[ozmidwifery] Convenience

[Denise Hynd]

Convenience Birth is not convenient. Labor is not convenient. And being a birth practitioner or a parent requires one to let go of the idea that pregnancy, labor, birth or parenting will ever be convenient. The worst of the false priorities, a desire for convenience, fuels a drive for inductions and cesarean sections with potentionally dire consequences. How many "convenience" inductions turned into labors in which a baby faced fetal distress? How many "convenience" c-sections resulted in a less-than-mature baby who had to stay in the NICU? How many "conveniently" induced or sectioned moms then had problems breastfeeding and had to use formula? Waiting for labor is inconvenient. Sometimes due dates and the weeks following fall during a scheduled vacation, but that's part of the nature of birth. It is just as bad for a midwife to strip a mom's membranes without asking or a doctor to use Cytotec to get a mom to labor before a scheduled vacation as it is for a mom to schedule an induction at 39 weeks because she's tired of being pregnant. ~ Jennifer Rosenberg   excerpted from "Priorities in Birth"   Midwifery Today Issue 64 Denise Hynd   "Let us support one another, not just in philosophy but in action, for the sake of freedom for all women to choose exactly how and by whom, if by anyone, our bodies will be handled."   — Linda Hes