Spinoff - Laura Shanley, freebirth "fundie"

[Blahblah]

Both of my kids were breech. One turned, one didn't...in fact, he was compound breech. One of us would have died, maybe both of us. I had a C section, in a hospital, and life went on.

I don't feel like a failure for having a C-section. It is what it is.

Yep, with you there. I found out at my first ultrasound that I have a bicorneate uterus - banana shaped - so from about 20 weeks in with both of my pregnancies the baby was wedged in sideways and flat on their back with my cervix in the middle of their back. If I had done the free-birth thing with no scans, no obstetric advice and no medical assistance and therefore no c-sections? Well, dead me and dead kid.

All these fundy, hippie, authentic, sparkly fuckwits can do what they like and hopefully natural selection will do it's job.

[WonderingInWA]

I remember being fascinated with the idea of unassisted childbirth when I was pregnant with my first 14 years ago. And Laura Shanley's book was one recommended to me by another friend who had had 4 of her 5 children unassisted based on her faith in Shanley (her first was a hospital birth). I never read her book, just excerpts, and took what I could from it in terms of the mental empowerment suggestions and faith in your body to birth naturally. I did fine -- I had my baby at a hospital with no meds and really did a lot of mental processing to get through it. But to have been alone and figure out if things were going "normally" wouldn't have allowed me to do that because I would have been distracted by pain so I wouldn't know if something was going wrong or not.

BTW, Shanley also talks about women who have orgasms during birth. I don't know about that one!

ETA: Shanley's ex-husband also attempted to lactate and managed to achieve some success. That part just finally pushed me over the edge.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

I believe Alicia Silverstone had an orgasmic birth.

[Peas n carrots]

Wait wait...dudes can lactate? How does this happen...did the man take hormones? Am I living under a rock for never hearing about lactating men?

[WonderingInWA]

Wait wait...dudes can lactate? How does this happen...did the man take hormones? Am I living under a rock for never hearing about lactating men?

I believe it had to do with nipple stimulation. It used to be on her website, but she might have taken that part down after they divorced. It was sort of buried in some of her writing on their beliefs about birth, so it wasn't a tutorial or anything. And her website has really changed, but I'm sure there is a reference to it somewhere in her book.

ETA: Here you go: unassistedbirth.com/misc-articles/milkmen-fathers-who-breastfeed/

[August]

I remember being fascinated with the idea of unassisted childbirth when I was pregnant with my first 14 years ago. And Laura Shanley's book was one recommended to me by another friend who had had 4 of her 5 children unassisted based on her faith in Shanley (her first was a hospital birth). I never read her book, just excerpts, and took what I could from it in terms of the mental empowerment suggestions and faith in your body to birth naturally. I did fine -- I had my baby at a hospital with no meds and really did a lot of mental processing to get through it. But to have been alone and figure out if things were going "normally" wouldn't have allowed me to do that because I would have been distracted by pain so I wouldn't know if something was going wrong or not.

BTW, Shanley also talks about women who have orgasms during birth. I don't know about that one!

ETA: Shanley's ex-husband also attempted to lactate and managed to achieve some success. That part just finally pushed me over the edge.

I know! Laboring is a full time job. I would not have been able to relax and dilate if I was remembering to check the heart rate.

[FreeJosie]

The same loving consciousness that knew how to grow her baby inside her perfectly, knows how to get her baby out safely and easily, if only she will let it.

Huh...I guess I should have let my preeclampsia go since my body obviously knew what it was doing.

[mrs]

I know almost nothing about giving birth. Is it possible to have an all natural birth in the hospital?

[NotALoserLikeYou]

I know almost nothing about giving birth. Is it possible to have an all natural birth in the hospital?

Of course, but you have to educate yourself fully on the birth process and what procedures you want to avoid. You can even have a midwife deliver your child or a natural birth friendly doctor who respects your choices. Hospitals do like to use pitocin to induce or speed up labor and this can make the contractions very painful, which might make you want an epidural. You can refuse unnecessary interventions that might prevent natural birth.

[PennySycamore]

I know almost nothing about giving birth. Is it possible to have an all natural birth in the hospital?

Yep, but you have to work at it in most hospitals in the US. You have to choose your birth practitioner (CNM or OB), write a good birth plan, be determined and be lucky. I had a 95% natural birth in the hospital with my youngest. I walked around in labor and, IIRC, could eat lightly and drink water or juices. I did have to have a heparin lock placed and intermittent fetal monitoring as I was going to a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean [3, as a matter of fact]). The interventions were hospital policy and my OB practice might not have required them. I had no drugs except maybe a little local anesthetic to repair a major tear that I had due to shoulder dystocia. Five years earlier, my OB had remarked that I wouldn't have a problem delivering an 8 pound baby after he had done a c-section with my 8 pound 13 1/2 ounce third baby. My last baby weighed 8 pounds on the nose.

[BabyFullOfSin]

"Freebirthing" would have killed myself and my daughter too. Same story as a lot of others on here - back labour, stuck in pelvis, brutal forceps delivery which 20 months later still causes problems for me.

Plus I haemorrhaged very nearly to death a week later (this timeframe is apparently quite unusual). A few decades ago it would have killed me (so said the OB/gyn). Pisses me off that some of these fundies would rather see my daughter dead and myself dead twice over.

[WonderingInWA]

Well, but I don't think Laura Shanley is in the same class as the fundies. I don't think she preaches Christianity as her basis for birthing naturally. She's more "your body was built to do this" and "we don't need the evil medical community to keep the human race going". I'm not really saying that very well, but I never got the feeling that the Bible is what is teaching her to preach unassisted childbirth.

FWIW, I have given birth twice unmedicated in the hospital with the same OB/GYN present. She wouldn't let me get positioned the way I felt I needed to (it was on my back only!), and my instincts were against that. I think she has some valid points but when you choose to birth in a hospital, all the choices about how it goes are not yours to make. It's all about liability, which I think, too, is part of her whole point. But my second child had an abnormally short cord wrapped twice around his neck and was hanging himself after his head was out, so it had to be cut in order for him to be born. None of us in the room new that until the moment his head was out and the cut happened FAST (I never even saw it, but my husband did). That is not an uncommon situation and I would not have been prepared for it since my first birth was a breeze (relatively speaking).

[BabyFullOfSin]

Well, but I don't think Laura Shanley is in the same class as the fundies. I don't think she preaches Christianity as her basis for birthing naturally. She's more "your body was built to do this" and "we don't need the evil medical community to keep the human race going". I'm not really saying that very well, but I never got the feeling that the Bible is what is teaching her to preach unassisted childbirth.

True, I guess fundy-ism (of the religious variety) isn't really at play here, but her beliefs about freebirthing have the same irrational inflexibility.

[WonderingInWA]

True, I guess fundy-ism (of the religious variety) isn't really at play here, but her beliefs about freebirthing have the same irrational inflexibility.

Agreed.

[BabyFullOfSin]

Agreed.

I had really been hoping that my body was "made" for birthing naturally and I lasted many hours in natural labour, but my body and my daughter turned out to have not gotten the memo for the "right way" to do things.

[WonderingInWA]

I had really been hoping that my body was "made" for birthing naturally and I lasted many hours in natural labour, but my body and my daughter turned out to have not gotten the memo for the "right way" to do things.

Yeah, well, I got lucky. I'm 5'8" with "birthin' hips" so the first one flew out. And the second one would have, too, except for that unfortunate 42cm cord twice-wrapped (most cords are more like 60cm, or so I was told). My body didn't get the memo, either. You know, to make sure the hose was long enough! :) It all worked out, though my OB/GYN said just after he was born "Well, you might end up seeing some bruising around his neck". Yikes! It didn't happen, but usually the first thing you would like to hear is "it's a boy!". LOL.

[singsingsing]

Yeah, well, I got lucky. I'm 5'8" with "birthin' hips" so the first one flew out.

You just described me exactly, so I hope if I ever have a baby it flies out, too. :)

[BabyFullOfSin]

You just described me exactly, so I hope if I ever have a baby it flies out, too. :)

I'm very short with a small frame but big hips.. If I can find the courage to have a second child, I hope I get a "flies right out" experience too :)

[WonderingInWA]

I'm very short with a small frame but big hips.. If I can find the courage to have a second child, I hope I get a "flies right out" experience too :)

Well, what I DID take from the Shanley stuff I read (and again, I did not read her entire book) were relaxation techniques. I will say I gave birth the first time with my eyes closed. That isn't really one of her suggestions, but the visual of all that was happening was too much for me to concentrate on what I was telling myself inside. And it worked for me. I was determined to relax as much as possible and let my body do the work because I've known too many women who have fought birth and ended up with a lot of tearing. I will never know if what I did and told myself during birth was what made mine easier than the horror stories women love to tell (don't listen to them!), but I had 2 "skidmarks" after the first birth (and my doc put one stitch in each one) and no tearing with the second. I counted those stats as successful! :)

[2xx1xy1JD]

True, I guess fundy-ism (of the religious variety) isn't really at play here, but her beliefs about freebirthing have the same irrational inflexibility.

Shanley isn't Christian.

She does, however, have some strong spiritual beliefs, including the belief that we can basically direct the universe with our thoughts.

She says that she's been heavily influenced by Jane Roberts:

unassistedbirth.com/about-me/

Jane Roberts teaches that you create your own reality.

sethlearningcenter.org/

The natural/New Age belief system goes far beyond simply questioning interventions or "better living through chemistry", and advocating a positive mindset (all of which is perfectly legitimate and recognized as useful in mainstream science). At the extremes inhabited by Shanley and Northrup, it's all about faith. If you lack faith in nature and in the idea that your thoughts can control the universe and if you subconsciously have worries or apprehensions about having kids - well, bad things can happen. It is only those which perfect faith who are magically protected.

There's no room for doubt or questioning or using genuine medical evidence. There's no place for saying, "stuff happens sometimes that is simply beyond our control".

[PennySycamore]

Oh, brother, Jane Roberts and Seth again! I'd not heard of her in years.

[AuntCloud]

So, a question: if I really really wish the universe to send some rain so I don't need to water my plants, while Headship really really wishes it to snow so he can win a bet - what happens? This entire wishful thinking is tres confusing, I'll stick to my regularly scheduled random stochastic events and modern medicine, thankyouverymuch.

[Chicken bones]

Writings like these make me so effing irate. I desperately wanted children, and actively participated in fertility treatments for five years. I did everything in my power to relieve stress in my life, but duh, infertility and fertility treatments are inherently stressful. Nothing I was thinking shaped my PCOS or my fertility. Medical intervention did. (successfully, happy to say.)

Not to say that mind over matter doesn't sometimes work, or that sometimes psychological issues do come into play in our physical health. Case in point, the ACE studies www.cdc.gov/ace/about.htm. But that's a completely different concept that our angst/sin/ambivalence/lack of loving consciousness causing our infertility/bad birth experience/stillbirths/cancer/whatever.

[August]

I think she has some valid points but when you choose to birth in a hospital, all the choices about how it goes are not yours to make.

You don't or shouldn't have to give up all control. It's all about asking why, finding out who the person responsible for the rule is, and talking to them about it. Like, for example, no eating after an epidural is a rule made by anesthesiology.

You just described me exactly, so I hope if I ever have a baby it flies out, too. :)

I'm really pissed that the birthin' hips which have been the bane of my life didn't actually turn out to be so. What a rip off.

[WonderingInWA]

You don't or shouldn't have to give up all control. It's all about asking why, finding out who the person responsible for the rule is, and talking to them about it. Like, for example, no eating after an epidural is a rule made by anesthesiology.

I'm really pissed that the birthin' hips which have been the bane of my life didn't actually turn out to be so. What a rip off.

Mine are done birthin' now, but I've thought about taking up belly dancing. I love how curvy most of the dancers are. I'd fit right in. And the costumes are cool.