The stark contrast of what we were met with in the hospital made me reflect seriously on the state of birthing in America. What does it say about our society that we have depersonalized the most sacred act in a woman’s life, institutionalized it, and turned it into a business? Our experience highlighted several factors that play into the unfortunate fact that we bring our babies into the world with feelings of being overwhelmed, afraid, needing to escape with drugs.
Accelerating labor is standard hospital practice to reduce costs. The faster they can discharge a patient, the sooner they can admit another, and hospitals get paid more with greater turnover. It’s common for a woman to receive hormones (which come from a horse, incidentally) to speed up her cervical dilation and contractions. It is also common for a woman to have her amniotic sac ruptured artificially in a hospital setting; this too is done to speed up labor. Why would we want to speed up labor? Perhaps to ease the impact on the mother-to-be? In truth, however, each of these measures has rather unpleasant consequences for both baby and mother.
Speeding up the process artificially doesn’t allow the birth canal enough time to properly stretch to accommodate the baby’s head, so many women will need an episiotomy (cutting of the vaginal wall) and stitches post labor. It is more difficult for the body to heal from an episiotomy, it increases chances of infection post-labor, and is quite painful. Allowing the birth canal to properly stretch through breath-body work is an important part of reducing pain for the mother and puts less pressure on the newborn’s head. Furthermore, forceps and vacuums may be used when the baby’s head does not have enough room to move down the birth canal.
The hormones override the body’s natural rhythm of labor and cause the contractions to come stronger and more frequently. This is quite a shock to the body. The first stage of labor is meant to allow time for the mother-to-be to learn how to breathe through her contractions and “ride the wave” of energy she feels surge with each one; by gaining control of her body through her breath (a yoga of it’s own) in the first stage, the woman learns how to make it through the next stage.
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