All of us at Healthy Mother were recently blessed to have supported a mother give birth to twins. Mom and dad had attended the Healthy Mother Lamaze Classes, and were very keen to try for natural childbirth. They had been seeing another medical care provider who had advised them that that with twins and a shortened cervix at 27 weeks, a natural birth may not be possible. Attending the Healthy Mother Lamaze classes gave them the knowledge and confidence that twins and shortened cervix does not automatically rule out natural birth. This confidence helped them seek out support and care to help them achieve their purpose.
Mom went on bed rest for the next several weeks; she was amply supported by her husband through all this time. They checked off days, and the weeks on their calender; as mom got past each milestone, we all were cheering her on. Finally, at week 38, she went into labor and labored on for about 60 hours, first at home, and then at our birthing center. A few ups and downs did occur during labor, but mom and dad never wavered and were fully supported by our Healthy Mother Staff. Finally, 63 hours after her labor started, she birthed her first baby, with incredible effort, concentration and inner energy that only a mom in labor can muster. Their first baby, a healthy baby boy, weighing 2.9 kgs was born at 5:55 pm on 13/12/2009.
Mom then rested for a while, during which time we found with an intrapartum ultrasound that their second baby was in a breech position. While all the possibilities and the risks and benefits of a vaginal breech birth were being weighed by the parents, mom felt an urge to push again (By this time, they had decided to try for a vaginal breech birth). Before we knew it, their second baby – a baby girl, weighing 2.8 kgs – came down feet first, and was born at 7:41 pm.
Mom, dad, grandmother, and all of us who had supported this birth were awed and amazed at the miracle of birth, twice over. We are very happy that we had the right skills in our team – from nursing, to doulas, to midwife, to OB – who all were able to contribute and assist in the incredible experience of this mother to give birth to her twins naturally.
I asked Erinn Mandeville, the midwife in our Healthy Mother team to pen down some of her thoughts on this birth…..
Not too long ago twins were considered a variation of normal birth. In the US, Midwives and Doctors alike were able to attend twin and breech births and were well trained and skilled at doing so. Over the past 10-20 years fewer and fewer care providers are willing or allowed to attend normal, vaginal, twin birth as it has been labeled high-risk. The result is that we are losing the skills to attend these births naturally, and we are losing the faith in the process of normal twin birth. We are sentencing women and babies to unnecessary C-sections without even a trial of labor.
It’s true that there are risks involved in twins and breeches but there are risks involved in all births. Like any birth, good care and monitoring is the key to good decision-making and a healthy outcome for mom and baby.
After a recent, normal, vaginal birth of twins that resulted in a happy healthy family, I was reminded of a couple things:
Babies are smart. The twins negotiated the best plan for their birth and decided to send the larger of the two of them out first – head down, to open the passageway for his little sister who would follow in the breech position. At 2.9 kg and stocky he was bigger than his long and lanky 2.8 kg sister. It’s common knowledge that twins have a special connection with each other for life and it starts with communing in utero.
Our bodies are wise. This mom’s uterus gave her a break in between babies. While all of us (the medical and support staff) were hemming and hawing over whether to do a c-section for the second baby or whether to start pitocin to get her contractions going again so the cervix wouldn’t close down again (a complication that can happen but usually doesn’t) – while we were doing all this her body was doing exactly what it needed to do – giving the uterus a rest to allow her energy to gather for the second birth and allowing the baby time to get into the position she wanted to be in to come out safely. By the time we all were close to reaching some decision, the mom felt an urge to push and out came some little toes and a little later, the baby.
We may never understand the immensely complex process of our birthing bodies or all of the different aspects of the body’s innate wisdom that go into this process. As Rudolf Steiner said
One will only understand the human body if one sees it as an expression of the soul and spirit. If it is seen only as a physical body, it will remain incomprehensible.
But, hopefully we can learn more and more to trust it and to practice reverent and watchful waiting. This design has been working for thousands of years, and to think that we could, in just a few decades with our minimal understanding of it’s complexity, improve upon it by use of force, is ignorance.
Please feel free to write in – I would love to hear your comments and about your experiences in having twins from you.
Vijaya