Scary birth stories

Since I quoted Ina May Gaskin in a post earlier this week, her words have been resonating in my head. She's so right about the "scary birth stories" pregnant women hear. I was told two more today, by someone whose opinion I respect, who cares for me. This person was a bit wary about my decision to have a home birth and wanted me to know the frightening things that can happen in birth.

As if I hadn't thought through those possibilities. As if I haven't heard hundreds of those stories, not just when I became pregnant but for the years and years prior.

It's an odd experience, hearing these stories. I feel myself reacting from multiple parts of my identity at once: there's the caring friend part of me, that hears that this person is telling me this story from a place of compassion and concern. I knew today that this person was sharing a meaningful life experience, and I appreciate that effort at communication and connection. I want to validate that.

And there's the part of me that's a pregnant woman, thinking about my own upcoming birth experience. From that part of me, I want to say, "This is not helpful! What benefit do you think you'll get from making me afraid?"

There's the academic part of me, too--I've done quite a bit of reading about the medicalized birth industry, as this is something that's been fascinating to me for years and years. It's one component of my larger interest in reproductive justice. I know the statistics. I know that 33% of births in this country are C-sections--and it isn't statistically possible that all of these are legitimate emergencies, because these rates are radically higher than in any other country in the world. (And, really, because if 33% of births HAD to be done by C-section or else the mother or baby would die, then humans wouldn't be so vastly overpopulating the globe.) I know, too, that C-section rates are higher if the woman has better insurance. I know that the US has the worst infant and maternal mortality rate of the industrialized world, and happens to have the most thoroughly medicalized childbirth practices of any industrialized country. And that the labor and delivery practices of hospitals are designed for the convenience of the medical practitioners and to ward off malpractice lawsuits, not for the comfort or safety of women or babies.

But this information isn't what you want to rattle off to someone who's just told you a harrowing personal story. I remind myself of this information, in my own head, because it helps to counteract the fear that scary birth stories can induce, but it doesn't seem appropriate to tell someone, "You know, my research suggests that if you hadn't been in a hospital setting to begin with, your birth experience might not have been so frightening."

I guess the scary birth stories are particularly troubling when they're being told as a judgment on my decision. If someone is just sharing, that's one thing--but sometimes they're told as warnings: "Don't you go thinking that birth is some natural process--horrible, horrible things can happen!"

Of course they can. But does that really need to be our overriding approach to birth?