(I recently found this in my WordPerfect files and I never posted it here...so here ‘tis...)

There’s this whole debate going on at a site I frequent about the term “natural childbirth”. Some of the women said they had c-sections and consider that natural, and they assert that it’s wrong (or just plain old un-PC) to call only unmedicated vaginal deliveries natural birth. It’s like saying anything else is unnatural, this is what they said.

But anything else IS unnatural. Natural, by definition, would mean a labor and birth that start on their own, baby comes out on it’s own, no outside interference. Come on, that’s just the way it is. That’s what most people think of when they hear or say “natural childbirth”. I wouldn’t call my first two induced labors “natural” because they most definitely were not. My last was totally natural, everything happened just as it was supposed to, just as it was intended to.

I fully believe many of these women who insist their c-sections were “natural” are trying hard to compensate mentally for something they lost in that process. Through no fault of their own, many of them were victimized by the medical establishment. After reading a veritable assload of research it seems only a handful of women truly NEED c-sections. Most are the cause of mismanaged labor and delivery. Induction too early, relying on inaccurate ultrasound birthweight guesstimates, thinking women can’t birth large babies vaginally (hello, 11.5 lb posterior baby vaginally here), not allowing women to change positions a lot during pushing, forcing them to lie down during labor (therefore not allowing baby to move down effectively)...the list goes on and on. Yet these women will insist time and time again that their c-sections were “necessary” and that the doctor saved their lives or their babies lives. Sure, it does happen, and surgical childbirth has it’s place when a true emergency presents itself. But I cannot believe that more women in this country require c-sections than those in other countries (other countries that have lower infant mortality rates by the way). How can that happen? It happens because not all c-sections that are performed in this country are truly medically necessary. And some are even done electively. Which is fine for those who elect it, but DON’T call it natural. Because it ain’t.

Yes, ladies *having* a baby is natural. A baby growing in your body, then living outside it, is totally natural. That part I will never disagree with. But the process by which the baby enters the outside world can be totally unnatural in the wrong setting, with the wrong interventions.

The other misconception that got me riled (and it don’t take much these days!) Was the implication that women who do natural childbirth without interventions have a hero complex and are hippie, granola mamas. I opted for natural childbirth because I wanted to see what my body was capable of, I opted for natural childbirth because it was best for me and my baby at that time. The fact that I’m a liberal, environmentalist, nature loving peacenik doesn’t play into that choice. Sure, my lifestyle is one in which I will try to avoid medical intervention, one in which I try to do all things naturally if possible - but not all those who opt for intervention free births are that way. To lump us all together seems uneducated. But I digress...

My point is, birthing a child is a natural, sacred event. But the means by which the baby is brought into the world can be anything but. I will never call induced, epidural-ed, c-section birth natural, because to me and most other people, it is not.