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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
The elective C-section debate rages on: Is a vaginal delivery the only way to experience the "natural miracle" of childbirth?
Jul 14, 2004 | [Read "Cut and Run," by Dana Hudepohl.]
My baby was born via elective C-section on July 1, 2004. He was 10 pounds, 2 ounces, 22 inches long, perfect and healthy. My entire birth experience was positive and wonderful, truly better than I had even imagined. My recovery has been amazing -- virtually painless -- and upon discharge from the hospital five days following my surgery, I was able to hold my baby easily, walk up and down stairs, and do relatively normal activities. My biggest problem was remembering that I had had major surgery, and to not do too much.
I am pleased with my decision, and thrilled with my newborn son. I would definitely make the same decision for an elective C-section again, if I had the chance.
-- Dr. Jennifer Feeney
As someone who went through both a surgical and natural birth, I am baffled by mothers who deliberately seek a C-section. Surgery should always be a last resort, a solution you turn to when the benefits outweigh the risks.
My first pregnancy ended in an emergency C-section. The epidural I had been receiving was cranked up, and soon everything became blurry and surreal. As I was strapped, eagle-like, on the operating table, nausea overcame me. All I remember after that is seeing blue: The cloth that shielded me from my cut belly; the clothes that the doctors and my husband wore. When my son was removed from my stomach, and my husband handed him to me, I desperately strained my eyes to take a good look at him, but couldn't focus.
I was determined to have a vaginal delivery when my daughter was born. And I did. Without drugs. The pain was scary, all right, but once my little girl came out, it was over. I couldn't take my eyes off her. I felt elated, energized even. As she lay on my stomach and nursed for the first time, I couldn't help remembering the searing pain in my abdomen three and a half years earlier.
Surgeries do save lives. But vaginal childbirth is a timeless miracle of nature, one I am so grateful to have experienced.
-- Sylvie Sadarnac-Studney
Late in the article, Feeney describes labor as 20 to 30 hours of excruciating and unpredictable pain, as opposed to cesarean delivery, which she blithely characterizes as a 30-minute, controlled procedure. This characterization of vaginal delivery in contrast to cesarean birth is unfair, to say the least. Has Feeney even delivered other children to be able to make these representations? Her perceptions on the contrasting experiences of vaginal birth vs. C-section are of little value if she has no relevant experiential data to draw from.
-- Robin Wilt
I gave birth to my son in my house as planned with a midwife, doula, and family around, without drugs -- so this puts me on the other side of the bell curve in terms of electing how I wanted to give birth.
That said, I have quite a bit in common with the women cited in this article. Namely, I wanted to be in control of the process (as much as that's possible), and found the idea of a routine hospital vaginal delivery, which I am assuming Donna McDonald has witnessed countless times as an OB nurse, terrifying and abhorrent.
Clock watching, not allowing women in labor to eat or drink, unnecessary immobilization, and unnecessary intervention are all still far too common despite a movement toward empowering pregnant and birthing women. I stayed home to avoid it. Maybe if we can truly change the healthcare system's approach to childbirth for the better, women will feel they truly have options.
-- Amy Callner
Extreme opposition to C-sections in the U.S. is about Americans wanting to worship the Natural -- perhaps because nature is a "gift from God." Meanwhile other countries are looking at how technology and medicine can actually serve people. Including women.
In this, as in other matters -- like HIV, gay marriage, prostitution and medical research -- the U.S. is out of step with too many other nations. When the question of personal choice comes up in relation to the human body, too many Americans lose perspective and resort to ideology -- feminism, Christian morality or nature worship.
There's no absolutely right or wrong way for everybody to give birth. Brazil and Denmark can teach us a lot about how we manage our own bodies. If we are willing to listen.
-- Tracy Quan
