Forfeiting Birth

"I am amazed to have been a midwife from the era in which women marched in the streets, demanding normal births without medication, to a time when they expect an epidural as soon as it is allowed in labor, even planning elective cesareans and giving up the gift of birthing their children altogether."
— Katherine Jensen

It is appalling to me that so many women are so eager to bypass labour & vaginal birth. Labour isn't only there to get babies out. Labour is there to squeeze fluids from the babies' lungs, so they can take their first breath properly.

Epidurals do far more than block pain. They decrease the power of the uterus. Without that uterus pushing the baby out, the baby can't take an active part in his or her own birth. People fail to realise that babies don't just lie there, being pushed out. They actually manoeuvre their way passed the various structures in their mothers' bodies.

I know too many mothers who have never experienced labour. Yes, it hurts. But it serves a purpose. If it didn't, it wouldn't exist!

I think elective c~sections are INSANE!! When else would a doctor perform elective, major, abdominal surgery? Besides tummy tucks? Abdominal surgery is a serious thing, and very, very risky. I do not understand why women would choose this route.

Our culture is overly fearful of pain, and overly consumed with convenience. Western women are afraid of labour, because it hurts. Western women are afraid of vaginal birth, because it hurts. And yet, they're not afraid of the pain & risks associated with major abdominal surgery.

I don't get it.