The cult of natural childbirth has gone too far

It's childbirth, not performance art

Birth
(Image credit: (iStock))

I wasn't planning on having a birth story. During my pregnancy, I used all the extra energy I could summon to resist the Brooklyn birthing culture that calls forgoing pain medication "natural" and embraces doulas, midwives, bathtubs, and birthing centers. When my doctor asked me what my birthing plan was I told her I was looking at it.

She was the one who went to school for this, the one who had done this hundreds of times. I wanted to have the baby and get on with it; my son would be the story, not how I got him out. If it wasn't for the fact that my water broke the day after Hurricane Sandy swept through New York City, shutting down all but one local hospital, I would have succeeded. In the end, I found myself in an overcrowded hospital with an exhausted and ill-prepared staff. The waiting room was crowded with moaning women on the brink, but once I got admitted it was eerily quiet, with only one doctor and a handful of nurses overseeing a hallway’s worth of deliveries. We all made it through okay — but it wasn't pleasant or "natural," and that wasn't the point.

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Elissa Strauss

Elissa Strauss writes about the intersection of gender and culture for TheWeek.com. She also writes regularly for Elle.com and the Jewish Daily Forward, where she is a weekly columnist.