Unassisted Childbirth

Enlightened means highly educated; having extensive information or understanding. Because of this we also know that problems could happen or occur. We do not put these thoughts out of our minds, but instead learn all that we can about them so we can be prepared to recognize them should they happen or appear.

We believe, however, in SpiritLed Birthing even more. We use prayer and God to tell us how we need to manage with each pregnancy and birth. We aren't limited to just birthing at home unassisted because we know that the Lord knows more than we do and He knows which birth we will need and if we need to see a doctor for care as well.

Originally we had chosen UC as the way to birth through accident and the fact thatmy doctor dropped me at the mention of the word homebirth faster than I could even say it. I mean literally when we were talking I was speaking and started with "Home. . ." and he cut me off and said "Nope won't do it! We can't take you on you are too much of a risk." Basically I was a lawsuit waiting to happen if he was to become my OB for my pregnancy. So with the help of my friend who had already had a UC and is also a trained Doula and our friend who is also a midwife assistant we forged our way through our third pregnancy on our own with our friend's help. We read any and everything we could get our hand on at the library, book stores, and internet. Our MW friend taught us many things like how to find the baby's heart beat with a doppler (which we own) as well as the difference between the cord, placenta and fetal heart tones. She taught us how to check for dilation and effacement and how to take our blood pressure and fundal height and check our urine. We did it all on our own with our friends guidance.

The birth of Mason was an easy one, and Joe and I were hooked. Our passion for natural birth grew and we are now sound advocates of such a birth for everyone. We will admit though that we are not naive to believe homebirths or UC's are for everyone. They aren't! That is why we like to promote SpiritLed Birthing instead. We pray about our decision with each child now in how we are supposed to birth and even how to handle the prenatal care. Liam's we were able to have a complete unassisted pregnancy and birth, while with Kaden's we were told we needed shadow OB care, which we had and we had our UC water birth as well.

Q: What if something happens?

A: I guess our answer can be summed up best by our choice to birth through our God and with our faith. We are being led ot the birth we are to have and we have Faith that we are doing what we need to be doing. If God told us that our baby needed to be born via a c/s and that we needed to scure an OB we would do just that.

I also like to refer to the Empowered Childbirth site for a great "What If" section.

Sample:

What if something goes wrong? This question is so pervasive and comes in so many different forms (i.e. What if the cord is wrapped around hir neck? What if there's meconium in the waters? What if my baby dies? etc.) that we're slowly creating our own knowledge base on the negative "what ifs in birthing".

But first, try countering some of your most frightening "What if" birth questions with a few of these:

What if I have a wonderful birth? What if I fall even more deeply in love with my partner because we went through birth alone together? What if nobody touches my precious baby but my closest family and friends? What if my private parts remain my private parts during my birth? What if taking responsibility for my own birth really does reduce my risk of suffering serious birth complications? What if my births really can be healing and holy?

What if... ?

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1. You don’t have to leave the nest to add to it.
2. You have control over your labor and birth.
3. The father is intimately involved rather than a passive observer on the sidelines.
4. Your birth will be surrounded by love, not strangers and equipment.
5. No one ridicules you, hurries you or coaxes you to take drugs.
6. You are more apt to have a safer birth.
7. You are more likely to experience a pleasurable birth.
8. No one will treat the baby as an object (poking, weighing, measuring, taken away for testing and experimentation).
9. Less postpartum depression.
10. You will experience tremendous awe and reverence for life. There is a greater likelihood of achieving the highest level of human fulfillment on Earth.

Brigham Young and Modern Medicine
Journal of Discourses, Volume 15, Number 15, Page 224.

Would you want doctors? Yes, to set bones. We should want a good surgeon for that, or to cut off a limb. But do you want doctors? For not much of anything else, let me tell you, only the traditions of the people lead them to think so; and here is a growing evil in our midst.

It will be so in a little time that not a woman in all Israel will dare to have a baby unless she can have a doctor by her. I will tell you what to do, you ladies, when you find you are going to have an increase, go off into some country where you cannot call for a doctor, and see if you can keep it. I guess you will have it, and I guess it will be all right, too.

Now the cry is, "Send for a doctor." If you have a pain in the head, "Send for a doctor;" if your heel aches, "I want a doctor;" "my back aches, and I want a doctor."

The study and practice of anatomy and surgery are very good; they are mechanical, and are frequently needed. Do you not think it is necessary to give medicine sometimes? Yes, but I would rather have a wife of mine that knows what medicine to give me when I am sick, than all the professional doctors in the world.

Now let me tell you about doctoring, because I am acquainted with it, and know just exactly what constitutes a good doctor in physic. It is that man or woman who, by revelation, or we may call it intuitive inspiration, is capable of administering medicine to assist the human system when it is besieged by the enemy called Disease; but if they have not that manifestation, they had better let the sick person alone.

I will tell you why: I can see the faces of this congregation, but I do not see two alike; and if I could look into your nervous systems and behold the operations of disease, from the crowns of your heads to the soles of your feet, I should behold the same difference that I see in your physiognomy--there would be no two precisely alike.

Doctors make experiments, and if they find a medicine that will have the desired effect on one person, they set it down that it is good for everybody, but it is not so, for upon the second person that medicine is administered to, seemingly with the same disease, it might produce death. If you do not know this, you have not had the experience that I have.

I say that unless a man or woman who administers medicine to assist the human system to overcome disease, understands, and has that intuitive knowledge, by the Spirit, that such an article is good for that individual at that very time, they had better let him alone. Let the sick do without eating, take a little of something to cleanse the stomach, bowels and blood, and wait patiently, and let Nature have time to gain the advantage over the disease.

Suppose, for illustration, we draw a line through this congregation, and place those on this side where they cannot get a doctor, without it is a surgeon, for thirty or fifty years to come; and put the other side in a country full of doctors, and they think they ought to have them, and this side of the house that has no doctor will be able to buy the inheritance of those who have doctors, and overrun them, outreach them, and buy them up, and finally obliterate them, and they will be lost in the masses of those who have no doctors. I know what some say when they look at such things, but that is the fact.

Ladies and gentlemen, you may take any country in the world, I do not care where you go, and if they do not employ doctors, you will find they will beat communities that employ them, all the time. Who is the real doctor? That man who knows by the Spirit of revelation what ails an individual, and by the same Spirit knows what medicine to administer. That is the real doctor, the others are quacks.