I was a labor and delivery nurse. I looooooooooved being a labor and delivery nurse, and my heart is still there. I think of it, and dream about it often. I wouldn't trade being at home with my boys for the world, so I won't be going back too soon. My husband and I do talk about how I should become a doula. I most love the coaching, the advocating, and the education involved, and a doula can really get involved with those things. A lot of women don't know their options, their rights, or how to tell if they really do need that c-section their doctor is pushing them towards.
One thing our society has lost sight of is that child birth is a natural event. Women used to just go out to the woods, squat down, have a baby, and go back to their duties inside the house. This was without drugs to speed labor, without planning the delivery date, without pain medications... it just worked out. It's meant to happen. I was just taken aback by how many people asked me what day I was going to deliver my youngest son. I told them "I don't know. How can I know when I'll go into labor?" They were confused by my answer. Then I realized, especially in the area I currently live, it is the norm now to schedule an induction for delivery. WHY?! The baby will come out! You don't have to tell them to come out and make them come out when there is no medical reason to do that! Plus, inductions can be long and extra painful. They don't warn you about that!
The things I have seen have given me very strong opinions on all aspects of childbirth. I have a clear understanding of what I would allow and would not allow during my own labors and deliveries. I'd love to help other women understand the ins and outs and help them navigate the journey.
So, I miss it. Once a nurse, always a nurse. Ladies, we're a tough bunch. We are much stronger than men! (No offense dudes, but you seriously could not survive childbirth. Trust us.) I would like to bring that out in women, and give them the confidence they need to get through the most awesome event of their lives. Maybe one day!
It didn't always "just work out". Far from it. Infant and mother mortality has dropped mercifully and tremendously over the last few hundred years, especially over the last hundred. And that is mainly due to the advancements in medicine and the option of cesarean section. When you think about it, patient education and advocating is responsible for a large portion of those modern advancements. No one wants to return to dropping babies out in the woods.
ReplyDeleteScience and nature need to balance each other. Doctors and nurses and doulas and patients need to work as a team. I agree that we don't want science and technology to leave nature in the dust. But don't forget that there is a strong chance that the HippieChicMomma would not be here at all if it wasn't for modern medicine and surgery. ;o)
Yes, more babies were lost, and that is why modern medicine is good, and that is why I was referring to elective interventions and not interventions that are needed to save the life of mother and or child. But, it is essentially an abuse of these advancements to be scheduling inductions, or augmenting labor to speed it along with no medical reason. For medically necessary reasons, it's good to have those options. But so many women now (by their own preference or by the urging of their doctors) do not even give nature a chance to get started! Even if HippieChicMomma's own birth was started via elective induction, it still wouldn't have worked out. It is the choice to have elective medical intervention for no purpose other than what is pleasing to the schedule or time line of the parent or the doctor. I'm not even sure if some modern day moms know that labor WOULD start on it's own, in most cases. That's why I think we've lost sight of how things used to be, and that it isn't normal to use drugs to change a natural process for personal preference. They forget it used to even take place outside of a hospital, and women did it, obviously, because if inductions were necessary for every birth no one would be here because they didn't have the means to induce labor. I had a medically necessary induction with my first kid, and I can say, having been through it, I'd never volunteer for that. It was not ideal. It did help keep me and the baby safe, and who knows what would have happened if we lived in the dark ages, but it is not to that which I am referring.
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