“My body can’t labor and give birth like other women’s bodies. Many women who have had cesareans believe this; it’s almost as if the experience left that message deep in their cells. Remember that every year around the world hundreds of thousands of women give birth by VBAC. Your body still remembers how to labor and give birth. Your baby–like all babies, if given the opportunity–will start the contractions, working in harmony with the hormones that instigate and maintain labor.”
~Diana Korte, The VBAC Companion. From the chapter entitled “Overcome Your Fears of Having a VBAC.”
2 Responses
Love this and linked it on our chapter facebook wall.
I think this fear, that maybe I just didnt know how to give birth, was present before my first pregnancy.
Not knowing much about how awesome a women’s body is to change during labor inorder to birth her baby, I had little understanding of what affects birth and little help from other’s on informed consent.
Even after my VBAC, I still wondered if I could really birth! Right at the end of my VBAC I had an epesiotomy, I was cut again. (I had swollen from IVs & premature pushing. Probably why I’ve become a big, hands off birthing and no pushing encourager. No more pushing stage, breath that baby out. 🙂 )
It has caused many emotional and physical hurdles to my recovery. Could both cuts been avoided, likely, but it wasnt. I was left again wondering, was there something wrong with me that I couldn’t birth the babies?
That is why it is very important that mother’s deliver their babies. Doctors do not birth babies. Midwives do not deliver babies. Doula’s dont endure labor, it is the women’s and the babies’ passage and it is important physically and holistically that they be given the chance to navigate birth.