Letters

Editor's note: Because of the time of year (Christmas) and the nearly unprecedented amount of mail we received in response to Nina Shapiro's story "The Birth Cult" (11/26), we're making this an allbirth letters section.

Reading Nina Shapiro's story reinforced the importance of my work in the prenatal yoga program at Seattle Holistic Center. Her burning disdain of pregnancy and fear of birthing was enough to spark a devastating fire in any unsuspecting woman or man.

Pregnancy and birth are very normal processes of being human. Only in this century have we created technocratic and medicalized births. In the early 1900s, we began to take birth away from women, midwives, and their community, and into the hospital. We subjected women and their babies to atrocities that we can barely speak of, let alone believe. We as a society created the fear that Nina writes about.

We are often not told the whole truth about tests, procedures, and especially drugs. The FDA, which officially approves the drugs, will not guarantee that any drug is safe, including those used in epidurals. Even the Committee on Drugs of the American Academy of Pediatrics cautions us that there is no drug that has been proven to be without risk for the fetus. Do you know all the risks of epidural anesthesia to you and your baby? I encourage you to find out.

The rate of cesarean sections performed is currently at 22 percent, with almost 1 million cesareans performed each year, making it the most frequently performed major operation in the US. We now know that many of our interventions of antenatal testing, labor induction, electronic monitoring, and epidural anesthesia increase cesarean rates without improving maternal and infant outcomes.

These are a few reasons we provide the highest level of education possible to our students at the Seattle Holistic Center. It has less to do with the "mom's demonstration of her power," as Ms. Shapiro wrote, and more to do with mom and her partner reclaiming their power and waking up to what is happening in our birthing practices. It is also about safety for both mother and child. It is every couple's responsibility to seek the information they need, and it is ultimately their decision what happens with their care. Hopefully they will not be strapped in by their archaic fears that keep them from making informed choices or refusals. When fear keeps us from taking responsibility, only blame is left.

In this day of seeking higher consciousness, why not begin with how we give birth?
Colette Crawford, RN
Director, Seattle Holistic Center, Inc.

A nurse, not a villain

Thank you for having the courage to challenge the "natural" birth cultists just as rigorously as they decry the "medicalization" of childbirth. I am a registered nurse working in Labor and Delivery in a teaching hospital and I am fed up with being portrayed—along with obstetricians, perinatologists, neonatologists, and other "villains"—as a sadist who seeks to rob women of their precious right to birth their babies as they choose.

I believe that women have the right to make informed choices, including the choice to give birth in a high-tech hospital with the most effective analgesia available. Omitting this information while giving the "natural" approach a hard sell is as oppressive and dishonest as the old "doctor knows best" attitudes of 50 years ago.

I'm just glad someone spoke up. I wish you, your husband, and your baby a healthy pregnancy and a safe birth. I applaud you in choosing what is best for all of you: a decision to be made in cooperation with your physician and a decision that is nobody else's damn business.
Anita Jaynes, RN
Omaha, Nebraska

Dialing for doulas

As a mother of two, and a doula, I was deeply saddened and angered by Ms. Shapiro's tirade, which Seattle Weekly saw fit to print. Not only does Ms. Shapiro use this paper to grind her axe, but she does it with absolutely no research or fact.

Empowering women to have control over their own birthing experiences continues to be a powerful issue. As near as 50 years ago, women were routinely tied down, drugged into unconsciousness, and their babies were forcibly extracted from their bodies. The movement around the country to change this barbaric practice was pioneered by such dedicated women as Mrs. Penny Simkin, doula and author. Ms. Shapiro's slander of doulas and the "natural childbirth" community is nothing more than her personal bias.

As a doula, my first and foremost goal to the families I serve is to support them in their birth choices. If a mom wants an epidural, fine with me. I will stay by her side and help her through her labor with or without drugs. I find it very sad that Ms. Shapiro is so disillusioned with herself and her pregnancy that she must lash out at a community that has fought for decades so she could even have the choice to have an epidural.

No one wants a laboring woman to suffer, but there are alternatives to drugs. There are volumes of research (pick up Henci Goer's book Obstetrical Myths vs. Research Realities) showing that drugs can and do have negative side effects. That is still not to say that a woman can't choose drugs during labor and be supported in that choice. With the birth of my second child, I hired two doulas to support me in my labor. Originally, I wanted an unmedicated birth but opted for an epidural when labor got harder than I could handle. I had a great birth, with my epidural and my doulas, but when I give birth again you bet that I will do my best to avoid drugs. If I could give Ms. Shapiro one piece of advice it would be to seek out that which frightens her so. She would be pleasantly surprised at the warm welcome she would receive from the "birth culture" she so publicly disdains.
Lynelle Hofman, CD, CLE
Lynnwood

Birth cult? Just wait