A Different Kind of Labor

This Labor Day weekend, Mum & I watched The Business of Being Born, Ricki Lake's documentary on birthing in America. I feel so fortunate to have grown up with a midwife mother. Through the years, there was a steady stream of pregnant mothers getting my mother's wise counsel. Mum was licensed in VA, so on occasion, mothers from WV crossed the state line so that they could deliver in our home. If we were lucky to be there, we were invited to attend the birth. Birth was a relatively calm, quiet, natural event. "Babies come when they're ready," Mum says. "It's when you interfere with nature, that you have problems."

30% of births in the U.S. are C-sections; more in certain hospitals. Often they are performed based on convenience; convenience to doctors, mothers, husbands. A C-section is MAJOR SURGERY! And it has become so routine that it is considered normal.

There's a wonderful hormonal cocktail of oxcytocin, etc. that mother & baby receive thru the birthing process. These biochemicals create bonding. That final push when baby enters the outside world is the euphoria that erases the labor part of labor. Does this happen with a C-section? I do know that C-sections prevent all the dermatones from getting stimulated as they do in a regular delivery. So this is what I'm wondering: How does this affect the mother-child bonding? How does it affect the neurological development of the child? Could C-sections be connected to the rise in learning disabilities? The more you interfere with nature, the more problems you have. Something to get curious about on this Labor Day.