Natural Childbirth R.I.P.

Here’s a recent cover story in the Chicago Sun-Times: “More Pregnant Women are Saying: Give Me the Drugs _ These Days, Laboring Moms Choose Epidurals to Cope With the Pain.”?

Gee, do ya think?

Sun-Times reporter Jim Ritter reveals that today only 6 percent of women in large hospitals, and 12 percent in small hospitals, now opt-for drug-free births. That’s down from 27 percent and 50 percent, respectively, as of 1981.

The trend in so called “natural”? childbirth, or giving birth without any medication to relieve the pain, has for all intents and purposes met its end.

May it rest in peace.

Who in the world came up with this idea anyway: “OK, giving birth is one of the most excruciatingly painful events a person can experience. We now have the ability to largely relieve that pain _ and safely _ but we’re going to convince women not to do it because it’s somehow ”¦ unnatural.”?

And women bought this?

In the 1950s and ”˜60s, laboring moms were sort of sleeping during the whole thing. That doesn’t sound all bad to me, but sometimes it had unforeseen side effects. One such outcome for my own mom was that when she gave birth to my older twin brothers, she didn’t even know she had had twins until she was roused from the anesthesia _ there were no sonograms in those days. (Come to think of it, with a 3- and 2-year-old already at home, she probably considered going back into that drug-induced state!)

But since the 1970s, epidurals, which block pain in the lower body while mom stays awake and able to help move the birth along, have become widely available and ever more safe. (There are still some rare risks _ including a 1 percent chance of a drop in blood pressure for mom and baby, or slower contractions _ which can be counteracted. But there are of course also risks to (ital) not (end ital) administering pain relief, including greatly increased fear and tension in mom, which can prolong labor. )

Still, there was a huge move to “natural”? childbirth from the 1970s until recent years. There are some hangers-on still. One mom interviewed for the Sun-Times proudly recounted her recent 27- hours of drug-free labor. What does she want _ an award? “It was pretty empowering”? she said. “I felt like I could do anything.”? She assembled a “support team”? to help handle the pain, including her husband who assisted by “compressing her hips.”?

I think it’s at least possible her husband would have preferred her to just have had an epidural instead. And if she has her appendix out would she eschew pain relief in order to be “natural,”? and just assemble the same pain management team?

OK, I admit that I’m generally opposed to all things natural. Take the devotion to “natural”? organic foods. I recently had a friend who works in food production explain to me that what people don’t understand about, say, “natural”? free-range chickens is that they often back up as they eat their “free-range”? feed. And do you know what they are dropping onto that feed while they are backing up, and before they consume it? Yeah.

You see, the entire march of civilization is about overcoming “natural.”? Why? Because it is entirely “natural”? to live painful, short, difficult and, in general, pretty miserable lives.

Before giving birth, I had watched portrayals of women on television and in movies screaming while having their babies, and I thought that was reality. I was terrified! But now I’ve given birth four times, and loved it every time, largely because I was always (safely) medicated to the hilt. I think if the media more accurately portrayed today’s laboring moms as thumbing through magazines or chatting on the phone, women would have their first babies at a younger age.

Even my own young daughters are already afraid that it’s a terrifying experience. Sheesh. Fortunately I’m able to report to them first hand that there’s much better living (and birthing) through chemistry.

Needless to say, my family doesn’t eat free-range chickens, either.