Crash Course in Birth TRUTH

In the last two weeks I have read, no, devoured the following books:

• Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering by Sarah J. Buckley
• Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin
• A Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer
• Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care by Jenninfer Block

Upon finishing these works, I am MAD about the current system of maternity care, how women are systematically lied to by trade organizations, denied their rights based on doctors trying to protect themselves from liability, and how women are being forced into unnatural, unneccessary, cruelly painful procedures that actually increase the risks of birthing than make it safer for healthy pregnant women.

The fact that the information is out there and so readily available for women to know that undisturbed, physiological birth is best so women going into laboring knowing what they want and what they have chosen is best for them and their babies, just to encounter a system who denies them what is scientifically proven to be BEST based on professionals who are trying to earn money at the expense of women.

I AM PISSED. More so now than when I was that women who knew what I wanted, who had done my homework, learned what the research says is best practice and did what was in my means to ensure that outcomes. And what did I encounter? Derision, condesencion, hostility, conflict, manipulation, bullying, and lies. When what I needed was caring, support and respect of a glorious natural process in a vulnerable time. What was the outcome? A nasty case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Since learning more, I have realized that I am not alone in my experiences. Most women may have encountered what I did and not have realized it or maybe did not react as strongly as I have. But that fact is that the treatment I received in the STANDARD of care. When did abuse become standard? Jennifer Block gives in "Pushed" a very enlightening history that answers that question.

Its been through this process that I have started this blog, as an effort to lend my voice to the advocates supporting the normal process of birthing and respecting women for their innate capabilities to do so. So here I am: another woman and mother who desperately wants to change the current climate of maternity care to be more hospitable to mothers, babies and families.