On the perils of childbirth...

When it comes to women's birth, practically everyone has an opinion on it, even most men seem to suddenly become "experts" in telling women what they should or should not do. Women who profess to have prior experience are likely to be even more annoyingly opinionated, amongst the vocal groups. Likewise for those who think that by "researching" into the subject matter, they can become experts too, in which category the writer of the recent Mother Jones article about childbirth looks to fall into.

In balance, most people (including those medical practitioners in OB/GYN) should and could say, though, is that statistically speaking, scenario x has y percentage chances of happening, which goes with z list of risks. As anyone who has reared multiple children can tell you, every child can be different. Same is true with childbirth. It is thus that only the woman - the expectant mother - can truly be the expert in her own case, who should really arm herself with knowledge and research, rather than relying solely on the "expert opinion" of her OB/GYN doctor or nurses. In this day and age when there are tons of books, online materials, forums and support groups, this is not hard to do at all.  Perhaps the harder part is, how to discern the details that are relevant and pertinent to oneself specifically, amidst huge volume of data out there.

Knowledge, in other words, is power. And we have to be responsible (quite often, largely) for the decisions that we made for ourselves. 

I thus find it annoying when I read that Mother Jones article, citing one anecdote of a woman with a long family history of cesarean sections due to small hip, that she experiences a difficult vaginal childbirth that led to risks which her OB/GYN doctor allegedly did not tell her or brushed aside.

Let's be upfront about it, the old saying about women with childbearing hip are made for carrying babies is not without merits. Put it another way, if a woman has small hips (which one could not help), it's more likely than not that she would have a more difficult natural childbirth, all other factors being equal.

I can say a word or two about that, since I have small hips myself. My first childbirth was a painful and difficult one, with some 16 hours of hard labor, even though my baby was only 7 lbs. My baby was breech for a number of hours before thankfully it fell into position. It's tremendously painful, never mind the risks to both the baby and the mother. A childbirth can quite literally resets a woman's body. My hip during pregnancy and after childbirth has expanded four inches. (Some of my friends have seen their hips "exploded" literally a few pant sizes after childbirth.) It should come as no surprises that bodily changes happen. Take incontinence, for example; afterall, there was much tear and stretching and scarring of the vaginal tissues, it's almost to be expected. That's why women who have vaginal childbirth are always advised to do Kegel exercises to (hopefully) train those muscles back in shape. As with any woman who has had a vaginal childbirth will tell you, it'll never be the same again.  (It's quite apparent that the writer of that Mother Jones article is one of those who have never had such "luxury" of experience, from the way she writes.)

All these, among other things, were known to me because I researched on it. Even if my OB/GYN had explained to me, it could not possibly begin to describe any of these, not in terms that a new mother (as I was back then) would ever possibly imagine it.

But the risks are always real. My mother was with me in the hospital at the time. It was only later that she told me how much she was worried, since she knew the high fatality rate to women during childbirth. That was why we had decided to have the childbirth in a hospital, just in case there is any complications or emergencies, where C-section might be needed.

That is not to say that C-section is not without risks. Quite far from it, there are far more health risks to the mothers that would require far longer time to recuperate. Two of my sisters have had their babies delivered by C-section. It's a fine line to walk, and a decision that the woman (and the husband) has to make. No doctors should or could make that call. 

In the bygone era when more was always better, everyone went for C-section since it was vogue. These days, the pendulum has decidedly swung the other direction, that everyone (particularly the educated middle-to-upper class women in the West) wants a vaginal (more natural) childbirth. Tons of resources listing pros and cons of vaginal vs C-section are available for anyone who cares to look. There really is no excuse for anyone to say, "my doctor did not tell me [of the risks]", whichever option one might choose. 

(Ok, there might be a case to make, for those illiterate women who either don't have the ways and means to research on the topic, that they could be far more susceptible to risk factors, one way or the other. But I don't get that feeling reading the anecdote in the Mother Jones article.)

Having a child, giving birth to one, and bringing the baby up to healthy adulthood, to be fully productive member of society, is a lifelong process that is really a gift of God. To be honest, it's not really for everyone. (Some people love it, some people don't want to have anything to do with it. But that personal choice, to me, is totally fine.) This also takes a huge dose of responsibility on oneself. If one is not willing to read or check the fineprint, "don't sign on the dotted line." There's really no point having buyer's remorse, looking for bad guys to blame.