The big news in the birth world today is that “Too many women are dying, giving birth, in the US.”
A report was published a few weeks ago, showing that it was safer to give birth in Bosnia than in California (seriously.) Now this came out, from Amnesty International, showing some pretty serious & horrifying statistics in the US.
You can read the story on Time magazine here, the story on CNN here, or the full (pdf file) report from AI here.
And once again, we natural birth fanatics say “SEE? Yet MORE evidence to keep OB/GYN’s away from low risk birth.” Too many medical interventions, too many c-sections, and too many drugs.
I saw that article. It’s terrifying. I also recently watched The Business of Being Born, and found it really, really enlightening. Oddly enough I don’t have kids and don’t plan to for at least three or four years, but I’m getting incredibly interested in these topics.
It really is funny how when you bring up the topic of natural or home birth to people, how quickly they give you a WTF? look. The idea terrifies people. I think it has something to do with the fact that almost every time you see a movie or TV show where someone is giving birth, there’s ALWAYS a complication. So to propose taking yourself out of a hospital setting seems ludicrous, because the natural assumption is that something bad will happen during the course of labor.
Do you know anything about doulas, and how/where they obtain their training? I’m looking at going back to school for massage therapy, and would be interested to look into that as well. The two seem like they could possibly fit together nicely, as both are very nurturing, holistic pursuits.
It’s good to be interested in this already – then you’ll be well armed when you ARE ready to have kids! 😉
I used to be one of those people that would make the WTF look when someone mentioned home birth or natural birth. I’m trying to figure out what it was that made me feel that way. For me, I think I just saw it as something that crazy hippies did and I thought it MUST be dangerous to have a home birth. Little did I know. The media plays a huge part, for sure.
Doulas are WONDERFUL and I wish every woman could/would have one for every birth. I think massage & Doula-ism sounds like a great match, both very helpful & healing and supportive in different yet similar ways.
I’ll ask the woman who was my Doula about the specifics of training. I do know that there’s certification for it and a million “recommended reading” books. Definitely Ina May’s “Guide to Childbirth”. Everyone mentions that immediately. That book played a huge part in my decision to go natural – but I will caution you, just get past the first section (or even skip it, like I did.) The first half is stories about women who had natural, non dramatic (but not always easy) birth and while it’s really nice to read nice birth stories, they’re VERY hippy dippy. I read a few, but I couldn’t stop giggling. The second half is very informative.
This would be a good link for you to start, regarding Doula certification, in the meantime: http://www.dona.org/ LOTS of information, required reading, certification courses, etc.