Ina May's Guide to Childbirth

Sorry for the hold up! I've been working like crazy, and I have the flu on top of that! I've since also read "Pushed" by Jennifer Block, and I'll write it up later.

I've had so much respect for Ina May for a long time. I mean, how many midwives have a maneuver named after them that has been used by countless doctors?! Not many. For some time now, I've been absolutely dying to take a workshop down at The Farm. That's another day's story though.

Naturally, her book was wonderful. I mean, it's Ina May Gaskin, what else would it be? The only thing I didn't like was how she mentioned vitamin K shots and eye gunk in a positive manner, which I obviously don't agree with. However, I digress. For those of you who have not read it, the book is divided into two parts. The first half consists of birth stories, complete with pictures. After growing up with the Americanized view of birth, it was very, very informative and almost shocking to read. None of those women used words like painful, unbearable, unnatural, bad, etc. Instead, the stories showed birth as intense, empowering, and for a surprising amount of the women, minimally painful, or even painless. Talk about culture shock, since we live in the world of hospitals, sections, drugs, and women screaming their heads off!

Something that surprised me was that The Farm doesn't necessarly stick with just safe pregnancies. They've done VBACs...all except two delivered vaginally. They've done 19 twin births with only two transfers, all born vaginally. They've had no maternal deaths, and their infant death rates are far below national averages. They've even done breech babies, something unheard of in today's lawauit-happy world. The births stories were by far my favorite part of the book, though the second half was extremely informative and interesting.

In the second half, there are a few things that Ina May repeats over and over, so I'll focus on those. The first is the mind body connection, which makes sense to me, but apparantly doesn't for a lot of people. Essentially, short of rare cases, your body can have your baby with no medications and no problems, and if you expect it to be painful and unbearable, it will be. Another thing is relaxation. Giving birth puts you in a vulernable situation. The cervix is a sphincter, and if you are not in a position where you trust those around you and you are not comfortable, there will be problems. She also stresses good nutrition. Thanks to the healthy diets she reccomends for her clients, there have been no cases in 3,028 births of pre-eclampsia. Gaskin also focuses on the perineum. Episiotomy is a nasty procedure, very unnecessary, and causes far more problems than it suppossedly fixes.

All in all, I would suggest it to anyone, even if you're several years from even thinking about having kids, such as myself. Knowledge is power, and if you wait until you're 25 and pregnant to research anything, you'll run out of time to learn all there is to learn and chances are, you'll have regrets. I know it's not common for 19 year olds to want to be midwives, or know what I know, but someday when I can sit back and enjoy my pregnancy because I already know what I need to know, it'll be well worth it!