What is hospital birth like now?
A lot of people ask me, “What’s wrong with taking the pain out of childbirth?” I’m not talking about pain you can’t live through—nobody faints or dies from the pain of childbirth. It just doesn’t happen. Pain is a guide that tells us we need to do something different. For example, if your back hurts, you find a position where your back doesn’t hurt as much anymore. And that often helps you reposition the baby so that it’s not lying on your back. But where do women go in hospitals? They go to lay in the bed. The monitors work best when they’re lying on their backs. They might sit up a little bit, but this doesn’t encourage the baby to move. Then they get an epidural to take the pain away and the baby still lies against their back. Their pelvic floor muscles relax from the pain medication—the epidural—and then there’s no muscle tone to guide the baby into a correct position. So often, though not always, often women’s babies end up malpositioned and not fitting through. You can just look
