Natural childbirth advocates are like preschoolers who when asked where eggs come from answer, “the store.”
Only a preschooler or a natural childbirth advocates could imagine nonsense such as that from Pathways to Wellness Family Magazine:
[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The idea that nature intended childbirth to be safe is hilarious … and deadly.[/pullquote]
Natural birth doesn’t add anything to the birth experience. It is the way that the birth experience was intended to be. It doesn’t benefit the baby. It doesn’t benefit the mother. It doesn’t bring short-term or long term benefits. It is where we set out human standard. Anything other than this is deviating from the way we were intended to be.
The author appears to think that anything other than unmedicated vaginal birth deviates from “the way we were intended to be.”
The idea that homebirth in a plastic kiddie pool is what nature intended is hilarious.
Here’s what nature really intended:
Age at first birth: 16-18
Years since menarche: less than 1
Life expectancy: 35 years
Maternal mortality: 1 per 100
Lifetime birth risk: 1 in 13
Neonatal mortality: 7 per 100
Number of children: 8-10
Nature also intended:
Miscarriage rate: 20%
Prematurity rate: 12%
Stillbirth rate: 1.9%
How did natural childbirth advocates get the idea that nature intended birth to be safe? They got the idea in the same way that 3 year olds get the idea that eggs come from the store: that’s what their personal experience tells them. Three year olds assume that their personal experience is the beginning and the end of what is possible. Natural childbirth advocates assume that the present safety of childbirth is the beginning and end of what is possible. But they’re not three years old; they ought to know better.
Childbirth seems to be safe for one and only one reason: because the widespread use of childbirth interventions has made it safe. Those are the very same interventions that they deem to be unnecessary.
Claiming that childbirth interventions aren’t needed to protect the lives of pregnant women and their babies is the intellectual equivalent of pretending that chickens aren’t needed for eggs since the eggs can be found at the grocery store. Of course, there’s one big difference. Believing that eggs come from the grocery store is charming; believing that childbirth is safe without routine interventions is deadly.
