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The Natural Childbirth Thing

August 25, 2003 – People failing to adapt to changing times really have me confused. Take for example one of those masochistic pregnant women who insist that they will undergo the whole birthing shebang “naturally”. I am really confused by that.

Usually the response I get when I ask them why they would decide to undergo the pain of a drug-free childbirth is invariably, “Because MY mother didn’t have an epidural, and MY grandmother didn’t have Demerol.” Hmmmm. I tell you, something just doesn’t seem right about the argument of not doing something because it wasn’t done in the past.

Now, if these mothers really wanted to get back to the mix of settler life, wouldn’t they have to arrive at the hospital in a horse-drawn buggy? For that matter… wouldn’t they just call in their oldest daughter from the fields to help boil some water so they can plop the kid out in the bedroom?

By this rational, no more Novocain when we get our teeth worked on. As a matter of fact no more dentists (didn’t they use barbers to do the bloody stuff like teeth extraction and amputations?). Our long-dead relatives didn’t have a lot of things that we do today. Where exactly is the line drawn?

Now, here is the kicker. Do you want to know why your mother didn’t have an epidural? Because it wasn’t available! I would imagine that if some fancy doctor came up to a woman stretching the limits of the third trimester and said, “How would you feel about having this child with no pain?” how many old mothers out there would say, “No, no we’ll have none of that!”

In all fairness, I am a guy and there is likely some “woman” thing going on that we don’t know about. It may be some feminine sense of honor that we guys have a tough time following. Lord knows we do plenty that baffles them, so I guess they can have the occasional weird sentimentalities.

Submitted by Jason

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