Dear children

[thesynergizer]

Dear Ben,

I am so sorry. I'm sorry that I was young and stupid and didn't know to do my own research and ask questions and believe in my body. I'm sorry that I could have done so much better and it didn't even occur to me to try.

Love,
your mamaI am borrowing Ina May's Guide to Childbirth from my friend Kelly and have devoured most of it in less

Comments

[thesynergizer]

i obviously cannot know the details of the birth of you and your brother, but i do know that "the baby didn't fit" is very very rare in other parts of the world. assuming that your mom didn't have rickets or vitamin d deficiancy, it is more likely (though again, i am not her or her doctor and obviously wasn't there) that the problem was more one of postitioning. the way amercian women give birth in hospitals, either lying flat on their backs or with their legs up in stirrups, is horrible for getting out babies. not only does it force the woman to push uphill, against gravity, but it also narrows the width of her hips and cervical opening. the hips are not just one bone, but many that are connected by ligaments that stretch and give during childbirth. the baby's head is also made of several bones, and the skull bones actually can overlap in order to fit through the birth canal. giving birth in a squatting position or on hands and knees (as is usually done in traditional societies) opens up the mother and makes the optimum amount of room for the baby. many many many women have gone on to give vaginal birth to even larger babies than those that were emergency c-sectioned from them for not fitting.

there are of course, a select few cases of babies that truly don't fit, but it's a much much smaller percentage than the ones who are diagnosed as such.

if you are happy with the idea of considering every birth an emergency and you'd rather be overtreated just in case (even though the side affects of such overtreatment can be intense) then you will probably be happy giving birth in an american hospital and won't have any birth guilt or trauma afterward to speak of. i mean, obviously, if everyone was unhappy with the system, it would have changed by now.