I received an email today from a friend with an agitated message. She was annoyed about a Facebook update of a friend that read something along the lines, “Going to get induced tomorrow and meet baby Tucker.”
First off, Tucker is not the real name. Thank. God.
Second, I love how I rub off on my friends. (Perhaps I should have said that I love how I influence my friends. Brain wash?)
Third, what’s going on? Where is this common sense in this Facebook update? I mean, hello? It’s the fricking Leap Year Day thing and you’re being induced so you child can have this amazing cutesy birthday, right? Am I right or am I right? And wonder if your child is born distressed or not ready to breathe or latch on? Do you think lil ole Tucker will give one iota about his birth day? Or would he prefer to be able to survive on the outside. You tell me.
And why are we still inducing? Better yet, why are we still agreeing to be induced?
Emergencies aside, what is the point of induction? Convenience? Impatience? Selfishness? Lack of common sense?
I vote for lack of common sense. I vote for this time and time again in many birthing scenarios.
It simply does not make sense to induce your body and baby into labor.
What are we risking? Induction is a fairly newish thing. A generation ago, it was unheard of. My mom wasn’t induced, nor were her sisters or friends (and hey, while we’re talking about the good old days, my cousin was born vaginal breech, butt first…golf clap please).
Which makes me wonder, what are the effects of induction on the human being that was induced and born before its time?
Is induction correlated to autism? Is it correlated to asthma? Allergies? ADD? I don’t know, but something is. These things are just not appearing without cause. It doesn’t work that way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m sure there is someone out there with one of the above “A’s” who birthed in a hospital sans induction. But as a rule, when do these things mostly appear? Why are we so afraid to generalize?
Better yet, why are we so afraid of birth? Why are we so untrusting of the process? Why are we so hell bent on having it all figured out and planned and orchestrated and coordinated?
I think the answer lies in the fact that we don’t have any idea of what a normal pregnancy and childbirth looks like. I don’t think there is a clear picture of what birth is about. And I’m not even talking about all the emotionally triumphant empowering gobbley gook. Forget that stuff for a moment.
I’m talking about birth. The sights. The sounds. The reality.
Did you know that when I tell my birth stories, one of the most surprising things people ask me about is the fact that I birthed upright. I was in a standing squat position for all three births. Time and time again, people double back and ask me to repeat the part where I was pushing upright, legs wide, and body bearing down.
The visual they get changes everything.
The visual most people have is of women birthing on their backs, knees to chest, chin tucked, and face purple and strained. It’s dreadful and undignified.
But that’s the picture of birth that we have.
Parallel this to the idea of letting baby decide when it wants to be born; I.e. Not inducing.
It’s like a, “Wait…what?” moment. As if you have to ask permission to decline induction. As if you are not the one in charge of your birth. As if your baby doesn’t know when to get labor started.
I like to ask a few questions I picked up along the way when considering things regarding birth. In no particular order: 1) Does this make sense? 2) Who is this benefiting? 3) Who is this potentially harming? 4) Would my dog (or insert animal of choice) do it this way?
Number four is clearly my favorite, as you may guess. We are not so far removed from the fact that we do belong to the animal kingdom and thus can look to our other animal kingdom compadres for guidance. But, we are removed from animals in general (most of us have spayed or neutered pets and don’t live on farms anymore). And as such, we are removed from what they do in the norm of their lives. Ergo, we are removed from processing the idea that humans can do many of the same things in a pretty matter of fact way.
Side note: A lady I know with two Chihuahuas had her pregnant female get a C-section for the birth of the dog’s two puppies because the vet said that there was no way this dog could birth her puppies vaginally. She was just too small and she would die. In my estimation, she looked like a regular ole Chihuahua to me, but what do I know? I’m not a veterinarian after all. But I digress.
Does this make sense? Who did this benefit? Who did this hurt? Would that dog have chosen this route?
Would my dog birth that way?
Sigh….
Say what?!?