Bring Birth Back!

Yesterday was the event to kick off the campaign to build a birth center in Atlanta.  Mayim Bialik (BLOSSOM!) was the speaker.  She isn't just an actress, she also has a Ph.D. in neuroscience.  Ummm, that's impressive.  She spoke about what she has done with natural birth and natural parenting.  She has even done elimination communication with both her boys.  I have been curious about that so it was interesting to hear how it has worked for them.  She referenced a great online community for natural parenting resources, Mothering.  I'll warn you, their articles and information are good, but they are heavy on the natural aspect of things. 

I also really appreciated her attitude about people who may be skeptical about the benefits of natural birth, extended breastfeeding, etc.  She offered the advice that when people make comments to the effect of, "you must be superwoman because I could never do ___."  You can simply respond, "well you do the best you can with the education, resources, and support that you have."  I like that because it frustrates me that people act like I must be superhuman to have natural childbirth and really it's just that they didn't do the research, build the support team, and set themselves up for their best birth. 

She also gave the suggestion that a good response to people thinking you are weird for breastfeeding a baby past infancy or not wanting to leave your child to go out is, "this is just what works for us, it may not work for everyone."  Again, I get kind of tired of people suggesting that Sarah Graves still nursing is a bit much and that Aaron and I need to leave her to go on dates.  I get so tired of the fact that I can't make derrogatory comments about people who have children only so they can leave them all the time in order to have "their" time.  The world is not as black and white as people would like for it to be and everyone has to find their own way to make it work. 

I believe in this vision of a birth center so much and am so excited to see them build this.  A birth center birth sounds like an amazing experience. 

 Sarah Graves is sporting her new Atlanta Birth Center t-shirt! 

The back of the shirt reads, "Bring Birth Back!"  This is so important as we as a population have to make changes to how we think about birth and maternal health.  Currently, the C-section rate in China is nearly 50%.  Can you imagine having a baby requiring major abdominal surgery as almost the norm in your society?   The U.S. as a whole is at 1 in 3 births being by C-section and that is overwhelming enough.