13 Reasons Why to Choose a Natural Childbirth
So you're asking yourself: Why choose a natural childbirth?
Personally, I’ve gone through 8 labors: 3 with epidurals and 5 naturally. Yes it’s true that sometimes there’s a time and place for an epidural, but most of the time I have to say that natural birth wins hands down.
The benefits are truly mind blowing and if I could do it all over again I’d go naturally every time and here’s why:
1. Healthier for Baby
Introducing drugs (narcotics or an epidural) into mom’s blood stream means that these drugs are passed on through the placenta to the baby.
These drugs can make the baby drowsy making it hard to breastfeed as well as affect their breathing and even heart rate.
Natural Childbirth doesn't involve any drugs.
Vaginal births are oh so important to baby for a few reasons including the fact that baby gets their healthy bacteria (flora) from the birth canal which reduces the chance of allergies, Asthma and many other ailments later on.
Also, passing through the vaginal canal also helps expel the amniotic fluid from the baby’s lungs.
2. Healthier for Mom
Women are designed to give birth – it’s all apart of the masterplan. Having needles poked into your spine and having meds introduced into your system is not part of the natural process of giving birth.
Pain is part of the process of labor and helps mom know when to breath through a contraction and when to push her baby out.
There are so many ways to help manage the pain of a natural childbirth including breathing, meditating, changing positions, listening to music and having a doula to help you along.
Allowing nature to run its course is truly healthiest for mom and her body will recover easiest from a natural childbirth.
3. More Freedom to Move Around During a Natural Childbirth
Movement is one of the keys to getting labor moving and keeping it progressing. Getting an epidural means you are attached to the bed quite literally.
Whether you’re going for a speed walk, going up and down the stairs in the hospital (I did this with the last woman I accompanied to her birth and it did wonders!), bouncing on an exercise ball, getting on all fours or jumping in the shower – movement speeds labor along – and it’s much more enjoyable too!
4. Possible Shorter Labor
It’s true that sometimes an epidural will speed up labor and help things progress since you’re not cramping up, however, more times that not the epidural itself will slow the labor down, not to mention the fact that not being able to move around can also slow things down.
How many times have I heard that once an epidural was given the doctors were shortly thereafter suggesting Pitocin since the labor had slowed down.
5. More Control of Your Birth
You want to make a birth plan, right? You want to use the techniques you’ve learned in your birthing classes and put into practice all the labor positions you’ve learned.
The problem is – if you have an epidural, you’re strapped to the bed and can’t move. You can’t try all those birthing positions, move around, bounce on that ball, or any of it.
An epidural confines you to the bed. Want more control over your labor? Natural childbirth is the way to go.
Related: Compare 7 Birthing Classes and Find the Right One for You
6. Shorter Pushing Stage
It’s awfully hard to push that baby out when you can’t even feel where you’re pushing – take it from me. The times I had an epidural the pushing took soooo much longer - which of course can result in hemorrhoids and/or the baby’s heart rate going down.
The labors that I did unmedicated – let me tell you the pushing stage was a fraction the time of the labors when I had an epidural!
All the better for mommy and baby!
7. Less Likeliness of an Emergency Cesarean
Childbirth is a natural part of life. Natural childbirth. It’s not meant to be interfered with or sped up. It’s exactly when interventions begin such as giving an epidural, breaking the waters, giving Pitocin, etc. that the likeliness of an emergency c-section increases.
I’ve seen with my own labors, my friends’ labors and now that I’m a doula I see it with so many women: as soon as you interfere with nature – it causes the need for more interventions.
I literally saw the exact same thing happen for 2 of the labors for which I had an epidural: First they give me the epidural. Then labor slows down. Then they break my water to speed labor up. Then the baby’s heart rate goes down so they give Pitocin to speed up labor even more. Then they get panicked that they’ll need to do an emergency c-section if the heart rate doesn’t go up or the baby isn’t born.
Solution: don’t start with interventions and you won’t need to interfere further.
8. Easier Recovery for Mom
While the labor is certainly more intense without any interventions, I’ve got to tell you the recovery is so much easier without the epidural.
Firstly, right after birth you can literally get up and go to the bathroom or shower within a few minutes. Whereas if you’ve got an epidural you need to wait a while until the effects wear off and you can start feeling your legs again. Getting up is likely to make you feel dizzy and you’ll need a nurse with you. You kinda feel like you’ve lost control over your body.
Look, recovery after any birth, including natural childbirth is a process and it takes weeks. But there’s no comparing recovery after a natural birth vs. having an epidural (which is a medical procedure) or a cesarean (which is a surgery).
At a time when you want to be spending every moment with your delicious newborn, going the natural route makes the recovery that much easier.
9. No Lingering Back Pain
It’s a pain, let me tell ya! For each of my 3 epidurals I felt pain in the spot where they did the epidural for months to come.
More intensely for about 3 to 4 months, but it still lingered up to a full year. One of the many benefits from my 5 natural childbirths was the no back pain aftermath.
Truly a pleasure.
10. Better Breastfeeding After Birth
Both Epidural and Narcotics cross the placenta and can produce baby drowsiness making breastfeeding all that much more challenging after birth.
Moms who birth naturally have babies who are not drowsy due to drugs in their system and more likely to be eager to breastfeed after birth.
11. No Risk of An Epidural Headache
Think it never happens? Think again. It happened to me with my 7th child (my 3rd epidural). When the epidural meds were injected into my spine it’s like the fluid went straight up my spine and hit the back of my neck.
After they took out the epidural, after birth, I got this intense headache. Not a regular headache or even a migraine – it was like smash your head into the wall type of headache, similar to Meningitis, only difference was that it went away as soon as I lay down.
This headache was so intense that I cried and cried.
My baby stayed at the nurse’s station almost full time as I could literally not function.
The doctors said my platelet levels were too low to do the blood patch to reverse the effects of the epidural headache. Took them two days to finally agree to do the blood patch (my platelet levels had gone up slightly). In this procedure, they took blood out of my arm and injected it back into my back where I had had the epidural.
It was soooooooo painful!
Crazy thing that was that all the poking around in my back created an inflammation that pressed on my nerves and I literally could not move my legs for weeks without causing a shooting nerve pain down my legs.
Why choose a natural childbirth? Well, this whole experience was thanks to that darling epidural.
Needless to say I opted for a natural birth the next time around.
12. You Feel Powerful
The day you give birth to your baby is a day you will remember for the rest of your life. Every single detail, every moment, every single thing that happened. Even if you have 10 kids. I promise!
It’s a defining moment in your life.
This is a day that can literally give you power.
Make you feel ever so POWERFUL!
And this, my friend, is the power you will need to raise this beautiful child that you are bringing into the world.
Take empowering natural childbirth classes, get yourself a doula and believe in your God giving ability to birth this baby.
Cuz birthing that baby isn’t even close to the hardest thing you’ll have to endure with your precious child (I promise here too!)
Use the power of childbirth and allow it to give birth not only to a beautiful new soul, but to a POWERFUL new mother.
13. Labor Can Be Fun!
Why choose a natural childbirth? Did you ever consider that labor could be FUN?
YES FUN!!!!
I have had some serious fun during my labors over the years! Albeit a lot of the fun things are harder to do while tied to the bed - read: skip that epidural!
Check out my FREE guide to having a seriously FUN labor. All things I’ve personally done and have loved. Check out 16 Ways to Distract Yourself During Labor!