Why wouldn’t a woman want medication? You have likely heard all of the reasons why you should—the pros.
Therefore presented here are reasons to avoid medications. What is the best choice for you and your baby? Again, it is up to you. The choice is yours!
Choosing an Unmedicated Birth
Does it seem like everybody is telling you, “Don’t try to be some kind of hero. Just get the epidural, Honey!”? Despite the horror stories people love to tell, a number of women throughout the United States are choosing not to have pain medication at their births.
“Why bother to experience birth? Why not plan to feel as little as possible of the labor?” asks Judith Lothian in her article in Lamaze Magazine. “We hear a great deal about the pain of childbirth but very little about the joy and the pleasure of feeling the contractions, bearing down as your baby pushes into the world and feeling in harmony with the rhythms of your body as it does the incredible work of birth.
Women who are able to labor and give birth relaxed, confident and with loving support experience an inner harmony that brings with it strength and endurance….Experiencing labor and birth, rather than obliterating the experience, allows you to feel the interweaving of the joy and pain, to work very hard and then delight in your incredible accomplishment. In discovering the power of giving birth you are forever changed.” (Lothian 1998)
“We hear a great
deal about the
pain of childbirth
but very
little about the joy
and the pleasure
of feeling the
contractions,
bearing
down as your
baby pushes into
the world and
feeling in harmony
with the rhythms
of your body
as it does the
incredible work of
birth….”
~Judith Lothian,
Lamaze Magazine
Some women who have had an unmedicated birth say, “Friends tell me I’m crazy. I guess it’s just one of those things you can’t explain to someone unless they’ve experienced it themselves. They just don’t get it. It was such a deep, moving, beautiful experience. The strength was amazing and it was hard. But I’m so glad I didn’t miss out on any of the sensations or any of the power of my birth. It was so incredible!”
One very popular actor who had a baby without pain medications said that she chose this route not only because it was healthier for the
baby, but because of what a truly primitive experience giving birth is— that we don’t get many of those experiences in life. What will the awesome and powerful sensations of your body feel like as you experience what it is like to give birth to a new life?
With medication, women relinquish that opportunity to experience the innate wisdom of the body and its ability to birth without physical assistance from anyone else. They surrender their own connection to their power and life-creative force. As they lose much of the physical control of their bodies, with it they also lose the ability to move the baby along in its journey from the womb. Even contractions often slow with the administration of pain medication.
(Adapted from Wise Childbearing.)
