Book Review: Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: A Doctor's Guide to Natural Childbirth and Gentle Early Parenting Choices

 

Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering

By Dr. Sarah Buckley

If you, in any way, question the mainstream medical model of care, this book is for you! Sarah Buckley solidly shares the truth, the studies and the intuitive. Everyone needs this information and I’m, to be honest, shocked this book is not more widely recommended or known! Every women deserves this information! If you’re thinking about trying to conceive, if you’re already expecting a little one, even if you’re postpartum and want the next time to be different, you’ve got to read this book in preparation. 

I urge you to, if you’ve stumbled upon this blog post, take heart that you’re here for a reason. There’s no such thing as coincidences. You’re here for a very important reason and perhaps this blog post is a small part in your journey to leading you where you’re meant to be. 

Take these words from Sarah Buckley to heart. Be open, humble and willing to challenge your own beliefs; follow your instincts and question the status quo if that’s the path you’re being led down:

“In this book I have striven to provide information and ideas for informed decision-making, so that mothers- and fathers-to-be can make the choices that are right for themselves, their babies and their families. Sometimes those decisions will align with cultural expectations and conventional medical advice: at other times, a family’s right choices may be radically different from the mainstream, and even from their previous beliefs. The overall message I hope you take away from this book is the importance of taking the time to think and feel: of using instinct and intelligence, heart and mind as we make the choices that will best serve our children-to-be, our families and ourselves.” 

Some of my biggest takeaways from Part 1: Gentle Birth

“How will people of the future even know that un-interfered-with birth is safer than surgical birth? Will feminist of the future believe today’s birth activists, or will they believe the obstetricians who are far more comfortable with surgery than with physiological processes that have their own timing?” Ina May Gaskin (Page 2)

“This medical approach—founded on the assumption that every birth is potentially high-risk, and endorsed by our culture's infatuation with technology—has not benefited the healthy majority of mothers and babies in the United States and other westernized countries.” (Page 8)

“Is birth any less instinctive than, for example, eating or making love?” (Page 13)

“… that they wish they had acted on their instincts in pregnancy and birth, instead of going along with expert opinion.” (Page 18)

All. Of. This! On one hand, I know each of my experiences of birth have a purpose and were necessary in molding and shaping me into the woman I am today, the birth worker I am today and the advocate I am today. But, I cannot help but wish I had learned to listen to and act upon my instincts. 

“These deviations from the natural order, whose lore is genetically encoded in our bodies, have enormous repercussions.” (Page 25)

“And we diminish our own authority in birthing and in mothering we disempower ourselves when we put more faith in information from the outside (tests, scans, others' opinions) than our own internal knowing of our bodies and our babies.

The truth is that our babies are constantly informing us of their needs and desires and how we can best care for them.” (Page 31)

Your Body, Your Baby, Your Choice

“Worryingly, babies in both exposed and unexposed groups had antibiotic-resistant bacteria in their gut flora, which may reflect colonization by resistant bacteria from the hospital environment. These studies have also shown that birth in the hospital, which is a foreign bacterial environment for mother and baby, is associated with a delay in gut colonization (even for babies unexposed to antibiotics and with colonization by less ideal bacteria.” (Page 59)

I believe women would educate themselves more on undisturbed, unhindered birth if we could bridge the gap in education among our communities. If more women knew the full spectrum of risks due to induction, I fully believe they’d have a more Informed Choice by taking back their power as the charge force in their expereinces. I also believe if women knew the full risks of introducing foreign bacteria to our systems by entering the hospital, that more women would look deeper into homebirth as an option. 

“Much of the research previously quoted is based on the assumption that induction has no risks to mother or baby…” “This has not been adequately researched, especially in terms of breastfeeding, attachment, maternal emotional well-being, and long-term effects on induced offspring.” (Page 70)

“Other possible risks, detailed here, include: precipitate labor; lack of blood and oxygen for the baby; increased maternal pain and need for pain relief; increased maternal risks of uterine rupture, postpartum hemorrhage, and cesarean.” (Page 70)

“Risks associated with breaking of the waters including infection, stress on the baby’s skull bones, and possible bleeding in the brain; and uncommon but catastrophic effects including cord prolapse and amniotic fluid embolism.” (Page 70)

“For example, in the largest post-term trial, one induced baby apparently suffered a spinal cord injury and quadriplegia following severe fetal distress and a forceps delivery, after the mother experienced an overly fast (precipitate) labor induced by prostaglandin. This outcome has apparently not been disclosed in any trial report.” (Page 70)

Ask yourself! Did you know all of these risks?! I certainly was not educated on all these risks before consenting to my first induction birth. These are risks because they have happened to women before! They’ve happened to babies! Did you know all of this?! Or were you told “induction is safe and effective!”?! Women need to know this information to make a truly informed decision. 

“Showed that those who were induced were more than one-third more likely to finish with a cesarean delivery.” (Page 72)

“There are no natural methods of induction. If a method is effective, it means that it is not natural, because it has preceded the signals given by the baby. We understand today that the fetus participates in the initiation of labor by sending messages that mean: ‘I am ready.’” (Page 75)

Ultrasound Scans

“What influenced me the most was my feeling that I could lose something important as a mother if I allowed someone to test my baby. I knew that if a minor or uncertain problem showed up, which is not uncommon, I would be obliged to return again and again and that, after a while, I might feel as if my baby belonged to the system and not to me.” (Page 78)

“However, there is growing concern as to its safety and usefulness. UK consumer activist Beverley Beech has called the routine use of ultrasound in pregnancy “the biggest uncontrolled experiment in history” and the Cochrane Collaboration–considered the top authority in evidence-based medicine–concludes,
“...no clear benefit in terms of a substantive outcome measure like perinatal mortality [number of babies dying around the time of birth] can yet be discerned to result from the routine use of ultrasound… 

For those considering its introduction, the benefit of the demonstrated advantages would need to be considered against the theoretical possibility that the use of ultrasound during pregnancy could be hazardous, and the need for additional resources.” (Page 79)

“To my mind, ultrasound also represents yet another way in which the deep internal knowledge that a mother has of her body and her baby is made secondary to technological information that comes from an expert using a machine; thus the cult of the expert is imprinted from the earliest weeks of life.

Furthermore, by treating the baby as a separate being, ultrasound artificially splits mother from baby well before this is a physiological or psychic reality. This further emphasizes our culture's favoring of individualism over mutuality and sets the scene for possible—but to my mind artificial—conflicts of interest between mother and baby in pregnancy, birth, and parenting.” (Page 93)

Undisturbed Birth

“Birth activist Doris Haire describes the effects of Pitocin on the baby: The situation is analogous to holding an infant under the surface of the water, allowing the infant to come to the surface to gasp for air, but not to breathe.” (Page 111)

As someone who was induced, once, and had a baby who suddenly did not tolerate contractions and a cervix that didn’t dilate past 3 centimeters. I can completely picture this scenario. Women need to know this stuff! They deserve to know the FULL spectrum of risks! 

“Epidurals inhibit beta-endorphins production as do spirals. Both will therefore also inhibit the alteration in consciousness that is part of a normal labor, and their popularity may partly reflect our lack of understanding of the hormonal processes and of the need for laboring women to shift their state of consciousness. Most modern birth settings are also lacking in the experience, training and environmental facilities to accommodate this most basic requirement for birth.” (Page 117)

“Some studies indicate that this disturbance may also apply to humans. Mothers given epidurals in one study spent less time with their babies in hospital, in inverse proportion to the dose of drugs they received and the length of the second stage of labor. In another study, mothers who had epidurals described their babies as more difficult to care for one month later. Such subtle shifts in relationship and reciprocity may reflect any or all of these factors: hormonal dysfunctions, drug toxicity, and the less-than-optimal circumstances that often accompany epidural births: long labors, forceps, and cesareans.” (Pages 118-119)

“The connections between events at birth and long-term health certainly deserve more study. But we cannot afford to wait many years for researchers to prove the benefits of an undisturbed birth. Perhaps the best we can do is to trust our instincts and vote with our birthing bodies, choosing (and supporting) models of care that increase the chances of undisturbed- and therefore safer, easier, and more ecstatic birthing.” (Page 123)

“Spontaneous labor in a normal woman is an event marked by a number of processes so complicated and so perfectly attuned to each other that any interference will only detract from the optimal character. The only thing required from the bystanders is that they show respect for this awe-inspiring process by complying with the first rule of medicine — nil nocere [do no harm].” (Page 126-127)

Epidurals

“Epidurals dramatically reduce the laboring woman's release of beta-endorphin and levels immediately after birth can be reduced to one-fifth of normal following epidural use in labor. Perhaps the widespread use of epidurals reflects our ignorance of the importance of this hormonal shift, our difficulty with supporting women in this altered state, and our cultural preference that laboring women be quiet and compliant.” (Page 134)

Leaving Well Enough Alone

“At a time when Mother Nature prescribes awe and ecstasy, we have injections, examinations, and clamping and pulling on the cord. Instead of body heat, skin-to-skin contact, and the baby's innate instinct to find the breast, we offer separation, wrapping, and outside assistance to "attach" the baby. When time should stand still for those eternal moments of first contact, as mother and baby fall deeply in love, we have haste to deliver the placenta and clean up for the next case.” (Page 155)

Love, Attachment, and Your Baby’s Brain

“For our children the brain programs that are downloaded at this time will be available and likely imprinted during interactions with their own offspring—our grandchildren.” (Page 224)

“These scientific understandings confirm the Dalai Lama’s teaching: “We learn compassion mainly from our mothers.”” (Page 226)

Babies, Mothers, and the Science of Sharing Sleep

“One of the problems that our culture created for new mothers is the belief that infant sleep is, or should quickly become, the same as adult sleep. This makes “sleeping through the night” an important goal. However, this idea is based on a misunderstanding of normal infant sleep and is the source of much misinformation and even suffering for mothers, babies and families” (page 248)

“It can be reassuring to know that we don’t need a degree in child development to mother well, only the willingness to respond to our instincts and our babies in a way that brings peace, joy and ease at each age and stage.” (Page 248)

“Videos taken during these studies show that bed sharing mothers, even in deep sleep, are obviously aware of their baby’s position, and move when necessary to avoid overlaying. At no time in the studies did bed sharing mothers impede the breathing of their babies, who had higher average oxygen levels than solitary sleepers.” (Page 253)

“McKenna’s conclusions—that bed sharing and other forms of co-sleeping may actually protect against SIDS—are supported by population studies in places where cosleeping is prevalent. Places such as Hong Kong and China have some of the lowest rates of SIDS in the world, along with high rates of cosleeping.” (Page 254)

Epilogue: Becoming a Parent

“Our parenting path will be immeasurably easier and more relaxed if we follow your children’s leads, even from babyhood, as described in these pages. When we allow our child to lead, we create the possibility of fully meeting their unique and individual needs, which are harder to discern and may even become invisible when we habitually impost our own ideas or expert-generated solutions.” (Page 270)

I was captivated as I read Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering by Dr. Sarah Buckley. She brings the research and the truth right to our fingertips along with real-life experiences. Come to this book with an open heart, an open mind and an open soul for some deep nourishment. Allow yourself to be challenged in all the good ways!