What does it take to have a positive birth?

photo: stockup typography: www.lisamaltby.com

What does it take to have a positive birth?

I read an article recently about the programme 'one born every minute' being unnecessarily negative about childbirth. The article's general disapproval of the programme was largely based on the fact that all of the births on the show are medicalised: based in hospital rather than in homes. The article felt that more should be done to promote natural childbirth, including home births. I couldn't tell you whether the programme is overly negative or not. I couldn't tell you because I can't watch the programme. I can't watch the programme because it brings back too many painful memories for me.

The fact that I had a bad experience of childbirth doesn't mean that is the same for everybody of course. I have discovered that in my relatively short history of being a mother that what one woman will experience in childbirth will be like no one else. Of all the advice that had been handed down to me, none could prepare me for my own experience of childbirth. But does that mean I couldn't have done things to ensure a more positive one? What exactly does it mean to have a positive labour and birth?

I remember when I was pregnant with my first child, people would be quick to give me their words of wisdom regarding my impending delivery. "Take all the pain relief you can get!" They'd say, "I'm glad I don't have to go through that again!" I would smile and nod and deep down feel utterly peeved that everyone was so negative. They obviously didn't know how incredibly headstrong I was; they didn't know my capacity to withstand pain; they didn't know that I was determined to have a 'positive' childbirth and prove them all wrong. I clung to the stories of women who'd given birth in two hours; those that said they found it enjoyable; those that didn't even need pain relief. My birth would be like that.

I considered a home birth but I'm far too neurotic; I couldn't cope with being far from a hospital should I need medical intervention, God forbid. I plumped for what I felt was the second best option; a water birth. But no amount of willpower or whale music could override nature, and as it turned out I was physically unable to give birth 'naturally'. For a number of years I blamed myself for this - I felt I'd failed my birthing mission, because along with those negative warnings about childbirth, came the praises of the women 'who'd done it for centuries without pain relief'; comments that implied a natural birth was simply a matter of determination.

Since then there has been more of a pull for healthcare to promote natural births and for midwives to encourage giving birth on your living room floor. This is neither a good thing or a bad thing in my eyes, but it begs the question as to whether our nation's view of childbirth is altogether warped. And when I say view I do not mean preference. What I mean is that our society has become obsessed with telling women what a positive childbirth is, or should be, and it is missing the point entirely. They tell women that a positive birth means taking control of their bodies and learning breathing techniques so that they can cope with the pain. They tell women that a positive birth means mind over matter from the start of their first contractions. They tell women that a positive birth positive means believing they can give birth without too much pain relief or medical intervention. Being an advocate for positive births has somehow become being an advocate for natural ones.

Now let me make this perfectly clear, I am an advocate for positive births. I am a believer that a birth experience can be positive no matter how much or how little medical intervention you have. After having two practically identical birth experiences I can tell you that one was positive and one was not. After my first birth I experienced post traumatic stress and after the second I felt like jumping somersaults. I had flashbacks after my first birth four years later and after my second I forgot about it in a matter of days. A similar amount of pain. Two long labours. The same complications. The same cesarean outcome. 

So what was the difference? Despite the fact that experience taught me to trust my instincts and be assertive, I had made peace with the fact that childbirth was never going to be a 'nice' experience (sorry, ladies). The problem with telling women to expect something 'positive' out of childbirth has left them thinking that it should be somehow pleasant or pain free. It has left them feeling failures when the pain got too much or when they couldn't give birth naturally, which is of course completely and utterly unfair. Labour is called labour for a reason, and although there are those that tell you they went to the bathroom for a poo and came out with a baby, these experiences are probably rare. 

You may or may not be familiar with a therapy called 'acceptance and commitment therapy' but my physiotherapist of a husband uses this to help with his patients. It is about accepting the situation, illness or pain for what it is, no matter how hard, and making a commitment to seeing improvement. Psychologists use it to help patients recover from mental illnesses, but what is interesting is my husband's patients with physical pain respond well to this too. Those that have the most acceptance make the quickest physical recoveries.

And there it is; that word: acceptance. One born every minute isn't going to give you a negative view of childbirth, your mind is. Your mind is telling you to hope for something better, something less traumatic- well, of course it is, and there's nothing wrong with desiring it. But when that becomes our benchmark? The acceptance goes out of the window: we can't settle for anything less. We're faced with grave disappointments that are far from positive.

Acceptance has amazing power to transform things. My second birth involved accepting that childbirth is difficult and painful. It involved accepting that childbirth for me is long. It involved accepting that medical intervention was necessary for both mine and my babies lives. It involved accepting that I would never have a natural birth. It involved accepting myself. And because of it childbirth became just a means to produce life rather than a bucket list experience. It became just a challenge in order to bring life into the world. It became something incredibly positive because I'm still alive despite it, and so are my babies, who I am incredibly grateful to have in my life.

Tweet