Birth and Pregnancy Matter: Part II
Birth and Pregnancy Matter: Part II
In which I, having lost at pregnancy, set my intention to win at birth.
The Third Trimester, and the Race is On
Although I felt terrible, I was pretty much the picture of health during my first pregnancy. I was blessed with good genes, and had consistently exercised and eaten pretty well for most of my adult life. I’ve never been a smoker.
When the nausea finally passed, I resumed most of my diet and exercise habits, with some modifications. I had been doing CrossFit for eight or nine years by that point, and was anxious to return to the gym. It just so happened that the co-owner and head coach of my Seattle-area gym was one month ahead of me in her pregnancy, and so she became an incredible resource and support. Obviously ab exercises were out, and I also found I needed to keep my feet on the same plane, e.g. no lunges.
I'd tried yoga sporadically throughout my life, never having the patience or discipline to establish a practice. But during that prenatal period, yoga felt like a lifeline. But if I’m keeping it honest, I will admit I still missed some of the point of having a “personal practice.” Every session, when we went around the room and stated our names and how far along we were, I felt a competitive thrill each time someone was less advanced in weeks than me. I was winning!
Even if I were a phony, culturally appropriating a traditional practice for my own ends, the same could not be said of our instructor, who had studied both yoga and midwifery in India. I could not have been in better hands. She introduced me to my doula, the person I trusted to help me through the transformative experience of giving birth. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was a fan of Ina May Gaskin's book, Birth Matters, and though I decided to have my baby at a hospital, I wanted to have as little medical intervention as possible.
Me, not pregnant, “winning” at yoga in Okinawa in March 2021.
I was also influenced by the Ricki Lake documentary, The Business of Being Born, which I would still recommend to others, recognizing some of its value only in hindsight. While Lake and most of the mothers profiled have “natural” home births that are moving to witness, her director and producing partner ends up having a C-section during the process of making the documentary—her tense trip to the hospital captured on film. In the end, though her birth experience wasn’t what she’s hoped for, both she and her child ended up as healthy and well as the other parent-child pairs documented. Sadly, I didn’t fully grasp that message at the time, wrapped up in an image of how strong I’d be through the labor process, armed with my knowledge, my yoga practice, and my doula by my side.
The PNW Approach to Childbirth
I was certainly not alone in this vein of thinking while living in liberal Seattle, where a “natural” approach to birth and child-rearing was quite popular. (I keep putting “natural” in quotes because, much like using the term “clean” when it comes to eating, I want to call attention to the fact that it’s a vague, bullshit adjective.) The idea of “natural” = good was perhaps most prevalent in the narrative of breastfeeding. Breastfeeding was an integral part of the Baby First philosophy at my hospital and many others in the area. Breast was Best, skin-to-skin contact paramount, and newborns were meant to room-in with their parent—the nursery as both a concept and an actuality was eliminated.
None of this is bad, per se, but it is one of those instances in which that odd cliche, “don't throw the baby out with the bathwater,” is apropos. Much like a vaginal delivery might be preferred, C-sections exist for a reason, and can save lives. The same goes for breastfeeding. Nursing can be an amazing bonding experience with many health benefits—if it works. Breastfeeding simply doesn’t work for everyone in every situation, and in those cases formula is a wonderful and literal live-giving option. And that descriptor works two ways—formula gives nutrition (life) to the baby, while also giving the mother her life back in many ways.
Image via UnSplash
Offering help and support for nursing is wonderful, but I would argue it had been taken too far in our hospital system. As first-time parents, my husband and I took the multi-session childbirth course the hospital offered, along with about six other couples. One session was devoted to a guest speaker, a lactation consultant, who was there to tell us all we needed to know about breastfeeding. When it came time for questions, one of the families in our group, a lesbian couple, asked about supplemental feeding: how to mix in formula with breastfeeding. The fact that they were two cis-women may not be worth mentioning, but I point it out because, as they weren’t tied to traditional hetero-roles, they were being more intentional in thinking about their shared roles and responsibilities once the baby was born, including feedings. (And frankly, all of us should be more intentional in considering our parenting roles, recognizing it’s tough to unwind centuries of patriarchal ideology.)
Yet the consultant’s response to the couple’s thoughtful question was a flat: “I’m not allowed to discuss that.” She was not allowed to cover any other method of feeding, even though it was likely some of us would struggle to nurse. If and when that time came, we’d be on our own: sleepless, bleary-eyed new parents, feeling like failures while searching Google for confirmation that giving formula was actually okay.
Excuse me, is that breast milk or the devil’s liquid?
Also, haven’t you ever heard of NIPPLE CONFUSION?!
Image via UnSplash. Sarcasm mine, though I believe “Nipple Confusion” is still available as a band name.
Months later, in the parenting support group we joined—in which no one was shunned for using formula, thank goodness—another family shared an anecdote that summed up just how crazy the anti-formula propaganda had become. In a local hospital, a mother was having difficulty producing enough milk, and her newborn was losing too much weight. A nurse questioned whether IV fluids should be administered to the baby. I don’t know how that story ended up, but I hope they kept needles out of it, gave the baby formula, and the mother some kind reassurance.
Prelude to Delivery
Honestly, I did not think I would write this much before getting to the actual birth. Yet all of this is valuable context for understanding the environment in which my traumatic birth experience took place. I don’t blame any single person for what happened; it was not a case of a doctor or nurse who missed some sign that I was in danger. Rather, it was a systemic failure, the pendulum swinging too far in one direction—overemphasizing the importance of “natural” birth as a response to hospitals and doctors using too many unnecessary interventions; vilifying all formula use as a reaction to greedy corporate entities pushing products solely for profit. Overemphasizing the need for mom and baby to be together every moment of every day—even when she’s fresh from major surgery, general anesthesia, and a blood transfusion.
