Helping women rediscover natural birth

This headline screamed in Page 2 of today’s Times of India, Hyderabad edition. While many readers may be surprised, this news has been a common fact for many years now. Since the time when Healthy Mother was founded we ourselves have seen c-section rates around 70% in most hospitals, including some of the large corporate hospitals.

The percentage of cesarean deliveries at private hospitals stands at 70%….

Many doctors ascribe silliest of reasons to recommend (and in many cases force) c-sections on mothers. Some of these are “You are too short”, or “Your baby is too big”. While in the extremes these may be adequate reasons for intervention, in the vast majority of cases, it requires patience, support and encouragement for a mother to deliver normally. Hospitals and medical staff do not have patience, nor do they provide empathy and support to mothers during labor, which may last even 48 to 72 hours. Similar is the case with mothers who have had a previous c-section. Doctors instinctively decide that such mothers will have a c-section for their next baby, though medical science does not say that it is automatic.

Most of our mothers who have given birth normally at Healthy Mother are living proofs that if you allow mothers privacy and support to labor on their own, outcomes are overwhelmingly towards empowering normal births. We have had VBACs (vaginal birth after c-section) at our birthing center, among them mothers whose original care providers had written them off as candidates for another c-section.

Having said that, we believe that other states in India are no better. This is an increasing urban malaise that threatens to deprive mothers of the knowledge of what it is to give birth normally and to trust their own bodies to do something that nature has been helping women to do for thousands of years.

The article cites astrological preferences among women (or their parents / in laws) for going in for an elective c-section. Some hospitals even charge extra for “Muhurat C-Sections”. We believe that 99.9% of women who end up with an elective c-section do so because hospitals feed on mother’s natural apprehension and fear about the health of her baby, by recommending unnecessary procedures such as Induction, Epidurals and C-Sections.

Today, most women are being told that they or their baby has some risk or the other. Odd positions are not an anomaly. We have seen breech babies turning on their own or as a result of mother doing some exercises or adopting some positions. Even mothers with reasonable diabetes or reasonable levels of blood pressure can deliver normally. The problem is that many medical staff are always looking for problems when there is none or when they can be managed with close monitoring and without intervention such as c-sections.

Women (and their partners) need to empower themselves by educating themselves about pregnancy, childbirth and newborn care so that they can become informed customers. Only then can they actively participate in the birth of their child, the experience of which is awe inspiring and a once in a lifetime one.

Share your experiences that you may have……