Advantages of Natural Birth

Natural birth is difficult, but a woman's body is designed for this function. When a woman births without drugs, anesthesia or medical interventions she learns that she is strong and powerful. She learns self- confidence, She learns to trust herself, even in the face of powerful authority figures.

Once she realizes her own strength and power, she will have a different attitude, for the rest other life, about pain, illness, disease, fatigue, and difficult situations.

When a mother births without drugs, anesthesia or medical interventions she will approach mothering differently. She will realize that it took hard work to bring this child into the world and it will take hard work to raise this child into an adult.

Through all of this she will grow as a person, becoming more confident in her abilities to handle any situation that she might face and more responsible for her own destiny.

Natural birth allows the mother a larger range of options in terms ofcaregiver, places to birth, positions for birth, the conduct and delivery of birth. This allows a woman an internal locus of control (she makes decisions and accepts the challenge of labor as her challenge) versus and external locus of control (caregiver or hospital makes decisions and the challenge of managing the labor).

Natural birth is medically safer for mother and baby. Anesthesia and other interventions, when used without medical indication, present risks to their health which may include:

• Drop in maternal blood pressure
• Drop in fetal heart tones
• Decrease in uterine contractility
• Increased incidence of labor dystocia
• Increased need for pitocin augmentation
• Rise in maternal temperature
• Difficulty for mother in voiding
• Impairment in maternal pushing ability
• Increased use of forceps or vacuum extractor for delivery
• Increased use of episiotomy and greater perineal trauma
• Increase in need for Cesarean section
• Increased incidence of fetal hypoglycemia
• Increase in need for sepsis workup for baby (spinal tap, IV prophylactic antibiotics, 3-7 day stay in nursery)
• More maternal/infant separation
• Greater incidence of anesthesia headache for mother
• Increased likelihood of separation from family
• Greater likelihood of postpartum back pain for mother
• Increased chance of nerve palsy or paralysis for mother