People often make comments that rob pregnant women of their confidence.
Common Statements:
- Don’t be a hero
- Get your epidural in the parking lot
- Your baby will be too big
- Aren’t you tired of being pregnant
- You can’t do a natural birth
- Why would you want to feel the pain
- You need the drugs
- Labor pain is excruciating
- You will tear
I encourage you to tune out the naysayers. Pregnant women need reassurance, not words that increase fear. Women need to be nurtured during pregnancy, labor, and birth. Creating a soul, a human being is an all-encompassing endeavor utilizing calories and brain cells.
If you want to have a natural childbirth without an epidural or other medications it is possible. Everything about a woman’s body is made to give birth. On the planet earth, since time began, most women have given birth without medication.
I had two unmedicated home births, and I will be the first to confirm that childbirth can be painful. The pain and intensity of both my labors is a clear memory.
Though labor may reach a point when you think that you cannot do this, and both times I reached that point, that is a signal that birth is near. The hardest part of labor is horrifyingly over emphasized. Labor is a gradual process that women are designed to handle. If a woman has continuous support and is free to move about during labor she will be able to cope. Instead of telling women they cannot manage labor pain, why not emphasis they are made just for this experience.
I have felt the power of childbirth and I am strong, confident, powerful, and content in greater quantities having done so.
What most pregnant women do not hear is that the labor and birth process has lifetime benefits that should be embraced. When you go through the primal instinctual rawness that is labor you connect with an inner strength that is essential for raising children and maturing as a woman. To give birth in this day, in the way your great-great-grandmother and her mother gave birth will provide you with a sense of knowing, as sense of accomplishment. The value will be in the inner discovery.
Don’t let the naysayers discourage you.
In a natural childbirth without medication you comprehend your purest capabilities.
Before I had children, I was at a conference listening to a woman share her birth story. I remember the woman said, “After I gave birth I knew I could do anything.”
I wanted to experience that power this woman found in birth, and I did.
If you want to have a natural childbirth do not let anyone convince you otherwise. I am here to support and affirm your desire. I speak to you as my sister. We are more alike than different and if I was able to have a natural childbirth, I am certain that you can too.
Reflections
Who is discouraging you? How can you overcome dealing with this individual(s)?
Go to back to Table of Contents for book Women Know How to Give Birth