By David Vernon

I remember clearly the day I decided to publish a book of great birth stories.  I am my sons’ (aged six and three) fulltime carer so I am used to going to Mothers’ Groups and Playgroups.  On this particular day and at this particular playgroup, all the kids were engrossed in block building, drawing or painting.  We parents were sitting around having a well-deserved cuppa and munching on homemade biscuits.  The conversation turned to how the little kids we were caring for came into the world.

One by one, the Mums compared their birth experiences.  Soon it seemed to turn into a competition to find out who could tell the most traumatic tale.  I sat there silent and shocked.  What could I say?  Firstly, I was a bloke and had never gone through labour and birth.  Secondly, my experiences of the birth of my boys were joyous and wonderful occasions.  There was no trauma and no angst.  The only tears we experienced were tears of joy.  My wife, Barb recovered quickly and she was feeding our boys successfully and comfortably (usually!) immediately after the birth.  Don’t get me wrong, Barb worked and laboured hard.  It was an intense experience, but it was not traumatic.  We emerged from our birth experience, strong, happy and confident parents (even though we were completely new to the parenting game).

That playgroup day, the women talked of pain, sorrow, disappointment, loneliness and depression.  They did not speak of joy, wonder, power, strength and an overwhelming sense of confidence in themselves caused by bringing their baby into the world.  If women and men only hear the bad experiences of others, what does that do to people’s perception of labour and birth?  Is it seen as something that is achievable and is an empowering rite of passage for women?  Or is it seen as something to be feared and avoided?

Fear and birth seems to go hand-in-hand these days.  In last month’s Canberra’s Child (March 2005), Lisa Hampson gave a particularly gruelling view of her labour.  She painted her birth experience by using words and phrases like agony, hitting the wall, absolute agony (Lisa seems to like that word) and terror.  Now I have read enough birth stories (both the good and the bad) in putting together a book on great births, to know that Lisa is in a minority in describing her birth this way.  Certainly, many women do find labour painful.  But few find it agonising.  Many women find giving birth tiring, but few hit the wall (unless that is in transition — and then it’s over).

And those that do have the misfortune to have an agonising and exhausting labour can nearly always be easily identified.  They are the women who have not been supported during their pregnancy and labour.  Sure, they may have had regular ten to fifteen minute appointments with obstetricians, and perhaps they have been lucky enough to meet a midwife before entering the labour room but they have not had the opportunity to forge a friendship (not just a relationship, but a friendship) with their primary carer.

Giving birth is an intimate act, just as creating the baby nine months earlier was an intimate act.  Giving birth needs privacy, comfort and trust.  Yet into this intimate birth space women invite people they hardly know to care for them.  How can a woman give her body over to the natural instinct to birth, when people who are practically strangers surround her?  I can tell you, as a bloke, I would not be at all comfortable creating a baby, with strangers wandering in and out of my bedroom, checking out how I was doing with monitors and rubber gloves.  And yet we expect women to perform and deliver their babies in such circumstances!

Having a Great Birth in Australia is a compilation of twenty birth stories from women all over Australia who have not given birth with strangers, but with a known midwife, with whom they have forged a relationship of trust and friendship.  They do not have agonising births.  Their births are intense.  Their births are sometimes painful.  Their births are tiring and that’s why it is called ‘labour.’ But they are all manageable and the power and joy these women feel when they successfully push out their baby is overwhelming.

I feel sorry for Lisa Hampson.  Her birth experience was traumatic and fear-ridden.  But while she may have put some of her demons to rest by sharing her angst with other women, she has also spread fear.  And fear in birth is something that is not only unwanted, but also unwarranted when a woman is properly supported.

In Canberra, women can experience the intimacy and safety that one-to-one midwifery care offers at the Canberra Midwifery Program (if they book early enough in their pregnancy – tel 6244 2222), where they can give birth without fear.

Having a Great Birth in Australia was jointly published by the birth advocacy group Maternity Coalition and the Australian College of Midwives in May 2005.  For more information click here.

© David Vernon, 2005

Submitted to  Canberra’s Child and rejected on the basis that it didn’t meet their content guidelines!  Clearly terrorizing pregnant women does.