Guilty as Charged

Having a pregnant friend is reminding me of my own childbirth experiences. Which I won’t bore you with here, but I do have a point to make…

I had very easy deliveries. At least my first one was very easy, and my second was fast if not easy. My daughter was actually coming out before the doctor or nurses even realized anything was happening. I guess I wasn’t in enough pain to make a convincing case of actually being about to give birth.

My point is this. However easy my birthing experience was, the doctor and nurses made sure to make me feel like I was doing something wrong. Maybe it was this east coast guilt thing (both my kids born at St. Francis hospital in Connecticut), maybe it’s the medical establishment superiority thing, maybe it’s the medical propensity, when faced with lack of evidence, to take a strong position on the importance of some nonsensical this or that…

So I’ll clarify:

When my daughter was born, common wisdom was that:

1. When a woman has the urge to start pushing the baby out (this happens when the cervix is dilated, and the baby needs to move down the birth canal and out), this urge is actually false. The cervix is not fully dilated. She should wait at least 15 minutes before starting to push.

Now in my cynical mind, why in the world would they think the urge is false? The urge to push happens because the baby’s head gets low enough that it triggers a certain reflex that is also triggered when we go to the bathroom. Except that this reflex is much much stronger with a full baby’s head pressing down. Is there any specific reason to think it happens prematurely? No. The real reason for this superstition, per yours truly, is that this is the exact point where the medical crew needs to transfer the woman from the labor room to the delivery room and to setup for the delivery. They’d rather have that extra 15 minutes. They don’t want the baby emerging in the corridor. So they make up this old-wive’s tale that if you push prematurely, the cervix will be damaged, it will swell, and the baby will never come out (I kid you not, this has all been said to be with straight faces by fully certified MD’s).

2. Once you are pushing, with each push, you should hold your breath, because that gives more force to the push.

Hmmm. Interesting. But do you need more force? The baby does come out. If it’s coming out at reasonable speed, and your body isn’t very happy with holding its breath, is that holding your breath really necessary? Yes, absolutely the doctors, and especially, the nurses, will say. Based on what? Who knows.

So you guessed it. When the doctor finally realized that I was fully dilated, he didn’t want me to push. Because obviously if I push I’ll damage my cervix (really???). So the whole crew is standing over me with every contraction telling me to breath fast – because that should prevent me from pushing. Of course I couldn’t fully handle that, try as I might I couldn’t stop myself from pushing. Between breaths I’d push. They kept looking at me suspiciously and telling each other: “She’s pushing”.

The doctor stood over me seriously and said: “Hava, I want you to stop pushing, you'll hurt yourself”. Like he’s talking to a kid in kindergarten…

When they finally allowed that I should be pushing, they weren’t happy because instead of holding my breath I was making some sort of aggressive sound. Let’s not get into the details, but they felt I wasn’t doing the right thing. In the meantime the baby is coming out just fine, just as fast as she should, but I’m not holding my breath with each push, so they’re not happy with my technique…

Ultimately, I had my first child within 4 hours of getting to the hospital, it all went so fast that no medications were necessary, she was fine, I was fine, but the doctors and nurses were not pleased with my performance… I so remember that. Imagine how bad they would have made me feel if there had actually been problems, or even if it was as bad as a normal first delivery. Self important geniuses...