Women – Does It Really Matter?

Lesly — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:16:06 +0000

Years ago there was a woman in one of my childbirth classes complaining about another instructor who was teaching childbirth classes who had a Cesarean birth.

“She shouldn’t be teaching! She never gave birth naturally – so how could she know?”

I discussed what she had just said and I said “You know, nothing in life is straight forward, or always goes the way you want in reality. I am sure she wanted to have a natural birth and something happened and she couldn’t. I am sure she feels enough guilt for what ever reason about her birth experience.”

When it was time for this woman’s own birth experience, she herself had a Cesarean birth. I remember running into her at the hospital and she said to me “I feel so bad I said those things. I didn’t plan on having a Cesarean birth ….”

There is no place for judgement when having a bay from other people – especially other women who have experienced birth. Childbirth is a very private, extraordinary experience that brings up all kinds of feelings.

Does it really matter if that woman has an epidural or chooses to have a non medicated birth? Are the women who choose to have a Cesarean birth really crazy? Who are we, you, or I to judge their circumstance and situation.

Woman are known to be “catty”, critical of other women. This is one arena where it is in appropriate: Several things happen when women judge the choices made by other women surrounding childbirth

it creates lack of self-trust in the woman who is being judged
it can cause guilt in the person who judges and something happens to the woman their judging
it’s unsupported
it creates bad feelings
it causes envy that a woman didn’t birth the way someone else did
it damages self-esteem
it causes “what if “
a sense of rejection by others (You don’t want an epidural? Why not?)

and so on.

In the early 1900′s in the USA women – friends, neighbors, family had “social births”. These woman would come together to help the laboring woman for days to weeks. This is a lost tradition. But, there’s no reason why as women we can’t embrace the choices of others of how and where they want to birth.

So. Does it really matter how a woman does it? The end result is all the same – she gave birth and became a mother.

We can rejoice in that.

What if we embraced the women we know and the decisions they make to birth their baby. We would encourage her to do what she wanted, what was right for her. This behavior would help women to trust themselves more and not create doubt or guilt, but instead, surround her with support.