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birthing choices

In general, I think most pregnant women don’t realize they have a lot of birthing choices. Almost 6 years ago, I went to my family doctor to confirm I was pregnant. After he congratulated me, he said he no longer practiced obstetrics and referred me to an obstetrician. My OB was a very kind gentle soul, but he’d “tsk tsk” me anytime I asked questions about alternative approaches to prenatal care and birthing. Back then, I was so naive that I didn’t even know what a midwife and doula did!
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Fortunately for those of us in Canada, a few provincial medical plans fully cover the cost of using a midwife for prenatal, delivery and post natal care. Recently, my daily mainstream newspaper reported “Fewer and fewer family doctors are willing to live the lifestyle of obstetrics. The traditional way – where the doctor is the only one who can deliver a baby – is going to have to change. Nurses and midwives are very capable of delivering low-risk babies.”. Finally! A positive news story about the need for more birthing choices for women. If I had read this 6 years ago, I would have sought out a midwife. Fortunately, for my second birth, I had the most amazing team of midwives (pictured) who completely supported me in my desire to have a beautiful home birth.

While most women give birth in hospitals, at the opposite end of the birth spectrum is the practice of ‘unassisted childbirth’ or ‘freebirth’. Here is a link to a recent story about it. “Freebirthing” is the practice of giving birth at home, without the help of obstetricians, nurses or even midwives or doulas. Those who promote unattended delivery, called “freebirth,” say the practice offers mothers-to-be a natural way of welcoming their child into the world, free from drugs, machinery and medical intervention. Needless to say, the negative, scary tone of this story got me and my crunchy mama friends really riled up!


One of my friends, who freebirthed her babies at home, was interviewed about this practice on Global TV. She said that for low risk pregnancies like hers, having an unassisted childbirth gave her the privacy and intimacy she wanted for her family. While I would never give birth alone, I think this is a beautiful choice and respect each woman’s decision to follow her intuition on what her birthing experience should be like.

My hope with this blog entry is to encourage women planning to have babies to do some research about prenatal care and birthing choices that are available. If you choose a midwife, you will be embraced by a community of women who honour the birthing process and will care for you as an individual, not a medical patient. And please post a comment about your midwife / birthing experience so that there are more positive stories for other women to read about.

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  • http://www.lunapads.com Madeleine

    I think that modern birth phobia is on the same continuum as menstruation phobia and the general fear of women’s power in any manifestation. I have told Suzanne’s homebirth story to so many women, in the hopes that it would provide them with a real life role model and give them confidence that they too could just let their bodies do their thing without intervention. We both know several women who have chosen to have scheduled c-sections, believing that it would be safer and easier than attempting to deliver vaginally. It’s interesting to note (at least in my experience) that 2 out of the 3 women I know who went this route did so because their first deliveries (vaginally, in hospitals) were complete nightmare experiences. I think that there is a tendency to blame or stigmatize women who make this choice as simply being scaredy cats, when in cases such as these we can see that in fact the fear came from a real, terrifying, disempowering experience. Stories such as these lead to other women thinking that they can’t do it themselves and choosing c-sections the first time around (as with my 3rd friend). We do not do enough as a society to educate women about how their bodies work, and to have confidence in them – thanks for sharing, Suzanne!

  • Liwymi

    I was home-birthed, and I plan on doing something of that nature when I have children myself.