September 2007

I have just inflated a birthing pool in our middle room, a room with partial stone walls, deep red tones on the one side, gentle straw on the other, the late summer light is softened by closed silk curtains, scented candles, and Mozart’s piano concertos playing on the wifi system.
It is a scene of utter bliss and relaxation: as the last stages of pregnancy ought to be – of love, of intimacy, of closing the doors to visitors, switching off of the phones, and seeking the privacy of the back of the cave as it were to bring forth a child.
The room is also symbolic of an act of rebellion, confidently and authentically chosen by my wife and I – to enjoy a homebirth.

From week eight of her pregnancy, the National Health Service has sought to interfere and to impose its bureaucratic version of the medical model of birth upon us, exploiting parents’ natural concerns and extrapolating those concerns into fears to the full to ensure that we were pulled in to its mass-production system of statistics, risk-factors, and protocols – sometimes according to self-serving agendas, but more often to cover their backs in case we sue if the baby does die: at least they can say, “we warned you of the risks.”

For the first few months, we went along with the protocol, but in the past few weeks have we had the strength and fight to enjoy the pregnancy – thanks to a private ante-natal service called Hypnobirth.

The first trimester was an extraordinary experience – we planned on trying for a child and were surprised how quickly Moira conceived: a fact that is thanks to another private and non-allopathic clinical homeopath whom we use, who was able to rid her body of rubella and ovarian cysts, which, needless to say, would have made any conception difficult and rife with problems. It was not something allopaths (symptom based medics) picked up. Trusting more in the private sector, my wife has also enjoyed chiropractic to ease her back and re-align her pelvis and acupuncture to encourage the cervix to soften and her body to prepare for birth. Our private practitioners were all very positive and encouraging, greeting the growing baby personally and sincerely and generally showing excellent and authentic client care.
            Not so with the NHS staff, particularly those higher up the allopathic priesthood (who tend to have put down the priestly garb of the stethoscope in favour of a more casual look and who spout statistics, statistics, and other damned lies).
            Trouble with the medical establishment began with a glucose tolerance test at week eight. This is purportedly indicative of an alleged symptom called gestational diabetes: diabetes exists and has serious consequences for the person, but the research world’s jury is out as to whether gestational diabetes exists in the form usually supposed. Perhaps pregnancy brings on a growing predisposition – naturally, you can’t tell unless the personal data on glucose levels exist prior to pregnancy. Or perhaps gestational diabetes is symptomatic of something else: Oxford University research points to the rather appealing theory that the male Y chromosome multiplying the in foetus acts to alter the mother’s gene expression to encourage the pancreas to let loose more sugars – the purpose of which is to produce a large but healthy baby who is going to survive (and evidence seems to suggest that large babies can be healthier – lifestyle and diet of parents notwithstanding of course). In turn, the mother acts to suppress the baby’s manipulation, effecting a genetic war between the two – the mother acting to secure a smaller baby so that she survives, the baby to become bigger, but not too big as to harm the mother prior to parturition. From an evolutionary perspective, this theory makes some sense – but again, like all theories concerning human health, there is much to debate: each individual is, after all, unique.
Moira’s raised glucose tolerance test result (bang on the borderline of World Health Authority Guidelines) prompted the medics to tick a box called ‘gestational diabetes.’ Trying to point out that at the time of the test my wife was under a lot of stress (we were in the middle of a massive house renovation with all of the troubles that can bring) and that going for any kind of blood test is highly stressful for her, that her body is not used to sugars or refined foods, that she is otherwise fit and healthy and controls her diet well (she’s wheat and milk intolerant), did not get a sympathetic robotdocs or even an intelligent hearing. It was like talking to robomedics (which I see from some reports are on their way in the States): we were talking out of the box, had no wish to jump into the box, even had intellectual issues with the existence of the box … to no avail.
One young doctor (wielding a stethoscope but mainly looking at a computer rather than the people in the room) snapped tartily that the link between a high glucose tolerance test and gestational diabetes was proven. At which point I looked down upon this so-self assured, arrogant little medic clicking on the keyboard less kindly than I would an undergraduate uttering how true the Keynesian multiplier is while entering logarithmic algorithms in to a calculator and reminded her that in science (particularly medical science) nothing is proved – theories are only disproved: data change; theories change. My reply was emphatic and authoritative enough for her to back off with widened eyes (finally catching her human-oriented attention) – uh oh, someone challenging medicine in the building, who let him in?
            The genetic manipulation theory makes some sense, yet even our diabetes consultant had not heard of it. Instead, the consultant presented ideas of death for us to mull over – which initially left us reeling. We’re better intellectually armed now: how many deaths had she seen in her career? What kind of lifestyles did the mothers pursue? Were there other factors such as alcohol or drug abuse?
Unravel the fearful images that allopathy often presents and a different picture – one of extremity and improbability emerges upon which we are supposed to bow in acquiescence and to hand over our lives and the all important births of our children.
            Each time we went to the hospital for fortnightly tests, we became more emboldened. Firstly, our research had given us many causes for suspicion as to whether Moira had g.d. One senior registrar (i.e., passed a few more exams than others – not someone I would look twice at hiring) kept harking on about the statistics: 30% of women with g.d., go on to get full diabetes (“Did they have it before?” Not heard). “So 7 out of 10 do not,” replied my wife (not heard). Statistics, more statistics ensued. “My wife is not a statistic.” (Not heard). “Well, talking of statistics,” I interrupted, again taking on my old persona of a lecturer tutoring a student in why they failed a paper, “are you an average doctor?” That seemed to upset him for some reason. Can’t imagine why. Touché.
            Secondly, what encouraged us further to dig our heels in and to fight for a more joyous pregnancy and for … a home birth (shock, horror!) was that Moira’s daily monitoring statistics actually came no where near the diabetic range, indeed she was often bordering on hypoglycaemic: a wonderful irony recently occurred, when a midwife burst into a diabetes consultation to ask if she was alright and whether she needed some food – a sandwich or some toast? “No good, I’m wheat intolerant,” she had to remind them (often ignored by the medics). A banana was quickly procured from someone’s lunch box and gratefully munched.
            Moira, whose mother was one of the most formidable general practitioners in the area, rose to the challenge of tackling allopaths head on. She smiled and batted back the horror stories and statistics thrown at her. Very recently [about ten days prior to the actual birth], when I was not present, a protocol sympathetic midwife and her superior came to our house to – what can only be seen as – psychologically bully Moira into not thinking about having a home birth and into being a good little citizen and running along into the hospital to allow the qualified medics help her give birth (with unnecessary internal examinations, unnecessary monitoring, blood tests, lack of privacy, not brilliant standard of cleanliness, the high potential for drug use and surgery – a medic’s dream, it seems to us). “You’re not qualified,” is a wonderfully appropriate line in the Monty Python’s birth sketch. Check it out – that’s what we faced.
            Instead, here we are, preparing for a home birth empowered by the Hypnobirth tutor we bought in. For a flavour of what they offer, I suggest devouring the philosophy on their website and similar sites such as freebirth.org. I’ll pen a separate article on the philosophy later – meanwhile, I have a birth to prepare for: Hypnobirth seeks to remind women (especially in the West) that pregnancy does not have to be a medical issue for most women. A small percentage may indeed have to pursue the medical route, but for most pregnancy is a normal and natural process – it’s that simple. The hypno- bit works to help us rethink our deepest thoughts and fears concerning birth, helping to put a lot into perspective. For information here, I’d suggest enjoying the video, What Babies Want. Our own birth experiences were raised and we (emotionally) put them into perspective – suddenly, in one session, I found a lot of family relationships fell into place! I loved what we learned – it was beautiful.
            Each night, we listen to a CD of “birth affirmations”, which initially, for the English mind, sounds rather cheesy, but it grows on you and eventually it begins to make sense: much concerns the mother’s view of herself, of the relationship between her and her baby, of “each day, my baby comes closer to me” and “I relax so my baby relaxes.” What was truly weird is that I dreamed of giving birth one night!!
            Relaxation becomes the key to the process: we practice self-hypnosis and me hypnotizing Moira; we live a hectic life but make time for it. I massage her regularly to help ease sciatic issues and slight ankle oedema – “no, she does not have high blood pressure” we remind the medics, and the massage works well to help encourage her fluids to recycle better. We go through the mantras, sometimes laughing at them, but they’re sinking in. We watch positive images and videos and listen to positive testimonies from women doing Hypnobirth or from having unassisted births at home. My favourite video is of a Russian commune acting to rebalance the birthing culture following the Soviet “Brave New World” style births – something very close to our own cultures’ medical establishments’ view of birth by the way. Women give birth in the Black Sea (in the Summer months): no drugs, no stethoscopes, no monitoring, no masks, no machines, no contrivances at all – simply a small, anarchic society built on the ideal of giving people a loving and natural birth. Once you’ve seen the videos, it’s hard to take a hospital birthing suite seriously.
            So here we are – mentally preparing, physically preparing for the birth. We have put a lot of time, energy, and money to secure what we hope will be a successful home birth: we believe in it because we both know mother and baby are normal and healthy. The colleagues we’ve used in chiropractic and acupuncture are behind us – we feel a lot of their strength – a faith in what we’re doing. Yet still, we are accosted with conventional beliefs all around – people assuming that “of course, you go to hospital to give birth” (why? Nothing’s wrong with my wife or baby…) or of women (and may I emphasise this point?) retelling the horrors of their birth to Moira – right up to this week – obviously she’s about to go into ‘labour’ – so why frighten her, why encourage a sympathetic bodily response: so that she clams up and needs intervention? We’ve learned from the Hypnobirth research that fear of birth encourages problems to arise – after all, if you’re going around psychologically tense, muscles will contract, the baby will feel the stress – it knows what’s going on – and complications will arise. Would you want to come into a world when people have iterated how horrific the experience will be (what drugs, C-sections, episiotomies, and countless other violent and stressful situations)? There is a lot in attitude – no more so than during pregnancy.
            From fearful beginnings, we have learned to enjoy our baby, protect it from the gossiping horrors of neighbours and allopaths – Moira’s learned to let such images just wash over her as if they were meaningless. Mia, our tutor, gave good advice – what to say when people begin, “oh, when I gave birth…”, you reply, “sh, baby’s listening,” or “let’s swap horror stories after the birth, please.”
            We’re getting closer – I’ve gone through in my mind what may happen – and run through the contingencies. We have never ruled out employing the insurance policy of going to hospital, but that’s how we view it – an insurance policy, there – just in case. But generally we foresee no need.

Post partum

We are now enjoying being parents to a healthy Charles, born on the 1st October at 11.13am at home in the birthing pool to relaxing guitar music and scented candles.
            I had just finished reviewing an article on military ethics of all things and closed the laptop when I heard Moira call that her waters had broke – all tiredness shed immediately as I jubilantly began preparing the birth room. She was hungry (medics don’t think you’re supposed to eat during childbirth for some reason – listen to the body is the proper philosophy), so I prepared snacks (and managed to write up and email the next day’s work – an economics test – while she jumped into the whirlpool bath to ease her muscles). Then all my attention was on her. By 3am she suggested we call in the community midwives – L arrived not long after: and what a breath of fresh air: pleasant, relaxed, relaxing, and suitably chatty.
            Through her surges (the much more positive term for “contractions” – think about what contraction means and you’ll quickly understand why it’s not the best term for imaging a relaxing and dilating cervix), I worked on several acupressure points to relieve pain. These points, used only in birth, encourage the body to release endorphins, nature’s own anaesthesia – much healthier than drugging mum and baby! Just say no to drugs, the campaign says – right! And especially in pregnancy – but prepare the mind and body for pregnancy: nothing comes easily in life – there is no gain without effort and when our modern medicalised culture implies that drugs can make us better, we can only sigh at the intellectual and psychological mountains that have to be shifted to prepare the mind/body for birth. We prepared well over many weeks – and now it was all coming into play.
            One of the characteristics of Hypnobirth is apparently its ability to take midwives – even well experienced ones like L (22 years service) – by surprise. At 9am she was ready to leave us, for Moira was not apparently doing much except having surges. I pointed out, “but what’s that?” It was the head – just emerging. Charles then decided to play peek-a-boo for the next two hours – I’m afraid I encouraged Moira with much hearty abandon at various stage: “Oh, look, he almost made it! He’s got his ears stuck!” The only curse was made by me in jest: the midwife regularly placed a listening device to check his heart beat (it remained a healthy regular 120 beats – very common for Hypnobirth babies to not become traumatised, for the mother is not – and why should she, lying in her own house, relaxed, loving company around, professionals kept in their place to act only if they need to); once, we got this strange vocal feedback, “First time I’ve ever heard that,” L said somewhat mystified, “wonder what he said.” “I’m ****ing stuck!” I muffled. It was the only curse used – Moira kept her vocal dignity (she’s like that). She told me later that throughout she recalled the birth affirmations, particularly, “I relax, so my baby relaxes.”
            I tried other humour – one failing flat. Several days before, we had watched some delightful comedies online; one in particular of the English comedian Jasper Carrot had both of us in tears then and giggling for a few days afterward. “Remind me of that image,” my darling wife requested, “when I give birth.”
            So I did.
            “It’s not funny just now,” came the steely reply. Uh oh. My mind went to a video I’d watched of Bill Cosby on natural childbirth, one I wouldn’t let Moira watch as it was all about how things go wrong – done in side-splitting inimitable Cosby style (he just has to look at the camera and I start laughing). I could see why things went wrong – wife lying down (worst position), hospital team of medics interfering, no mental preparation – a common case of “ah, we’ll do natural child birth – it’ll be easy, it’s natural after all” without any cultural cum psychological preparation. The analysis should not dim the humour: Cosby is a genius of expression and commentary – follow it up with his visit to the dentist (I still chortle, three weeks afterwards): a classic. Anyway, Cosby’s wife had had enough of “natural” childbirth and the consequences duly followed. Fortunately, Moira did not turn into a Mrs Cosby.
            “I can’t laugh. My sides are literally splitting, and if I laugh, it will hurt even more.”
Okay.
            After two hours of this peek-a-boo game, Moira was beginning to tire and the midwife had joined by another, H, who was much more protocol oriented. By 11am they started speaking medic language – the language of “we need to save our asses if something goes wrong.”
            I got Moira to turn over onto her knees and held her raised in a position described to us by a yoga teacher acquaintance in a series of sketches of useful positions for birth. I gazed at the drawings daily, just as Moira looked at a picture of a baby in the womb in normal position – Hypnobirth, as well as chiropractic and acupuncture – has a good record of being able to turn breach babies: again, anything to avoid the knife! This new position was beginning to work but protocol raised its bureaucratic head.
            “We may need to think of transferring,” H said to me.
            No bloody way, I thought. Instinct (and much anatomical training in the past two years) kicked in – as I encouraged her to breathe down, I squeezed from the top of her obliques, just under the ribs – and lo! Baby’s head actually came out. I wasn’t sure what happened next – L told us afterwards: Moira span back round and again I provided a downwardly moving squeeze as she surged and breathed down and out came the baby to its waist. One more surge and he was out – out and up he came into my hands, helped by the midwives a little, onto Moira’s chest. Good move, thought I.
            But I tapped into a flurry of midwifery conversation: “Do what you need to,” I commanded – something I slightly regret but I’ve gone over in my mind and I would only change one or two details if I were there again. The baby was not yet breathing, and I had heard “oxygen.” I knew enough of their protocol to know what was needed; sadly, his umbilical cord had to be clamped – I cut it though. We had been hoping for a natural third stage labour and with hindsight I’m sure we could have got it, but the entire context screamed out to me to have my son breathing. Moira was dazed – I was the sole decision maker. With the cord cut, he was taken over to our massage couch a few feet from the birth pool (I know now that oxygen should be given, if possible, while the baby remains on the mother- the removal of the baby from the mother is incredibly barbaric and Moira remains very upset still (in late 2009) from that act). “Massage, massage,” I instructed as I stumbled out of the pool to retain family contact with the baby (I’m a qualified holistic masseur). The midwives were ridding his body of its vernix, something I was dead against – it acts to soak into the skin and avoid cradle cap and dry skin conditions – it’s there for a natural reason. “Don’t wipe it all off,” I had to insist, “let it sink in it stops ecsema – and it’s what we want.” Well, we wanted a full placental birth, which we did not get. A medical colleague later drily commented - because you had home birth, you had to be punished somehow!
H. now administered oxygen (pleased, I’m somewhat sure, to be doing something according to the precious protocol) as L. sorted Moira out for a jab to rid her of the placenta; I reached the baby and saw one of the most delightful and relief inducing sights in the world – his entire thoracic cavity propagate a pinkiness! “He’s alright, he’s going to breathe,” I told a now worried Moira. He took a breath and then I scooped him up. His eyes first opened on mine.
“Hello! Welcome to the world, I’m your father,” I said grinning from ear to ear, then reassuring Moira that he was fine; her placenta delivered and a single stitch for her efforts – at which point she took a deep breath on the nitrous oxide and went woozy! Later she said that she was glad she never took any in during the birth – she suck on the gas and air a few times but the midwife later told her that she hardly took any in. “It was so much better to be conscious throughout,” Moira said, “I hated that drugged feeling.”
I placed baby onto her breast and all was done. Within an hour, Moira and baby retired to our bed, relaxed, happy, content, not drugged, and breast feeding well. I took the dogs for a walk to get some fresh air, recover, and allow the night to sink into my emotions. I returned to find a good friend at her bedside teaching her about feeding; it was then we learned his name.
“He doesn’t look like an Edward,” Moira said.
“That’s fine, there’s no rush to find out what suits him.”
She smiled as the baby looked up. “He says, ‘you can call me Charles.’”
Where did that come from? It was not a name anywhere on our personal nomenclature horizon. A friend later told us that he had said, “Oh, they’ll have a boy and call it Charles,” but we’d not seen him after he thought that, so there was no influence there – he’s a little quirky like that. Buddhists too have a theory … For us, it was a fitting start for a new life. Our boy has an independent mind from the beginning.
Born in freedom.
Born at home.
Born in love.
Born in a beautiful and peaceful environment.
And he’s going to be home schooled!

GO TO INTELLIGENT PARENTING FOR MORE BIRTH NOTES

Alex teaches all manner of subjects these days as director, with his wife, of Classical Foundations, a thoroughly independent and private concern offering music and academic education locally in England to over a hundred pupils. He is also an independent scholar (that doesn’t mean rich – just dedicated), a novelist, a masseur, and (at the time of initially writing this, he had to pull out due to lack of dosh)) a student at the McTimoney College of Chiropractic. He is author of A Philosophy of War (2002); An Introduction to Political Philosophy (2007); Educational Biography of John Locke (2007), with forthcoming works: An A-Z of Philosophy (2008) and an Educational Biography of Aristotle (2008). He has published articles on just war theory and military ethics, co-edited a book on Military and Humanitarian Intervention and once, when institutionalised, was an Associate Professor and even Head of Department for the University of Evansville’s British Campus. He’s now on pedagogic crusades to enlighten all he meets not only on the delights of the free market, alternative/complementary therapies, private education, but also the beauty of birth and how gorgeous his son is.

About Dr Moseley