"Is Birth Really as Scary and Dangerous as I Think?"

Tell me if any of these sound familiar:

• A pregnant woman going about her daily life, then suddenly grabbing her stomach, proclaiming that her water has broken, that the baby is coming NOW, and they have to get to the hospital this minute or something terrible is going to happen. They rush her to the hospital (in an ambulance, because simply driving her there without intense supervision would be reckless), and she's screaming from the pain and lying flat on her back on the gurney. Mom is terrified and crying and obviously traumatized and confused. The knight-in-shining-armor doctor runs to her sterile hospital room, she's draped with those blue cloths, pushed onto her back, her legs and feet up in stirrups, the doc says says there's no time to waste, and commands her to PUSH NOW or she and the baby could both die. The mom and baby are ok, and there are no complications, but everyone is saying what a close call it was, and that if that doctor hadn't been there, both would have died.
• Same scenario as above, but the doctor suddenly declares that "the baby is stuck" after about 2 minutes of pushing, and mom is rushed off for a c-section, and the father is left behind wondering if he'll ever see his wife and/or baby alive.
• A period-piece, such as in Elizabethan times, where the woman goes through days and days of horrific labor, finally has the baby, and dies during or just after birth from causes unknown.

I just described a few of the most common scenarios found today on tv and in movies. Who would want to give birth after seeing something like that?? Who would honestly want to put themselves through something so dangerous and traumatic and scary?

It's a good thing that that's not what birth is really like.

I'm sure those scenarios have happened to someone at some point. Birth is unpredictable, and it can (and does) go wrong from time to time. In those cases, doctors are indeed the knights-in-shining-armor. The problem with those portrayals is that they are made to seem like the norm. They make it look like giving birth will be like that, and chances are, it won't. And it doesn't have to be.

So what is birth really like? It's different for each woman, and most women's pregnancies and deliveries are all different from each other. My two were, and I'm sure any more I have will be, too.

Birth doesn't have to be scary. It is very unlikely to become an emergency situation. It isn't a medical condition, or a disease, or a sickness. It's a natural process that all mammals go through. Do you freak out when your cat or dog gets pregnant? Or do you trust that their body knows what to do? Does your vet tell you "we need to induce, she's been pregnant too long," or, "we have to do a cesarean, there's no way those babies will fit?" Nope. They let nature take its course. And more often than not, everything goes just fine. Why are we humans viewed differently when it comes to birth? Why do doctors and the media feel the need to make pregnancy and birth seem so terrifying?

Well, before modern medicine, women and babies very commonly died in childbirth, so it must be a really dangerous business, right?

Bull.

The biggest benefits modern medicine has brought to the birth world are hygiene, an understanding of the human body, and the ability to do surgery (c-section) for those few moms and babies who really do need it. The majority of mothers who died in childbirth "back in the day" died of infection due to poor prenatal and postpartum care, and the same goes for infants. Health in general was poor back then. It had nothing to do with birth itself, but the low health standards and lack of preventative care and knowledge.

So where are we now when it comes to birth? My answer would be that we have erred too far in the opposite direction. We're trying to make it seem too safe, while at the same time protecting against every little teeny tiny thing that could go wrong, which actually tends to cause more problems than it prevents. Doctors are so afraid of being sued for malpractice and "missing something" that they try to prevent problems that may or may not exist (such as a "big baby," etc), rather than trust mom's body and wait it out. This is actually creating more fear than it's alleviating, and a frightened mom will have a much harder time giving birth. Birth is no longer viewed as natural or normal. Because we now know what could go wrong, we expect it to, and see signs of problems where there aren't any.

We're like the child who has just learned about the fact that germs are everywhere, and is now scared to drink a glass of water for fear of becoming infected. The chance of actually getting sick from the natural bacteria and such found in a glass of clean water is minuscule, but because the child knows it could happen, they are afraid. Their fear convinces them, after they've drunk the water, that they have become ill from the bacteria, and they see and feel nonexistent symptoms because they are so convinced of what could go wrong.The same goes for prenatal care. We're pelted with information about everything that might go wrong in a worst-case scenario, we are terrified of it, and so we become self-defeating. We think it's dangerous and that we are incapable, and so we become it. How you view something has a real effect on how it pans out.

Our problem is that we know so much about the bad, that we forget about the good. Our focus has become shifted in the wrong direction. If we were to instead remember that birth is normal, the majority of pregnancies and births are uncomplicated, and we have modern medicine at our disposal on the off chance that anything should go wrong, it would be entirely different.

So, if you find yourself scared of birth, I suggest you turn off the tv. You won't get an accurate representation from the media. Do your research and find out the real facts, become educated, and you'll find that it's not so scary after all.