My Blog

As a family doctor assisting childbirths, the hair in the back of my neck rose high when I first heard of birthing alone the new movement of people who want to give childbirthwithout any support.
My concerns were certainly not for the fact that this small trend would take work away from me as I could easily work 24 hours a day 7 days a week from the beginning. My main concern is for this silent little person who has no saying over something as crucial as the start of its life: the unborn baby.
numbers say that 90 to 95% of the childbirths will go well and do not need any interventions but what happens in those 5 to 10% where the infant’s well being is at stake and there is no one around trained to face the emergency?
I am the first one to admit that pregnancy and childbirth are today are subject to too many interventions (the caesarean rate has never been so high in history) but I would not go back to the beginning where when something went wrong we just raised our shoulders and said “c’est la vie!” (that’s life!- or not).
I have the opportunity to do medical missions in third world countries where adult females do not have access to any medical care and food supplements and vitamins. In a regular medical mission day, I usually see between 100 and 200 kids in consultation. Among those youngsters, I can easily see 6 to 10 cases of cerebral palsies and women tell me their story about how the childbirth lingered and the infant got stuck or how they bled and almost died themselves. Another thing I hear commonly during a day is the numerous stories of term stillborn infants.
I am in no way saying that modern medicine is a cure all and that doctors hold the absolute truth about childbirth. After all, I have been in practice for 18 years and so many things that we held for “scientifically proven” have been proven untrue by other studies.
I am also in no way advocating an interventionist approach to pregnancy and childbirth. Mother nature knows her ways better than we do.
people have to realize thatphysicians and nurses are not the sole responsible for the high rate of intervention in obstetric today. How many times did I have to cool down adult females who demanded to be induced one month in advance because they were tired of being expecting? I still can’t get over the time a husband almost jumped at us saying: “My wife has been having contractions every five minutes for over an hour. Do something!” A  later asked me: “Didn’t he read the “brochure?” that first infants take usually twelve of hours to be born.
On the other hand, I am happy that such aberration as caesareans on demand have not found many followers in the medical community.
Getting back to our strong couple who decided to live a great experience on their own because they know what is best for their infant and they reject any external support, I can tell you that yes most childbirths are statistically due to go well. On the other hand, when things go bad, I would not want to be in their place. Are they really selecting what is best for their infant or more an cool adventure that will prove them they are able to pull such a stunt?
As for the argument that parents know best, I can tell you that in my hospital a situation proved us the opposite. A woman giving childbirth to her fifth child, stood up when came the time to push and just forcefully pushed, without putting her hands to break the infant’s fall who landed head first on the bathroom tiles with a broken skull!
I have often attended childbirths where the childbirthing mother, after the baby’s head was out, forcefully closed their legs pressing the infant inside. I am happy I was there in those circumstances. The histories go on and on but this is meant to be a short article.
Do I think that the intervention rate is too high during maternity and childbirth
birth? Yes!
Do I think that free birthing is the solution and is safe? No!
Such a phenomenon as free childbirth raises the delicate questions: how can we better fit together nature and the medical technology so that women and their spouse have a better experience and their baby is safe.
I strongly believe that if free childbirths grow in popularity, we will see sad instances of problems that could have been prevented if the proper caregivers (midwife, doctor or ob nurse) had been present with the needed equipment or medications.
In the order of thinking of free birthing, we might see such things as people changing their own breaks on their cars, playing with high voltage electricity or driving airplanes, etc
Worst, if all breaks loose, we might see people cutting their own hair! And that can be critical(wink).