Ending the Birth Wars

I am excited to be part of The Gift of Giving Life Virtual Book Tour! Please welcome Sheridan Ripley, who has written a guest post about moving beyond birthing wars. 

Sheridan is one of the book's co-authors. She is also a Hypnobabies childbirth educator, a birth doula, and a blogger at Enjoy Birth. 

Sheridan has had a "traumatic" but necessary cesarean, a "normal" medicated VBAC, and a "magical" drug-free VBAC. Read more about her three births here. 

War and Birth

It has been fascinating being a part of the online birthing world for the last four years. It is fascinating and sad that there seems to be a type of birthing war going on between women:

Natural vs Medicated. 

Vaginal vs Cesarean. 

Home vs Hospital vs Unassisted. 

And what is the main weapon in this war?

Fear

That is the crux of most of the Birth War type of posts. FEAR!!! Don’t birth unassisted; your baby will die. Don’t birth in a hospital; you will be treated horribly. Don’t try unmedicated; it is the worst thing you will ever experience. All sides have fear to spread.

I have never really participated in any of the conflict, maybe because I have had 3 different types of births and all were valid in their own right. But I really think I avoid it because I avoid contention.

Contention of any kind - whether it is between countries or between birth choices - is going to create conflict and fear, which will drive away the spirit. How can I be a good educator, doula, mother or friend if I don’t have the spirit of love?

I get that fear sells and gets high readership stats. But does it help mothers on their journey?

I get that fear creates drama, which some people like. But does it help mothers on their journey?

Fear does not allow the spirit to guide. Fear does not allow people to feel their intuition, which is one of our most powerful gifts as mothers. So we need to stop using fear to try and motivate others. It will not help create positive change.

Ending the War

In order for the war to end we have to trust that each family has the power and right to know what is the best choice for them. We need to accept that a mother’s intuition can guide her. That spirituality can be a part of the journey to motherhood.

Does this mean we stop educating women? Maybe we should just stop blogging about birth altogether? NO, we just should educate with love and information instead of fear.

Sharing unbiased, supportive information can help reduce fear, which could allow a mom to open her eyes and spirit to other ideas. What might this look like? Ask her questions, see if she actually even wants more information. If she does want more information then share some balanced sites or books she could turn to. But in the end it is her responsibility to gather information, make a decision and receive confirmation it is correct.

It isn’t for us to decide or judge! It is for us to love and support. It is for us to respect that birth is part of a spiritual journey, that each mom must take herself, guided by her intuition.

In our book The Gift of Giving Life; we support all moms and all birthing types. There are birth stories of elective cesareans, unassisted births, medicated and un-medicated births. But in all of the stories there is a thread of inspiration guiding these moms. The book also includes essays to help mothers rediscover the spirituality of pregnancy and birth.

Visit The Gift of Giving Life site to sign up for our newsletter and to receive a free Meditation MP3 as well as tips to help increase spirituality in your pregnancy and birth.

For Rixa’s readers I have a coupon code for 10% off a copy of The Gift of Giving Life. Click here and after you add the book to your cart use this coupon code: GWFWXR3F. The code is good until Father’s Day (June 17) 2012.

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Look what came in the mail...

The book project that I've been involved with! If you preordered a copy of The Gift of Giving Life: Rediscovering the Divine Nature of Pregnancy and Birth, yours should arrive soon. It's definitely worth every penny. Buy yours here. More info about the book here.

Some blurbs:

“The diverse and profound perspectives of childbearing women are detailed in this remarkable book, The Gift of Giving Life. . . . As you read this book and reflect on its contents, you will never view giving birth as you did before.” ~Lynn Clark Callister, PhD, RN, FAAN (foreword, The Gift of Giving Life)

“A fascinating book. In it we hear the voices of over two dozen women. Taken together, they provide evidence of the creativity and determination of contemporary women in The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints. They raise important questions about gender, generativity, and imitation of Christ.”  ~Anna Harrison, National Endowment for the Humanities Winner, Professor of History of Christianity, Loyola Marymount University

“This is a beautifully and sensitively written book that speaks to the divine nature of conceiving and bearing children. The authors have insightfully imparted the beauty and joy, and the faith and trust, that is inherent in becoming a mother.” ~ Carole Thorpe, Hypnobabies VP and Director of Marketing & PR

 “The Gift of Giving Life is more than a book about babies. It’s a celebration of love, hope, and the surprises that come with creating families.” ~Tamara Duricka Johnson, Author of 31 Dates in 31 Days

“The Gift of Giving Life is a collection of tender personal journeys in birthing and nurturing new life that provide moments of profound meaning to this common yet mystifying experience unique to women.” ~Bonnie Baliff-Spanvill, Former Director of The Women’s Research Institute, Brigham Young University

Inga turned 14 months today, but it's past my bedtime...more coming tomorrow. 

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God Was My Midwife: My Interview with Shifra Mincer

Last week, I spoke with Shifra Mincer, who runs the Jewish birth site Layda Birth. She had intended to interview me about my dissertation findings on unassisted birth, but our conversation soon took a more personal turn. We spoke about why I chose to give birth unassisted the first time--and why I did not for my subsequent two babies. We also discussed the LDS understanding of the Feminine Divine (a.k.a. Heavenly Mother) and how I found strength and wisdom from turning towards her in my first pregnancy. We ended with my thoughts on feminism's near silence on birth issues. If you're interested to read more, please read God Was My Midwife.

An excerpt:

A Mormon, Freeze has the practice of speaking to God directly through prayer and meditation. Mormons have the concept of God the Father and God the Mother, a kind of Godly husband and wife, she said.

When she was pregnant with her first child, Zari, Freeze said she found herself reaching out more than ever before the Divine Mother, asking her for guidance. “I did find myself, during my birth and pregnancy, connecting to my Heavenly Mother. I was like, okay Father, I need to talk to Mother." Then I would tell her, "I need your help and guidance, I need you to be there with me for this process. I need a female presence to guide me through this process.”

As she meditated and listened to hypnobirthing CD’s before the birth, a visualization kept coming to her: “My pregnant self was walking down this long hallway next to Heavenly Mother, this serene Mother who led me down to the room where I would give birth. There I had to do it myself. And then after I gave birth, I came out another door where I saw these crowds of women who had gone through this before.” Throughout the meditation she said felt a sense of real closeness with the Divine Mother and of “needing her with me. I really relied on that heavily during my first pregnancy.”

Read the rest here.

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Spirituality in Childbearing Women

New qualitative research by Lynn Clark Callister and Inaam Khalaf, published in the Journal of Perinatal Education, examines spirituality in childbearing women. For their article "Spirituality in Childbearing Women," Callister and Khalaf examined narratives from 250 culturally diverse women and found that spirituality played a significant role in women's approach to and understanding of childbirth. The women came from a variety of religious traditions and countries. From the article:

For the present study, we performed a secondary analysis of published and unpublished descriptive narrative data from cross-cultural phenomenological studies that we conducted over the past 20 years with childbearing women espousing Christian, Jewish, and Islamic religious traditions and with childbearing women from countries in a variety of global regions (Australia; Europe; Middle East; North, Central, and South America; Southwest Pacific; Western, Northern, and Eastern Asia; and Western and Southern Africa).

You can download the full text of the article from the abstract page. Lamaze International has also issued a press release about the article, in which Callister explains more about her research. An excerpt:

The study, published in the spring issue of the Journal of Perinatal Education, found that understanding the spiritual dimensions of childbirth is essential in clinical settings. As such, authors of the study recommend clinicians include the question, “Do you have any spiritual beliefs that will help us better care for you?” during their clinical assessment.

“Childbirth and motherhood provide many women with an ideal context in which to recognize the spiritual aspect of their lives,” said Lynn Clark Callister, R.N., Ph.D., FAAN, a professor of nursing at the Brigham Young University College of Nursing and study co-author. “Our research illustrates that for most women, childbirth is a deeply spiritual experience. As healthcare providers, we need to recognize and support this evidence, and listen to women’s voices to guide their care.”

I'd love to hear about your experiences of spirituality in pregnancy and childbirth. Please share!

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LDS blessing rituals for childbirth

Several readers have asked to know more about the blessing rituals that LDS (Mormon) women used to hold as they prepared for childbirth. By time they reached the Great Basin in the late 1840s, LDS women frequently conducted washing, anointing, and blessing ceremonies in each others' homes; most often, this was done for a woman preparing to give birth. The practice lasted for about a century. I have found two articles that delve into the origins and eventual abandonment of these practices:

Linda King Newell. "A Gift Given: A Gift Taken: Washing, Anointing and Blessing the Sick Among Mormon Women." Sunstone Vol. 22 (1999): 30-43.

John Sillito and Constance L. Lieber. "'In Blessing We too Were Blessed': Mormon Women and Spiritual Gifts." Weber Studies Vol. 5.1 (Spring 1988): 61-73.

The modern Blessingway originated around the 1970s, when midwives used the Navajo Blessing Way ritual as inpiration for recreating a meaningful ceremony to honor a pregnant woman's transition into motherhood. Nowadays, secular Blessingways bear little resemblance to the original Navajo ceremonies.

I feel it's important to remember our spiritual and cultural practices that so often go forgotten. Until I came across these articles when I was a PhD student doing research for a history of medicine class, I had no idea that women of my own faith used to hold these kinds of gatherings. Below is an passage from pages 37-38 of the Sunstone article, parts of which I read at my Blessingway. The excerpts come from the minute book of the Oakley Idaho Second Ward Relief Society. Evidently they felt it was important enough to record word for word. As far as I can tell, this was written down around 1909.

The first two blessing follow each other closely with only minor changes in the wording here and there. The blessings were specific and comprehensive.

We anoint your spinal column that you might be strong and healthy no disease fasten upon it no accident belaff [befall] you, your kidneys that they might be active and health and preform [sic] their proper functions, your bladder that it might be strong and protected from accident, your Hips that your system might relax and give way for the birth of your child, your sides that your liver, your lungs, and spleen that they might be strong and preform their proper functions, . . . your breasts that your milk may come freely and you need not be afflicted with sore nipples as many are, your heart that it might be comforted.

They continued by requesting blessings from the Lord on the unborn child's health and expressed the hope that it might not come before its "full time" and that

the child shall present right for birth and that the afterbirth shall come at its proper time . . . and you need not flow to excess. . . . We anoint . . . your thighs that they might be healthy and strong that you might be exempt from cramps and from the bursting of veins. . .

The document combines practical considerations, more common to women's talk over the back fence, with the reassuring solace and compassion of being anointed with the balm of sisterhood. The women sealed the blessing:

Sister ___ we unitedly lay our hands upon you to seal the washing and anointing wherewith you have been washed and anointed for your safe delivery, for the salvation of you and your child and we ask God to let his special blessings to rest upon you, that you might sleep sweet at night that your dreams might be pleasant and that the good spirit might guard and protect you from every evil influence spirit and power that you may go your full time and that every blessing that we have asked God to confer upon you and your offspring may be literally fulfilled that all fear and dread may be taken from you and that you might trust in God. All these blessings we unitedly seal upon you in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

The tender attention to both the women's psychological and physical state is an example of loving service and gentleness. That this widespread practice continued in similar form for several more decades is illustrated by the account written by a Canadian sister.

In the years from the early 1930s on, in the Calgary Ward R.S. under presidents--Bergeson, Maude Hayes, Lucile Ursenbach, the sisters often asked for a washing and blessing before going into the hospital for an operation or childbirth. In this ordinance two sisters washed the parts of the body, pronouncing appropriate words of prayer and blessing, . . . and at the conclusion put their hands on the head of the recipient and, in the name of the Lord pronounced a further blessing.

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Extreme prematurity

I've been musing about what I would do if I were to go into preterm labor. The answer is obvious if the baby were 30 weeks: go to a hospital with a good NICU. My own cutoff for an out-of-hospital birth would be around 36-37 weeks, depending on the particular situation, access to oxygen and a midwife skilled at recognizing signs of respiratory distress or other prematurity-related complications.

But what about 28 weeks? 26? 24? 22? At what point would I allow the baby to pass on peacefully, rather than attempting heroic efforts at resuscitation with a small chance of survival and high likelihood of major disabilities if the baby were to live? My own gray area is between 24-28 weeks. By time a baby hits 26 weeks gestation, survival rates are between 80-90%, and about 15% of those surviving babies will have major disabilities as a result of prematurity. I think this would be the earliest point at which I would consider intervening.

General estimates of survival for live born infants who receive neonatal intensive care in the USA in the late 1990's are:

Completed Weeks of Gestation at Birth (Using last menstrual period)	Survival
21 weeks and less	0%
22 weeks	0-10%*
23 weeks	10-40%
24 weeks	40-70%
25 weeks	50-80%
26 weeks	80-90%
27 weeks	>90%
30 weeks	>95%
34 weeks	>98%

*Most babies at 22 weeks are not resuscitated because survival without major disability is so rare.

A more accurate way of predicting survival is by birth weight, rather than gestation.

Survival Rates for Low Birth Weight Infants

Birth Weight	Survival (percent)
Pounds are approximate	Vermont Oxford Network	NICHD
501-750g (1lb 2 oz - 1 lb 11 oz)	58%	49%
751-1000g (1 lb 11 oz - 2 lb 3 oz)	85%	85%
1001-1250g (2 lb 3 oz - 2 lb 12 oz)	93%	93%
1251-1500g (2 lb 12 oz - 3 lb 5 oz)	96%	96%

Still, survival rates and even major disability rates are not the only practical or moral considerations that I would have to account for. Having a very premature baby, in my own family setting, would mean I would have to commute to a hospital with an advanced enough NICU: probably 40 minutes away and most likely an hour or more. The stresses on our family, the realities of trying to spend my time in a NICU while caring for a nursing toddler, and the emotional and financial drains that an extremely premature baby would entail are all things I'd have to carefully think about.

In addition, my own moral/religious understanding of our life on earth would influence my decisions as well. I strongly believe that life is sacred, but that it is not always appropriate to take heroic measures to prolong life. Death is something to embrace when it is the right time, since we understand it as a passage(and at times a welcome release) from one sphere of existence to another, just as our coming to earth was. It is a temporary separation, although still painful and difficult for those left behind missing their loved one. (For another LDS woman's perspective on this, read Descent's post.)

I hope I will never have to make this kind of decision. Have any of you ever been faced with such a dilemma? If not, have you thought about your own personal criteria for intervening versus letting the baby go?

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Souviens-toi, mon enfant (Remember, My Child)

This is a song from the French LDS hymnal--it is my favorite. I am not sure why our English version does not have it. It is sung to the melody from Dvorak's "New World Symphony." The English translation is courtesy of yours truly.

Souviens-toi, mon enfant
Souviens-toi, mon enfant: Tes parents divins
te serraient dans leurs bras, ce temps ne’st pas loin.
Aujourd’hui, tu es là, présent merveilleux,
ton regard brille encore du reflet des cieux.
Parle-moi, mon enfant, de ces lieux bénis
car pour toi est léger le voile d’oubli.

Souviens-toi, mon enfant des bois, des cités.
Pouvons-nous ici-bas les imaginer?
Et le ciel jusqu’au soir, est-il rose ou gris ?
Le soleil attend-il la neige ou la pluie?
Conte-moi, mon enfant, la couleur des prés
et le chant des oiseaux d’un monde oublié.

Souviens-toi, mon enfant : A l’aube des temps,
nous étions des amis jouant dans le vent.
Puis un jour, dans la joie nous avons choisi
d’accepter du Seigneur le grand plan de vie.
Ce soir-là, mon enfant, nous avons promis
par l’amour, par la foi, d’être réunis.

Remember, My Child
Remember, my child : not long ago,
your divine parents held you in their arms.
Today you are here, marvelously present.
Your gaze still shines with the reflection of heaven.
Talk to me, my child, about that blessed place,
because for you the veil is still thin.

Remember, my child, the forests, the cities.
Can we down here imagine them?
And the night sky, is it rosy or gray?
Is the sun waiting for snow or rain?
Describe to me, my child, the color of the meadows
and the birdsongs of a forgotten world.

Remember, my child: at the dawn of time,
we were friends playing in the wind.
Then one day in joy we chose to accept
the Lord’s grand plan of life.
That night, my child, we promised through love,
and through faith, to be reunited.

To those who are unfamiliar with LDS (Latter-Day Saint, aka Mormon) theology, I'll briefly explain a few things that this hymn mentions:
1: Pre-mortal existence: we believe that we are eternal beings and that we existed before earth life. We chose to come to earth to obtain physical bodies, to gain experience and knowledge, and to prove to God whether or not we would remain true to the things we had accepted in our premortal existence. Hence the references to knowing our earthly children before this life and the wistful yearning for the world in which we used to live.
2: Heavenly Parents: unlike other Christian faiths, we believe that we also have a Heavenly Mother, that God does not exist without a Goddess alongside him. Eliza R. Snow, one of the most well-known LDS poets, penned these lines that summarize our idea of a Heavenly Mother. (The poem was later set to music and included in the LDS hymnal):
“In the heavens are parents single?
No, the thought makes reason stare.
Truth is reason, truth eternal
Tells me I’ve a Mother there.”

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