Personal Birthing Experiences

When thinking about birthing experiences I think that the ones that come to mind first are my own children.  What could be more amazing than bringing a new life into this world?  I can say that the part that I wasn’t prepared for was how hard I would have to work just to have natural birth.  It seems that the trend in the U.S. is that all women should be strapped to a table and doped as much as possible as soon as possible and we will need to cut the baby out as soon as we can.  In some cases the doctors just let the women schedule the birth when they come for their first appointment.  I found it difficult to even reason with the nurses about what I wanted.  When my son was born it was very difficult to get them to listen at all because I was a first timer and my water had already broken.  With my daughter I was induced but I was able to convince them not to give me Pitocin and I did get to use a birthing ball.  I was very excited about that.  I think that my favorite part of giving birth was being able to hear my children cry and to know that they were ok.  I can honestly say that holding them for the first time was the most amazing think I have ever experienced. 

When comparing the U.S. and China in their birthing practices I found it interesting that they don’t allow men to have any part of the process. Sex during pregnancy is forbidden and women must be cautious of everything they see and do because they believe it will affect the disposition of the child.  According to an article on BabyZone.com “Chinese women will often drink a strong herbal potion to ease the strain of labor. Custom dictates that women not fear the laboring process, since birth is considered a women's career to the ancient Chinese. Chinese women traditionally labor in an armchair or futon.”  It seems to me that in other cultures the birthing process is much more a spiritual process than in Western society.  I also think that we don’t value our bodies own ability to work through the difficulties of child birth, we immediately turn to medicines.  I wonder at what cost do we chose comfort over nature. I do understand that there are certain circumstances that don’t allow us any other choice; however I think that we must also be cautious about how we intervene in the ways of nature. 

I also think that it is a fine line that we have walk in order to make sure that we aren't harming more than we are helping.  Medicine can do some mighty powerful things but it is very important that we are careful with something so powerful. 

I am also including a link to the article where I found the information about China.

http://www.babyzone.com/pregnancy/labor_birth/birthing_traditions/article/childbirth-traditions-china