Watching
free online childbirth videos you might ask yourself why some women
prefer birth without drugs? What is natural birth like?
In a natural birth as you see in the free online childbirth
videos, the birthing woman, her supporters and partner trust in the
woman's innate capacity to birth her baby. The mother views childbirth
as an instinctive physiological process.
The woman follows the prompting of her body to find
the most comfortable and appropriate position for her and the baby.
In natural birth women tend to adopt a squatting or "all fours" position
for the final stages of birth. I found these positions the best for
labor. The squatting position is great. It uses the force of gravity
to ease the baby descend and prevents any tears of the perineum and
the internal tissues.
As we witness in free online childbirth videos in natural
birth distractions and disturbances are kept to the minimum. The mother
and her partner or attendant use simple self-help strategies to ease
discomfort and to provide a sense of privacy and reassurance. The
woman's own hormones - oxytocin and endorphin - stimulate the contractions
and ease the pain.
Natural birth was the norm for thousands of years.
How can we explain what we see in free online childbirth videos of
natural birth? As Michel Odent writes in "Birth Reborn", women are
far from helpless, lost or without 'expertise'.
Without being told, women giving birth naturally know
how to hold and nurture their babies immediately after birth, as the
newborn know how to seek their mother's breast. As Odent says there
is some universal component in the behaviour of mother and newborn
and "given the right kind of environment, where she could feel free
and uninhibited -- a woman could naturally reach a level of response
deeper within her than individuality, upbringing or culture."
Do you have any questions? Ask them here! What is the ideal childbirth you want to have?
Do you have any questions about your pregnancy and birth?
Ask them here and your answers will appear soon!
What is the ideal childbirth for you? How do you imagine your childbirth to happen? Where are you giving birth, who is present, how is it going? Are there any sounds, how lit is the setting? How long is your childbirth? Share any action steps that are helping you to experience that childbirth?
What are all the things you have learned and done to have such a childbirth?
What is your next step to make this childbirth real?