2011 - Talk Birth

Okay, back to the actual book! Another good quote, but one I have a mixed reaction to:
”Women who birth joyfully do so because of who they are, what they believe, and how they live.”
While I like the sentiment, there is an unintended subtext of—if you did NOT birth joyfully, it must
be because you have a sucky life in general and does not take into consideration the millions of factors that
go into any one birth (it isn’t JUST about what the individual believes and how she lives, it is also about
what those around her believe and how they live, and also what our culture believes about birth).
That said, the book is very compassionate with regard to cesarean birth experiences, stating:
”For the woman who delivered surgically, her task is to see that she was attempting to save her
baby’s life through an act of personal courage.”
I love this re-framing—it isn’t a failure to have a cesarean birth, it is often an act of personal courage.
The final element I love from Transformation Through Birth is the author’s concept of encouraging
and preparing for postpartum EXPRESSION instead of postpartum depression (the theory being that
stuffed down, unexpressed feelings, moods, conflicts, emotions contribute to depression by repression of
expression. That’s my own bit of alliteration there–I’m so catchy! ;-)
The Waters are Breaking... (2011-02-28 17:53)
I recently bought a very discounted copy of Penny Simkin’s Comfort Measures for Childbirth video. In the
explanatory booklet that comes with it, she mentions the following: ”You may also notice the woman’s bag of
waters break during a bearing-down effort. This is normal, though quite rare, as the bag of waters is usually
broken before this time...” She doesn’t specify whether it is quite rare because the bag of waters is artificially
broken before that time for many women, or whether it is just quite rare, period. Regardless, I found it
an interesting comment because my personal experiences have all been of this same ”rare” type—my water
breaks right as I’m pushing out my babies. With my first son, I arrived at the birth center ten centimeters
dilated and was told I could push whenever I felt the urge. After about 30 minutes or so, I began pushing
sort of experimentally. My water exploded across the room after a few of these mini-pushes. He was then
born about an hour after that. With my second son, I was on my hands and knees on the floor feeling the
first intense pushes and on the second push, my water broke with a soft, warm gush and ran down my leg.
He was born about 5 minutes after that. After these two experiences, my conclusion was that it was kind
of a nice benefit to have my water intact until pushing—it created sort of cushion for the baby’s head and
(I felt) perhaps lessened the intensity of contractions (I have yet to experience a ”freaking out,” identifiable
transition stage in any of my births).
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