Why on earth would you choose a natural birth?

Are you nuts?

I’m sure you’ve heard this question, or at least gotten the barely-veiled look that means the same thing, if you’ve chosen the path of going for a natural birth.

Actual quotes from people I’ve talked to:

“Would you hit yourself in the head with a hammer if you didn’t need to?”

“I’m not even going to have kids because I don’t want to go through that.”

“Why do you need to be a hero? Just make it easy.”

“I don’t even want to be in the room.”

I’m sure you have heard some doozies, too.

Why, oh why, would you choose this path?

Cue the banjo.

As I reflect on the state of birth, and just about every other thing we humans do in this society, I keep coming up with a line from a song that has nothing to do with birth… but it’s profound in its simplicity, and I think it sums up the state of affairs.

“Somebody thought of that
And someone believed it
Look what it’s done so far…”

Yeah, I just geeked out on “The Rainbow Connection.”

Kermit was singing about wishing on a star, dreaming, and magic. Believing something so much that it changes things. Because that is what belief does. It changes things.

The truth is, somewhere along the way, people began believing that birth is broken. It goes right along with our idea of human bodies generally being broken. The cure? Well, handily enough for the parties involved, we need medications of all sorts to right what is wrong. We need to buy lots of things. Guess who thought of that? Guess who believed it? And yes, just look what it’s done so far.

Believe me when I say to you, my dear wise friends, that we have been lied to. The gossip is wrong. The cure is the disease. And our friend birth, she has been sickened, but she’s still strong.

It’s time to think of birth in a different way.

Birth is the beginning of a journey, a journey that will call on your last reserves of strength and determination. This journey will make you cry. It will also bring you joy, more joy than you ever thought possible.

I have seen birth like this:

Powerful.

A mother so dedicated to creating peaceful birth that she works harder and digs deeper than anyone thought possible. A mother who says, “This will be my strongest day.” And it is.

Connected.

A father and partner so dedicated to his family that he focuses and guides his partner with power and grace, protects her fiercely, and connects profoundly with the energy of his child entering this world. Even though his past didn’t necessarily give him the tools to deal with the intimacy and vulnerability and the raw power of pain, he finds his way and emerges more ready to be tender in his strength. More ready to be the kind of father he wants to be.

Difficult.

Hour after hour, they work together in a primal dance, through exhaustion, through struggle, through elation and hope and the realization of dreams. This is not an easy path. But what is gained is worth the struggle.

Peaceful.

They are both confident in her body and each other. They can face any challenge. They remember why they made this choice. They guard their peaceful birth. They choose their thoughts. They choose peace.

Confident.

In the absence of experience, faith is what guides them. Very often they get their peaceful birth in spite of, not because of their surroundings. This is a continuation of the act of creation. It is based in faith — faith in a body’s design and a mother’s abilities. It exists because it has been created, because it has been cultivated and believed in.

Astounding.

They create a powerful space and amaze everyone around them. They embrace the journey as a path to change, and they turn and face the challenge, ready and willing to take each step in power, holding on to each other and feeling more human, more alive than ever before. This is their marathon, their mountain, the culmination of years and moments. There are few moments this powerful in life. Clarity and purpose and the very essence of life are shown to us here, in this place of raw emotion, and life is begun again.

The birth I know is powerful and primal. The birth I know is safe and calm and peaceful. It is also challenging and it is hard, and it will rock your world. It will change you. It is profound. And it is supposed to be all those things.

What did you think you were signing up for with this life business anyway? This whole parenting thing is not for wimps. But you have what it takes. You were built for this.

I once heard someone say that only birthing mothers and soldiers in war know the depths of their strength. Knowing your strength is something worth fighting for. Parents arrive at their destination knowing more about each other and themselves, and what they are willing to do for their child. And that is a wonderful way to become a parent. In this world, miracles happen in plain sight and heroes walk among us with no medals except the golden titles of Mommy and Daddy.

So why natural birth? Because we’re up for it. We’re ready to show up and we’re ready to put everything we have into what we believe. In a world that tells us we’re broken, we must trust that small voice inside that says we’re not. We must give her a chance to prove what she can do.

We can grow a whole person in our bodies. We can nourish that person and protect that person and we can sure as hell bring that person out of our bodies and into our loving, waiting, and strong arms.

Believe in this. Believe in yourself. Beliefs change things. Beliefs change people. Beliefs create a space for miracles. Do what you know you can do.

– Laura

… read more about courage vs. conformity on Blissborn’s website

Mindy’s natural birth story

If you want to see more, go to www.BlissbornOnline.com and sign up for the newsletter.  You’ll get a link to the longer version.

Love it!

WWAHGD?

I have a bold suggestion for your life…

It struck me the other day. It’s the question,

“What would a hunter-gatherer do?”

You can shorten this by making a funny guttural noise that sounds like, “WWAHGD?” And I suggest you apply it to just about every aspect of your life.

A cure for what ails us?

We are in trouble. Obesity, chronic disease, mental illness, autism, depression … sometimes it seems everywhere we look in our society, there is something going terribly wrong. The sad thing is that very often this state of angst and removal feels normal to us, if a little sad. It’s no wonder we’re the most medicated society in history.

I suggest that there’s a better way. Genetically, our bodies have barely changed in 20,000 years. Yet we have changed the way we do just about everything we do.

So, whether it’s a choice for your diet, your parenting, your transportation, your exercise regimen, or your birth (come on, you knew that was coming), again and again new studies prove the wisdom of simply following our biology.

The “Caveman” diet — which we will be calling the “Cave person” diet in my household — is a perfect example of this idea. Studies show that following this simple plan for a couple of weeks lowers cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure better than months of medication. If you exercise like cave people, your health improves, too.

Most importantly, I believe that if we birthed and raised our children a little more like cave people they would be happier and more secure. This is simple but powerful stuff like changing the way you think about things like sleeping and breastfeeding.

And what I really, really love about the idea is that it’s all about SIMPLIFYING. Simple is good. Simple is easy. Simple makes sense. I like simple a lot.

Look right here for our Six Big Ideas for implementing more simplicity in your life — all in a very easy and empowering way.

Warning: this is not a plan supported by reality TV, corporate America, big Pharma or McDonald’s. How cool is that?

If you have more “cave person” tips, let’s hear them!

– Laura

Download: Nest your way to a better birth!

If you or someone you love is pregnant, we have a download for you!

Check out the downloads page for this short list of ways to create a “nest” of safety around the birthing mom — it can make a BIG difference in the progress of labor.

Find the list of helpful hints here. And make sure you shake your head and go, “WWAHGD!” as you do it.

One born every minute

“There’s a sucker born every minute” ~ PT Barnum

Yes, Mr. Barnum of circus fame. How appropriate for this TV show on Lifetime that glorifies epidurals, pitocin, and women who hand over their power to the omniscient staff of the labor and delivery unit.

We encourage you to think critically about how birth is presented in the media and speak your mind.  Speak up for moms and partners and babies everywhere!

What do you think of this show?

Did you cry to see the moms humiliated, the babies dopey and the nurses triumphant?
Were you sickened by the circus music that played during the one (attempted) natural labor?
How does it affect pregnant moms to hear each segment of the show open with sirens and screams?

Here’s one vote to take this show off the air forever.

Getting your baby to sleep

Question from a Blissborn mom:

I am assuming you didn’t let your kids ‘cry it out’ at night.  Did you use a sleep method?  Or were you just lucky and they slept?

Answer:

I didn’t really use any method for sleep for my kids; I just went with my instincts, which were to keep them close. Each of them slept between me and my husband until they were about three, then moved onto a mattress on the floor at my bedside and stayed there until they were asking for their own rooms.  My 5-year-old is still there, but my daughter (now 10) wanted her own space when she was that age, so I’m ready when he is!  I love having them close and hearing them breathe at night.  We never have to argue about going to bed — they don’t mind a bit.  My husband and I have found creative ways around the obvious problem with always having kids in your bedroom.  It hasn’t caused any trouble for us (but we both agree on co-sleeping — or at least he doesn’t disagree too much).  Read this article explaining the scientific defense of bed-sharing by James McKenna, MD.

The main thing I tell people when they ask me for sleep advice is to do whatever it takes to reassure your children that they’re safe and loved and all their needs will be met.  Without that, the problems will be endless — way beyond sleep!

Sometimes we have to let them cry (like if you’re feeling you have to have a break OR ELSE!), but as a general rule I think it’s important to respond with love and reassurance every time they need you.  Even if you want your baby to sleep in her own room, she will want to know you’ll always be close by.  She’s too young to understand that you still exist when she can’t physically see and touch you.

When they are little they are helpless and I think they know it instinctively, so their cries are not just about sadness or physical needs. They are about the threat of a bond being broken — the bond they depend upon for their continued existence.  They can be very upset by being left alone — scared that they’ve been abandoned — and some part of the subconscious mind can easily conclude that means death is imminent. I just hate the thought of it!  I’ve done a lot of work with people whose abandonment issues messed up their relationships and their lives, so I’ve tried really hard to avoid that with my kiddos.

I have a theory about why the ‘cry it out’ sleep methods get kids to stop crying:  Like all baby animals, they have a deep instinct to lie quiet and still if their caretakers seem to have left.  If you’ve ever seen a baby deer left by its mother, it is frozen, even when discovered. Baby birds do the same — they only peep if they think their mother is coming. Being quiet is the instinct that kicks in to avoid being found by predators.  Once babies un-learn that someone is there to protect them, they rely on that instinct.

My mother tells a story handed down to her by her grandmother who was a full-blooded Cherokee.  The grandmother said that when she came to live with my great-grandfather in ‘white’ society, she was shocked to see the women leaving their babies unattended.  It broke her heart.  She attributed all of their fussiness, digestive problems, sugar cravings and tantrums to this.  She said Cherokee babies never cried.  Never! (I found this hard to believe but my Mom says she challenged her grandmother on it and her grandmother swore they just didn’t cry — I’m sure sickness or injuries were the exception.) And she said they didn’t have all those other problems with fussiness and digestion either.

What was their secret?

These babies were always with their mothers, every minute of the day and night, and the mothers kept their babies in constant physical contact until they began to crawl.  She said that as a result, the bonding among parents and children and throughout the tribe was profound.  The mothers nurtured that bonding, and that was the glue that held their societies together so tightly.

The ‘crying it out’ philosophy is so strange to me because it views crying as a problem to be solved, and in my opinion it’s just a symptom, a message given in the baby’s first language.  Emotional and physical distance may be what’s causing the crying, and the experts who recommend even more distance are really missing the point and creating more problems.  Parents may get more sleep, but at what price?  Long-term, I think it damages trust and bonding, and without those, how can we have harmony and maintain our authority with our kids?  What does it take to rebuild trust when it’s lost at such a young age, during the child’s imprinting process of “the way the world is”?  I subscribe to the philosophy that if the kids are doing something we don’t like, our job is to love them more (not withdraw love in an attempt to control them or teach them).  Relationships solve problems much better than rules do.

Anyway, our bodies are chemically and physically wired to sleep at night and be awake during the day.  Given time, patience and love, your baby will slip into a natural rhythm that matches yours.  It may take a while for her quickly-changing body to adjust, but sleeping on the circadian rhythm is as natural as breathing, and her body will naturally tend toward this, especially if all of her emotional and physical needs are being met.