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Originally Posted by zakk
It really bugs me when people start assigning values to different types of labor..... no drugs is "good", caesarean is "bad"...... THE ONLY THING THAT IS IMPORTANT IS THE BABY'S HEALTH AND YOUR OWN COMFORT. You don't get an award for having a vaginal, drug-free birth.
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I think the judgment is none of people's business. HOWEVER, Allah created our bodies to give birth, and it is an unfortunate thing in American society (NOT in European societies) that childbirth has been so medicalized that it's anything but normal.
You are not going to get an "award" for having a vaginal, drug-free birth, but women who have less interventions have been shown to be happier and have a higher opinion of themselves after the birth than women who have more interventions. Why should women be humiliated? They should be
rewarded with pleasant memories of one of the most significant moments of their lives. The arrival of one's child should be joyous.
If you talk to women who've had horrible, difficult births, caused mostly by unhelpful medical staff doing unnecessary interventions, you will find that, indeed, there is more to birth than everyone surviving. A woman who's been emotionally traumatized and had her rights over her body taken away from her, does not emerge as a proud mother in the same way that a woman whose natural responses are honored does. A woman who is put in an awkward position until forceps and vaccuums are used, and her private parts are cut and scarred, does not recover in the same way; often these women have months or years of pain, especially during intimate moments. Is that fair to her? Is it fair that the doctor's schedule is so often a factor in the baby's time of birth, rather than the time that the baby would be ready to come out?
I recommend the book "Born in the USA: How a broken maternity system must be fixed to put mothers and children first" by Marsden Wagner.