To Be or Not to Be in Pain?
Before I officially become a week behind… I have been meaning to mention a feature in last Sunday’s Globe Magazine that struck ire in the heart of the pro-natural childbirth mama who sent me the reference. “The mother lode of pain,” written by Dr. Darshak Sanghavi of U. Mass Medical (July 23, 2006) is decidedly pro-epidural. Dr. Sanghavi notes that “pain [is]…an utterly, primitive thing, a vestige of insect and reptilian brains" and that "reliance on pain to create meaning during childbirth indicates a constricted imagination.” Ouch.
Please feel welcome to comment on your thoughts on, or experience with, natural or assisted childbirth.
Comments
The doc says, "reliance on pain to create meaning during childbirth indicates a constricted imagination.” The truth is, and he should know it, it's not the pain that creates the deep, primal, overwhelming sense of "meaning" with natural childbirth; it's the the oxcytocin and other hormones that flood your system (and your heart and mind with love and joy!) Epidurals and other medical interventions interfere with the ecstacy inherant in natural childbirth--as well as with the sense of empowerment and bonding-love that follow after delivery--because they interfere with your natural hormone production. Read all about it here (also written by a doctor!): http://www.mothering.com/articles/pregnancy_birth/birth_preparation/ecstatic.html
Posted by: ReallyErica | November 15, 2007 1:39 AM | Reply to this comment