Home birth

Just as no one in their right mind would run a marathon or climb a mountain without training beforehand, so the months of pregnancy are the time to train for impending birth. Building strength in both internal and external muscles, preparing the mind by reading birth stories, researching different positions and theories around labour etc. But the medical model doesn't advocate any of that and many mums have the 'I don't want to think about that til it happens' mentality which then means that labour pains are a rude shock.

The medical model starts with the precept that a woman cannot be more than 10 days overdue from their calculated due date. And this is interesting – I knew the date of my conception, as do many women, yet the medical profession still insisted on calculating my due date from the date of my last period. Since the last date of a period normally occurs about 10 – 14 days before ovulation, which is the most fertile time of the woman's cycle, this calculatory model is immediately and obviously flawed, yet it is the norm.

Then the medical model states that labour must progress at one cm dilation per hour from the commencement of labour – regardless of the mind or body set of the individual involved. We are all different and for some it is fast, for others slow.

On presentation at a hospital most women are offered syntocinon which is a synthetic chemical mimicking the body's own oxytocin which is the hormone which drives labour. At much the same time labouring women are also offered nitrous oxide as an anaesthetic to alleviate labour pain and stress. 'Gas and Air' sounds harmless but its use is unknown in birth in Europe and the USA where it is used mainly in dentistry. There is a huge body of research from all over the world about the ill effects of drugs on developing embryos and babies in utero which we are all well versed in (whether alcohol, nicotine or so called recreational drugs) but the definitive 1987 study by six Swedish doctors, led by Dr Bertil Jacobson, discovered distressing correlations between birth trauma and narcotic use in labour to later suicide and/or drug use/abuse. In both Mother and child.

It does seem very strange that we are so concerned with protecting the developing fetus from the ill effects of pollution and chemical concoctions, and then happy to dope them up for their initial foray into the world.

In hospitals across Australia Mums struggling with the pain of labour are offered morphine or epidural at around 5cm dilation. Medicos argue that this relaxes them, and removes the adrenalin 'fight' or 'flight' response which pain and stress triggers. Adrenalin heightens tension but slows dilation and dilation is the aim of the game in labour.

Morphine is a highly addictive opiate and like all drugs crosses the placenta immediately. Epidurals also contain opioids and often the level of relaxation and the methods of application inhibit movement in the Mum to be. Movement is the key to labour and gravity is the Mum's best and dearest friend!

As the opiates slow down dilation, so then more syntocinon is often encouraged and the spiral of ever increasing intervention continues.

Drugged babies are slower to respond, attach to the mother for breastfeeding and spend their first 62 hours coming down off the drug cocktails. So do their Mums. Not a good recipe for healthy bonding and breastfeeding.

(It is worth noting that Dr Virginia Apgar, who invented the score from 1 to 10 on which newborns are rated, worldwide, for colour, tone, breathing etc had never seen a baby born to an unmedicated Mother. Midwife Beverley Lawrence beech asked this very important question in 2004: 'If we scored the behaviour of babies born after normal births at home, what would a REAL top score baby be like? . . . No such standard exists.')

Home Birth midwifes assert that naturally born babies are brighter, more alert, often more intelligent and better at processing life's inevitable ups and downs. Of course their parents do too, but actually it is a problem. These children are very different from 'the norm' which makes integration harder but what should we do –medicate just to fit in with the masses?

In animal husbandry we talk about 'imprinting' – what the animal experiences during and just after birth it will assume as normal forever after. If we are imprinting our human babies that at the first sign of struggle, striving or pressure, what is normal is to mask those feelings with drugs, then surely we are creating our future addicts?

Yes, there are times when intervention is essential. Yes, birth sometimes goes wrong. Yes, medical science has come up with some fantastic methods to improve infant and maternal mortality. Yes, hospitals are fantastic places to go to when you are sick. But we are a pill popping culture who cannot handle pain and we have medicalised maternity too much. We must give our women more credit – they can birth brilliantly without all the drugs. We must empower them, train them, show them just how strong and invincible they can be. Nothing empowers women like surviving labour and birthing a baby on their own terms. Maybe that is the problem?