Green Options

Many of you read and supported me in my “Medicalization of my Natural Birth“. Thanks, yo.

I never had to face a Caesarean section. Not with these birthin’ hips. I know, and am even related to, women who have. It’s a tough recovery for many, both physically and emotionally.

Now there’s a movement to make the C-section more “natural”. Vaginal birthing has had a natural movement over the last 20 years, and one doctor wants the C-section to have the same.

British professor Nicholas M. Fisk wants to encourage the same bonding that is present in many natural vaginal births in his C-section patients. He thinks C-sections should be more “woman-centered.”

But with 1/3 of all American labors ending in surgery (in the UK the C-section rate is 24 percent), is this something we should encourage? Do we really want him to soothe us into the decision of a C-section?! “There, there. At least it’ll be natural.”

What’s next…is he going to “naturalize” the vasectomy?!

We writers at Eco-Child’s Play are writing about our birth experiences this week. My son’s birth was a fairly traditional hospital birth. It wasn’t until…oh… about a week before my son was born that I started really getting into the natural movement…way to late to do anything but make minor changes to my birth plan. So, I’m going to write about a friend of mine’s “natural c-section.”

My friend, a yoga teacher, living a green and organic life in Northern California, was happy to find herself finally married and pregnant in her forties. Well educated and well informed she planned to have a home birth until she received the devastating news from her OB and another OB and a series of midwives – a prior episode with fibroids, involving surgery, prevented her from having a vaginal birth, let alone a home birth. A C-section would be required.

I felt it was important to write about her story because there are ways to make a hospital birth, even a C-section, if you or your OB feel it’s necessary, more “natural” and feel less like medical intervention.