Birth

What could be a better place to start a new course in early childhood studies than birth? This week, I'm to compare my own birthing experience with the experience of someone from another country.

I had my first and only child at 36 years of age. I went for every prenatal exam, ultrasound, and testing (aside from the intrusive amneo), as well as childbirth classes. My birth was attended by my partner, nurses in the birthing suite, and my physician (a family practice doc who I had chosen specifically because she would be able to provide our care prior to birth as well as all our care after birth and beyond).

My goal was to go natural. I would have loved to do a water birth, or a home birth, but seeing as how I had some physical complications, I chose early on to deliver in the hospital at the birthing center. For the last week of my pregnancy, I was on modified bed rest to due increasing blood pressure. On my due date, my doc decided it was best to go ahead and schedule for induction before my blood pressure got in to dangerous places.

After the induction process was started I labored naturally for hours. I was encouraged to walk, take a bath, do whatever felt comfortable.  At some point I decided that I had had enough and asked for  pain medication but was told, after a quick peek, that I was too far dilated and that it was time to start pushing. I pushed sitting, laying down, on a ball, on my knees, on my side, but regardless of what I did, my son would not come. And with each push, his heart rate dropped and my BP rose. An on call doc was called to assist with forceps, but to no avail. The umbilical cord was wrapped around my son's throat and pressed between my pelvic bone and his head. Each push was killing him, and the stress, medication, and pain were raising my BP to dangerous places. A c-section was decided upon and I was rush, rather indelicately, to surgery for a c-section with my partner wide-eyed and fearful. In the operating room, with my partner at my head, I was told (after much labor inducing medication) NOT to push and to be still (just try, I dare you), so that they could put a needle in my spine. Moments later my son was delivered, quietly. He was blue, and had an APGAR of 3. He was taken to the NICU right away and put on oxygen. Due to health issues of another child in the NICU, no one was allowed to enter or leave the NICU, including my son. So for the first 6 hours after his birth, my son was alone, not on my chest as I had hoped/planned him to be.

When he was finally given to me, I didn't let go. Five days after he was born, we went home (on Mother's Day no less).

Part of me felt that the c-section was a failure on my part. Like I didn't try hard enough, or I did something wrong. The other part of me knows that this is wrong. I did, however, get to experience all styles of childbirth in one event: induced, natural, medication assisted, and c-section. I stayed home for 6 weeks full time with my son, worked the next 2 weeks from home (part time), worked another two weeks part time in the office and part time from home, and from then on often brought my son in to work with me about once a week. I consider myself very lucky to have an employer who would allow this, and we kind of set a precedent for other mothers/children after us who also brought their children in from time to time.

In comparing my experience to others in other countries, I am impressed by the similarities and differences.  While the Western medical model of hospital births seems to be on the rise in many countries, even c-sections seem to be on the rise. Lara Schalken from American Baby magazine (and reprinted on Parents magazine online) reports that in Brazil, the overall c-section rate is 40 percent, and even higher in private hospitals. Lisa Selin Davis, from Parenting magazine online, reports that for wealthy Chinese women, the c-section rate is as high as 90%, and for the rest of the country about 40%, however in Uganda a "c-section is seen by the entire community as a failure".  Davis reports that in Tibet, may of the "old ways" persist, and that women largely labor and deliver at home or in an animal pen as childbirth is considered dirty/unclean, and will cut the umbilical cord themselves with a dirty knife that is later cleaned. Unfortunately, the infant mortality rate is also quite high, 20-30%, which may be in impart due to childbirth practices, but also due to geographical/topographical challenges in the ability of pregnant women to get to hospitals for care. So in many ways, my birthing experience was wonderful. Now, if I could just get my hands on the 2-3 years of maternity leave that countries like Holland, Germany, and Romania....

Links:
http://www.parenting.com/article/birth-maternal-health
http://www.parents.com/pregnancy/giving-birth/vaginal/birth-customs-around-the-world/