AWOB - Project/Essay

In the United States, normal birth has been a form of alienation where women are unaware of the kind of connection they could have had with their child through natural birth. Though, because majority of women in U.S. choose to have hospital births rather than having a natural birth at home or in a birthing center, women are less likely to experience a warm and comfortable birth.

Normal birth can be defined as a woman giving birth to her child in a hospital. The catch about having a ‘normal’ birth is that doctors, nurses and tools that the medical ‘professionals’ use intervene with the process of delivering the baby; epidural, episiotomy, lithotomy, cesarean, drugs, anesthesia, risk of hemorrhage, delivering the baby on the doctor’s time, etc. (Class Notes).

Opposed to normal birth, natural birth, According to Teaching Normal Birth Interactively by Barbara A. Hotelling, is when “labor begins on its own, freedom of movement throughout labor, continuous labor support, no routine interventions, non-supine (e.g., upright or side-lying) positions for birth, and no separation of mother and baby with unlimited opportunity for breastfeeding.” Natural birth was known as the ‘normal’ way of giving birth until technology was invented to disturb the process of a woman’s body of giving birth in the natural and humane way.

Some may question why and how natural birth at home can possibly be safer than having a normal birth at a hospital? Most women, in my opinion, are uneducated when it involves having to decide what possible way of having their baby. When women do decide, they are more willing to have their baby in the hospital where they feel it is more safe and assuring in comparison to having a natural birth at home. Little do women know is that only HEALTHY women are chosen to have natural births over those who have some kind of complication where she may be at risk if she is not monitored by doctors and nurses.

By women disregarding the fact that their body is made to naturally reproduce children and have different interventions while delivering a baby or having a c-section makes the woman alienate herself. The term alienation is defined as “the state of being withdrawn or isolated from the objective world, as through indifference or disaffection.” (Dictionary.com). An example of a mother being alienated by her decision of choosing a hospital birth is guest speaker, Jeannette Plaza. She discussed about her daughter’s birth story and the process she had wanted to deliver her baby—natural birth, however, till very beginning and end of her contractions, she decided to have a hospital birth. She explained in great detail—and honesty I must add—that after she gave birth to her daughter, she did not feel well, in terms of feeling comfortable around the doctor and nurses in the room and how her daughter was taken away after just showing a glimpse of her. She also described how her husband felt useless in the hospital room. The act of having to choose the hospital to deliver the baby does not necessarily alienate herself, but the fact that she chose to have an epidural, and involve a doctor who was going to impatiently rush her baby out of her body is not natural for the human body. Although woman have been coming to doctors for many years to deliver a baby, the emotional pain behind giving birth is viewed as a negative feeling in which it should be, in most situations, a blissful moment in a mother’s life.

Based off the 2008 documentary about childbirth in the United States, The Business of Being Born, teaches a handful of reasons why woman and doctors would prefer natural birth over normal birth, or vice versa. Because it seems, in the United States, threatening to the child’s health to have a natural birth, in comparison to a normal birth, the documentary exaggerates on how women should have natural births more often, to experience that kind of bond a mother and her child is supposed to feel, and to disregard the many medical interventions that are offered.

The film mentions the different risks involved in having both a natural and normal birth. Ricky Lake, the producer of the documentary, portrayed different perspectives of woman who have had natural births in an interesting way. One can agree that most women view natural birth as a very painful process due to the fact that pregnancy did not involve pain killer medications. When different woman described their experiences, they all seemed to have the same message; a mother can have a successful-natural birth by giving birth the right and most comfortable way. For a woman to feel uncomfortable during her birth, which in most situations is taken place in a hospital room, creates a disconnect between the mother and baby at the very moment of child birth.

Although Ricky Lake had a normal birth, with her first child, and natural birth, with her second child, she believes that when having a normal birth, a woman is more likely to alienate herself due to all of the interventions made when giving birth to a baby girl or boy. She also thinks those women who do decide to have a normal birth, to be aware of all of the long term affects that are most likely taken place after having an epidural, c-section, episiotomy, etc. She emphasizes on the fact that America views this process of giving birth to a baby as a kind of phobia where it is the most painful thing a woman can ever experience, when really it could be the most reminiscent experience—in terms of enjoying her newborn’s company of coming into the new world after nine months. (The Business of Being Born).



In the home birth YouTube video, the process of giving birth was looked very calm and concentrating. The mother did have a lot of support and seemed relaxed, although she was still in labor; she looked like she had the patience to deliver her baby by just closing her eyes and having contact with her husband who was with her 90% of the time. During the process, I couldn’t help but notice how the person, who was guiding the baby out of the birth-canal, seemed like she was tugging on the baby’s head. From what I remember being said in class that a person should never pull the head of the baby due to the risk of pulling the head out of place. Aside from that small dilemma, the couple seemed very open about their birth which puts them on the fence to why people do not talk about it, when this couple had the courage to post their experience on the World Wide Web.




The C-Section YouTube video was an interesting kind of birth rather than it being disturbing. Don’t get me wrong, I do not like the sight of flesh being cut up, but the way the baby was taken out of the mother’s uterus was much faster than the average birth with having to push the baby in and out of the vagina. The process had me thinking about the possible risks doctors could have ignored when giving the mother a c-section, but because majority of c-sections across the world have been successful & expensive, all risks are most likely ignored by doctors.

Both videos are significantly different when comparing to how the baby was being born, c-section--an intervention that could have possibly been suggested but not exactly needed by the doctor. Natural birth in shows much more physical comfort with the people around her such like the mid-wives who helped support her, meanwhile the woman who was having the c-section was being ripped apart by the people who were supposed to help her have the baby.

Overall, the process of giving birth in the 'normal' way is not as successful as people may think of it to be. There are many risks involved when having normal birth at the hospital, and very painful memories where the mother was unable to calm her self and body down by moving the way she wanted to. Instead she was strapped down, like Ms. Plaza, by machines to 'check the heart rate of her child'. There is no wrong to not have a heart rate monitor, a gurney involved in a child birth, epidural, c-section. All doctors need is patience and time.