A few weeks ago I published a post refuting the words of a gynecologist who criticized the option of giving birth at home defending her role as a traditional hospital professional; the one we all know, the one in which the woman arrives to give birth and professionals take care of everything.
Weeks later I published another post confirming that many women suffer in the hospital a delectable treatment which makes childbirth, which should be one of the most precious moments of their lives, end up being a bad memory, and many have many doubts and fears in case of a new pregnancy.
Something similar happened to the mother we talked about today, which has launched a crowdfunding to be able to have a normal delivery.
La Marietta and her desire to give birth at home
His name is Mary and it is known in the networks as La Marietta, which is her name as an illustrator currently unemployed, and yesterday she published in the blog More than half an entry in which she explained her desire and her reasons.
After a delivery that was not what he expected, pregnant with his second baby, he has decided that he does not want to play it again in a hospital, because of the risk that, once again, he will not have a normal delivery.
That is why he has chosen to give birth at home. Something that many think is foolish, but that She is not afraid because she considers it normal:
I know that many people consider it crazy. But for me it is normal. I am a normal woman, with a normal life: currently unemployed, with a child of more than two years, and another on the way.
A 'non-normal' first birth
His first birth was, in theory, a normal birth. It was going to be because she did what was considered normal: go to a hospital to give birth. However, there he came face to face with a reality he did not expect. I wanted to have a natural birth, one not intervened, one in which she was the one who did everything. But it was not like that.
It was not so because the professionals decided to perform continuous monitoring that prevented him from moving, that he could change his posture, that he had some privacy, that he could eat to have strength, bathe to relax, ...
The studies say, the evidence, that Continuous monitoring does not bring benefits in the short or long term, and that by preventing freedom increases the probability of cesarean section and instrumentalized vaginal delivery.
This was what happened. Unable to move, afraid to refute the arguments of professionals, the delivery stopped, the body stopped doing what it already knows how to do naturally and the toilets had to intervene to solve a problem that, most likely, they themselves had caused:
More than 7 hours of monitors, little intimacy, zero empathy, from one room to another, 20 hours of contractions without the possibility of movement or expression, without sleep ... And when a midwife told me: 'Oops. You are not even in the middle! ', After the fourth or fifth vaginal touch, I collapsed and asked for the epidural. With it, I was given synthetic oxytocin to have artificial contractions. Still the delivery stagnated, and after a few hours, they told me they would have to use forceps. I said I didn't want to, and they made me understand that there was no choice. With forceps, episiotomy is inevitable, which I didn't want either.
With the interventions, you lost your intimacy, the one that disappears when you start attending to people you don't even know because they haven't shown up, and with whom you have only the confidence to think they want the best for you. However, it has long been known that trust is vital for a normal birth; trust and security, and for this the ideal is that a woman surrounds herself with known people, whom she fully trusts, who can help her move forward and believe in her possibilities.
But it was not intimacy that only lost, nor the most important. He lost his birth, he lost control. She had nothing to do there anymore. The birth was no longer her, so she just hoped to meet her baby and start, as soon as possible, to forget what she was living. That is why he no longer wants to give birth that way.
"I want to feel what it is to give birth"
So to achieve this, the Marietta, Mary, started a few days ago a Crowdfounding campaign in order to have a normal delivery. And for this he will give birth at home, not by ideology, but also because he considers it already as a vital necessity; the need to know, to feel, what it is to give birth. Or at least try.
I leave you with a video in which Maria explains:
But is this not dangerous?
Controversial yes, no doubt. Because the option of giving birth at home is not contemplated within the Social Security service portfolio, and then you have to do it outside the funded system. And as soon as you leave the system, the opposite opinions appear.
However, Maria is not talking about giving birth at home alone, but about give birth to expert midwives They are dedicated to attending low-risk births at home. As is yours, a low-risk pregnancy in which you will most likely need very little intervention from them.
Studies in the United Kingdom say, where women can give birth at home, that in a second birth the risks of home birth are the same as in a hospital birth:
For multiparous women, there were no significant differences in adverse perinatal outcomes when comparing home births, births in midwifery units and deliveries in obstetric units. In addition, delivery in a non-obstetric unit significantly reduced the rates of caesarean section, instrumentalized delivery and episiotomy.
It is your second birth, so the risk of having problems at home birth, according to the evidence, is the same as a hospital birth, with the benefit of having less risk of interventions. That is why Maria has chosen this option. For that and because, as he says, he wants to try.
Want to know what does it feel like to be giving birth, and he wants this campaign to go further and that home birth be seen as a real option that should be part of Social Security services.
