More and more people are encouraging women to live the experience of a natural childbirth in an attempt to end the excess intervention that births have suffered in recent years. We talk about respected, natural or humanized births and, in some way, we assume that one of the fundamental premises to enjoy this type of birth is not to resort to epidural anesthesia. However, a birth without epidural is not a guarantee of a respected or natural birth, nor is the opposite true as long as certain conditions are met.
Birth without epidural may be an option for all pregnant women but today it still is not. Many of the hospitals and clinics do not yet have the facilities or the qualified personnel to attend in the best possible way this type of births.
Suffer to suffer
Before entering into the matter it is convenient to dismantle a myth, it is not necessary to be a heroine, nor to have an uncontrolled desire for masochism to choose to give birth without epidural. Giving birth without anesthesia does not have to be a way of positioning yourself with any type of current or parenting style. Moreover, it doesn't even have to be a decision made beforehand. You can wait to see how labor is progressing to decide whether or not we are going to put on the epidural without turning it into a stigma.
A few weeks of bringing my fifth daughter into the world is something I don't think about. My last two deliveries, without epidural, were great and I will give birth in a hospital where they make it very easy for you but I don't marry anyone. We'll see how events unfold.
Tale births
From the sectors that more vigorously defend the so-called natural births, they often tell us that births without epidurals are not painful. Some even promise us painless and even orgasmic deliveries, almost extrasensory experiences that will provide us with unprecedented pleasure.
In one thing I agree, giving birth without an epidural is an experience of an intensity hardly comparable to anything we have been able to live and the satisfaction and euphoria that invade us when taking our baby in our arms is unparalleled. But hurt, what is said to hurt, it hurts. Enough for not saying much. Which does not mean that it does not compensate, by far.
The key to success
They told us some time ago that the majority of pregnant women who initially did not want epidural end up asking for it during childbirth. Interestingly, in countries such as Germany, where the medicalization of births is much lower, the opposite happens, many of whom we knew that we wanted epidural we ended up giving birth without anesthesia.
For a very simple reason, so that a birth can develop naturally and without anesthesia of any kind, the most important thing is where and with whom it is given birth. A non-intervened birth needs other facilities and assistance than an intervened birth. The experience of health professionals in this type of delivery is essential to help women during childbirth.
To give birth without epidural, the first thing you need is freedom of movement, a monitor without cables, and certain gadgets such as balls, trellises, ropes and chairs to give birth that allow us to find the right posture. That which our body chooses for us and in which everything hurts the fifth part. A foal has no place in a birth without epidural since that posture is probably the most painful of all.
In my first epidural birth I was walking around the room when a monstrous contraction caused my knees to bend and there I stayed, kneeling on the floor. The midwife, far from trying to get up, take me to bed or modify my irrational behavior in some way, reassured me, told me to do what the body asked me and prepared everything for the girl could be born right there. The gynecologist sat on the floor beside me as if that were the most normal thing in the world and my daughter was born in the blink of an eye. I was dressed and wearing slippers.
This type of flexibility and support is fundamental, a contraction can hurt a lot or be perfectly bearable depending on the position in which we are and the support we receive to live our delivery as our body asks us and not according to the protocol of the hospital in question .
Birth without epidural may be an option for all pregnant women as long as the hospitals and clinics where we give birth are prepared and willing to assist us as these deliveries require. In addition, although in the end we choose to resort to epidural anesthesia for whatever reason, there is no reason to give up having a respected birth. If the dose is not very high, the woman can still move freely, give birth in the position that is most comfortable for her and feel the contractions although with less intensity.
