From: m13079@mwunix (Mary Anne Walters)
Subject: Re: "Missing out" (was. re:  Justin...)
Organization: MITRE Corporation, McLean VA
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 12:11:46 GMT

In article <16317@pitt.UUCP> pollack@elroy (Martha E. Pollack) writes:
>There have been a lot of postings concering the question of whether
>women who use painkillers during labor or who have a C-section miss
>out on an essential experience.  I suspect that all the women
>participating in this discussion have had good outcomes, i.e.,
>regardless of what happened during labor, they delivered healthy,
>normal babies.  As someone who has experienced an unhappy outcome
>(the causes of which were unrelated to what went on during labor), I
>can assure you that the significance of the childbirth experience is
>very, very small relative to the significance of the result.
>
>If you deliver a healthy baby, then having experienced the kind of 
>labor you hoped for is just icing on the cake.  Enjoy the cake.

AMEN!  I also had a bad outcome, unrelated to the labor experience, and
I know that my labor was mercifully short, and with the help of an   
epidural almost totally pain free.  Thank God.  I am able to look back
on that delivery knowing that although the
outcome was not expected, at least I can remember the birth experience
with some kind of joy, no matter how temporary it was.   Had I been thru
the "labor from hell", 24 hours of transition, hours and hours of useless
pushing, and then had the baby die the way he did, I know I would have
had a much more difficult time making the decision to try again within
a year.  At least now I know labor isn't always a horror -- and I also
know not all births turn out perfect :-(.  I feel a bit better prepared
this time around.

The goal in childbirth has got to always be the healthiest baby possible.
Who cares what drugs are required to produce that outcome?  As long as
the *drugs* don't cause a problem, I say use them if you need them and the
machisma-type women, the insensitive DRs., the husbands, whatever, be 
damned.   Let everyone make that decision for themselves.  Just read,
digest the info, and make your decision when the time comes.  It is more
traumatic to swear up and down you'll take no drugs, no matter what, then be
faced with a kid with a 16 inch shoulderspan, the possibility of a 4th degree
tear, hours of pushing, pain like you wouldn't believe, and *then* have to
backtrack, saying "Give me DRUGS!".  The feeling of failure would seem to
me to be inevitable -- unlike the woman who says, OK ... drugs are an
option, but I would choose to do without if possible.  Let's see what
happens during the birth.

FYI-There is a new book coming out, by Jessica Mitford (of the "Love in a Cold 
Climate" Mitford's) on childbirth in America.  It discusses the male-Dr
attitudes and medical training, the use of drugs, the fact that the US
has such a high infant mortality rate (shocking in that it is higher
than some poor, third-world countries) and other topics of interest to
all us misc.kidders.  I read about it in Publisher's Weekly, and I'm
not sure of the publication date, but I plan to read it as soon as it comes
out.  I'll fill y'all in then. 

That was way more than I had planned to say, so I'll shut up for now :-)
 
--
--Mary Anne  
"What we have once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all
that we love deeply becomes a part of us."  Helen Keller
                                                 [for Alexander]
Newsgroups: misc.kids