Unmedicated Childbirth: Will My Medical Provider Understand?

Sunny Gault: Congrats, you've decided to have an unmedicated birth. But what if everybody isn't on board with your decision? Perhaps your family, your friends? What about your medical provider? I'm Sunny with New Mommy Media. And I'm here with Hehe Stewart. She's the creator of The Birth Lounge and host of The Birth Lounge Podcast. Hehe, thanks so much for being with us today.

Hehe Stewart: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited for this conversation.

Sunny Gault: Well, Hehe we know that more and more moms are choosing to give birth, unmedicated, right without medication, and they may get some pushback, because that's a little bit different than what you know, maybe our moms or grandmothers have done in the past. First, I want to talk about family and friends. Do you have advice for moms who have made this decision? and their family and friends? They're given them a little bit of pushback?

Hehe Stewart: Yeah, I think you have a couple options here. Right? The first option is, you don't actually have to talk about your birth plans with anybody that could be a topic that's off limits that you feel confident in what you and your partner and your provider have chosen for you. And that's it. The second thing is finding your voice and realizing that exactly what you said, Sunny things are different than when our parents had children. And so it's okay to be different. And it's okay to say, I respect what you chose, and this is what I'm choosing, and I'm so grateful that you're gonna respect that for me, thank you so much, you know, and then the third thing I think, is you could take the route of education, because a lot of times when we when we find some pushback on our birth plans, it's because the people that we're talking to care about us so much, and what we're sharing with them makes them fearful, because they don't know, a lot of times people are very uneducated, when it comes to birth and to no fault of their own. But this is an opportunity that you can take to educate them. If that person is in the place to receive that.

Sunny Gault: That's a really good point, because it does come from a place of love, right? Your family and friends care about you. And a lot of times we just know what we know or what we personally experience. So if anything falls outside of that box, I think it's somewhat human nature to question that. But when you provide them with some information, you know, maybe that can be helpful. So that's a really good point. What about medical providers? Because they have the information, right? It's a little bit different situation with them. In theory, they should have the information to know the pros and cons. But you still might get some pushback. So what do you do then?

Hehe Stewart: It's that in theory that you said, right, so you would be very surprised at how many providers actually have never witnessed or supported an unmedicated vaginal delivery, meaning an unmedicated delivery that we typically think of when it comes to birth, right? If you have a provider that has never witnessed that, they're going to be very uncomfortable when it comes to supporting that. So I would say your very first move is to find a provider who not only believes in unmedicated delivery, but has the skill set to support that. In labor, when you're experiencing these labor pains, you're going to enter what we call labor land, and you are going to need specific support, you need to surround yourself with people who are comfortable with safe pain, because the pain in labor does not mean that something is wrong. It's not an indicator of something going wrong in your body, which is typically what pain means for us pain during labor are pressures and sensations and their indicators that things are actually going right. So I like to refer to them as safe pain, and you need providers and support people in a birth team around you to be able to support you in that safe pain, because it's hard to watch people waiver. It is.

Sunny Gault: Yeah, it is. And that should probably be one of the first questions that you do ask your provider because I think it's important to that that we match evenly with our provider. And if that's going to be a sticking point during your whole pregnancy, then that's kind of a problem. Right?

Hehe Stewart: It is a problem. And I think that we often make it such a personal thing where well, it may make that provider feel like they're a bad person, or they're a bad doctor. That's not exactly what that means. It just means that they're not a fit for you. But there are hundreds of people out there who are a fit for that doctor, or they wouldn't still have a job. So finding a provider who is perfectly aligned with you is crucial when it comes to your birth and they do exist. They're out there. It may take a little searching, but your perfect provider is out there.

Sunny Gault: Do you think that we're seeing more and more providers kind of be more open to these other options? Do you see that happening in the industry? Or are certain people still standing their ground and and maybe not really giving this the second thought?

Hehe Stewart: Yeah, I think most of that goes back to where do you go to medical school and then what's the culture of the facility that you practice at currently, if you are at a birth facility that does have a lot of epidurals or has a high c-section rate, then your skill set and the just the opportunities to attend an unmedicated delivery. is probably going to be much lower at somewhere who has a low epidural rate and a low c-section rate it generally indicates that that facility has a higher unmedicated and vaginal delivery.

Sunny Gault: Okay, thank you so much Hehe. Now if you'd like to learn more about he he and her services as well as her podcast, you can check out https://www.thebirthlounge.com. Also be sure to check out our website https://newmommymedia.com. Where real moms talk about real life.