Epidurals have some major disadvantages. I will say to stay away from "Made in the USA" where the filmmaker seems to just decide hospital births are horrible amd doctors are evil and we need to do away with them.and spends the whole docu saying why without a lot of back up.
All of the people he interviewed are in BOBB, and BOBB does far more to promote midwifery and show how safe it is. It also makes SURE the viewer knows there are times when a hospital birth with intervention are necessary. And, that your MW knows when to take you there.
My argument is that women have been birthing babies for 10000 years. None of us would be here if they hadn't. We've only been using excessive intervention for about 100. While there are times it's medically necessary to intervene, and maternal death rates are lower, it's best to let nature do her thing, and lend it a hand if it looks like something is going wrong. A woman should feel safe at a hospital, and not terrified.
Lastly, as a woman who's given birth naturally, I think these ladies will agree it's one of the most awesome experiences to ne had in life. Yeah...it hurts. You can control it to an extent. But...when they place that baby in your arms, and adrenaline, oxytocin and endorphins and swirling through both of you...you forget about everything else. It's the best high you'll ever have. Child birth is an amazing experience. I think everyone woman should have the right to experience it if they choose.
We watched The Business of Being Born while we were TTC. DH wasn't 100% on board for a while though... that was just a great tool to introduce him to the idea. We also hired a doula for DS's birth.
The biggest "help" to get him on board for a natural birth was seeing how miserable I was for/after the medicated birth with interventions the first time around. I'm sure that's not what you wantd to hear, but for us, it's the truth. He knew I wanted to go med-free the first time but we didn't know enough to say no to some things. This time, we already feel so much more empowered with knowledge. He was 300% on board when I told him I wanted to change my insurance options for the sole purpose of being able to choose a specific hospital/women's clinic/birth center for Baby #2. We were a little concerned about costs, but even DH agreed that if it was really something I felt strongly about, we'd take out a loan to cover the costs, if we needed to. Lucky for us, the additional costs are almost nothing.
This time, he's gung-ho about it all. And he's the man that will chime in with "but this is so much better for mom and baby most of the time! There's a time and place for interventions, but this isn't one of them!" He's even declared that no one will be allowed to come stay with us for the first ten days... because that's what the doulas teaching our Natural Birthing class said was best. :-)
Watching this movie made my husband extremely pro-natural. It was a fabulous tool, because prior to watching it he felt like an epi was the only way to go.