S and I went to a birthing class this weekend -- three hours Friday night, three hours Saturday morning. This seems the appropriate amount of time to me. It was enough time to get an idea of what to expect and how to prepare, but not enough time for the participants to give long-winded, off-topic, personal anecdotes, or to turn the class into a commiseration session, both of which I've heard friends complain about with their birthing class. Plus, it was a relatively small group, only three other couples, and everybody was pretty cool (i.e., not annoying) so that was good.
I liked the teacher. She looked sorta like a slight, gay female version of Dr. Drew. She was really nice, and I liked her overall attitude toward pregnancy. She was into a lot of aspects of a "natural" pregnancy, but she definitely wasn't part of the no-medication-suffer-at-all-costs / hospitals-are-bad / doctors-are-evil crowd. We were originally signed up for a different class, and I got the feeling in reading the blurbs on their website, that they were much more in this camp. I didn't really want to go (it also was much longer, two hours a week every week for like eight weeks, and much more expensive), but I didn't want to be unsupportive, so I didn't protest (too much). Luckily, S mentioned the name of the place to her doctor during a checkup, and she didn't have nice things to say about it, so S canceled our spot.
It's a good thing, as I think S would have felt really out of place at a hardcore natural birth class. As it was, she was the odd duck in the class we did attend. At one point, the moms-to-be had to pick a "medication rating" with +10 being "I want to feel absolutely nothing", -10 being "I want no medication under any circumstances", and 0 being the cut off between wanting and not wanting epidural. S won't let me say what number she picked, but let's just say all the other women where somewhere around -6 and she wasn't. I don't think anybody was judging, but still.
The thing is, I get why the natural birth movement exists (and I'm actually a product of it, I was born in a duplex very close to where I grew up and where my parents live today). For a long time a woman giving birth was told (by a male doctor) to do things that didn't make sense -- like lie on their back with their legs up in the air, so that gravity works against them -- or just given medication without any say in the matter. But things aren't like that anymore. They're not perfect, certainly, but they're better. Also, professional medical intervention is needed sometimes, and I don't get why it's often classified as "unnatural". If you look at the human race, what's our biggest (our only?) biological advantage over all other species. Our brains. We survive because we're smart. Modern medicine is an example of us humans using our unique biology to perpetuate our existence. What's more "natural" than this?
Take the C-section for example. One of the first things our teacher did was ask the couples if we wanted a C-section. We all said no, as you might expect. So she asked us why? We gave some reasons, scarring, it's unnecessary, surgery can stressful and scary, etc. These are all perfectly valid, but look at the flip side. C-sections are an almost completely complication-free way to deliver. There is almost a 100% chance with a C-section that you'll have a healthy baby and a healthy mom (after recovery). So how are they bad?
I think what's going on is that natural pregnancy has become a "cause" for a some people, and once something becomes a cause, it quickly leaves the realm of objectivity and fact. It gets back to my broader premise (laid it in this entry) that most people don't use rationality and logic as guiding principles in their decision making. It's faith, ideology, and ego, those are the big three.
Anyway, I feel like I'm getting away from the rough course I had laid out in my head for this entry, so I'm stopping here. Until next time...
I liked the teacher. She looked sorta like a slight, gay female version of Dr. Drew. She was really nice, and I liked her overall attitude toward pregnancy. She was into a lot of aspects of a "natural" pregnancy, but she definitely wasn't part of the no-medication-suffer-at-all-costs / hospitals-are-bad / doctors-are-evil crowd. We were originally signed up for a different class, and I got the feeling in reading the blurbs on their website, that they were much more in this camp. I didn't really want to go (it also was much longer, two hours a week every week for like eight weeks, and much more expensive), but I didn't want to be unsupportive, so I didn't protest (too much). Luckily, S mentioned the name of the place to her doctor during a checkup, and she didn't have nice things to say about it, so S canceled our spot.
It's a good thing, as I think S would have felt really out of place at a hardcore natural birth class. As it was, she was the odd duck in the class we did attend. At one point, the moms-to-be had to pick a "medication rating" with +10 being "I want to feel absolutely nothing", -10 being "I want no medication under any circumstances", and 0 being the cut off between wanting and not wanting epidural. S won't let me say what number she picked, but let's just say all the other women where somewhere around -6 and she wasn't. I don't think anybody was judging, but still.
[In birthing class, we watched this crazy video from the '70s of Brazilian women giving birth from the squatting position. It was very intriguing, but also very graphic, which is good. I need to be desensitized a little bit. Watching the bloody, gooey placenta come out after the baby is born is pretty gross. It's weird though. It seems so foreign watching the body expunge all this waste (the after matter is waste, not the baby, obviously), and yet if you think about, I do something similar everyday when I sit on the toilet, so why does it seem so strange?]
The thing is, I get why the natural birth movement exists (and I'm actually a product of it, I was born in a duplex very close to where I grew up and where my parents live today). For a long time a woman giving birth was told (by a male doctor) to do things that didn't make sense -- like lie on their back with their legs up in the air, so that gravity works against them -- or just given medication without any say in the matter. But things aren't like that anymore. They're not perfect, certainly, but they're better. Also, professional medical intervention is needed sometimes, and I don't get why it's often classified as "unnatural". If you look at the human race, what's our biggest (our only?) biological advantage over all other species. Our brains. We survive because we're smart. Modern medicine is an example of us humans using our unique biology to perpetuate our existence. What's more "natural" than this?
Take the C-section for example. One of the first things our teacher did was ask the couples if we wanted a C-section. We all said no, as you might expect. So she asked us why? We gave some reasons, scarring, it's unnecessary, surgery can stressful and scary, etc. These are all perfectly valid, but look at the flip side. C-sections are an almost completely complication-free way to deliver. There is almost a 100% chance with a C-section that you'll have a healthy baby and a healthy mom (after recovery). So how are they bad?
I think what's going on is that natural pregnancy has become a "cause" for a some people, and once something becomes a cause, it quickly leaves the realm of objectivity and fact. It gets back to my broader premise (laid it in this entry) that most people don't use rationality and logic as guiding principles in their decision making. It's faith, ideology, and ego, those are the big three.
Anyway, I feel like I'm getting away from the rough course I had laid out in my head for this entry, so I'm stopping here. Until next time...
No comments:
Post a Comment