Childbirth Experiences

I have been blessed to give birth to three beautiful children. I am sharing the story of the birth of my first child, my daughter Rachele. My husband and I had only been married for two months when I discovered I was pregnant. We had planned on trying to conceive after being married a year and often refer to her as our insta- baby as she was at the celebration of our one year wedding anniversary. My pregnancy was uneventful and progressed normally.

On the evening I went into labor we had been out with a group of friend celebrating a birthday.  I woke my husband up around 12:00 AM to tell him it was time. I was screened upon arrival and admitted to labor and delivery. I had strong contraction and progressed well through most of the morning. I had taken Lamaze classes and was trying to have a drug free birth. The next morning my doctor arrived but my labor had stalled, although I was contracting I was not dilating. The chosen course of action was to administer Pitocin, a drug that is commonly used to enhance labor. Several minutes after it administration Rachele’s heart stopped.  I was place on my left side, then my right to see if it was possibly the umbilical cord being compressed, there was no change. It was decided that a cesarean section was needed so I was immediately wheeled to the operating room. I could hear my doctor yelling to get an anesthesiologist as I would need general anesthesia; there was no time to wait for an epidural to take effect. Because of that my husband was not allowed in the delivery room and the last thing I remember is the nurse literally pouring the antiseptic on my abdomen. I was not awake to see my first baby enter the world. Her Apgar score was a 2 but at five minutes it was a 7. My first few days as a new mom were very stressful. Rachele was in the NICU being monitored and tested and I had an infection in my incision so I was not allowed to see her. My husband found a sympathetic nurse and they snuck her out of the NICU, tubes and all, to my room for a few minutes so I could look at her. It was 3 days before I got to nurse her for the first time.

I chose this example of a personal birth experience because access to appropriate medical care is critical to improved birth rate and healthy outcome for babies. In this instance the drug most likely caused my daughters issue but without it I may have been one of those women who could not deliver or whose labor went on for too long causing harm to her or her baby. My labor stalled during my next two deliveries also. I was closely monitored and giving an epidural before the administering of Pitocin so that if I need another C-section I would be awake and my husband could be present. The C-sections were gratefully not needed. My daughter was in a hospital with a state of the art NICU and received the best of care. She is now a healthy 22 year old.

I believe the type of delivery and interventions needed afterward affect early development. As a young child my daughter couldn’t wear certain types of clothing because she found them irritating. She woke up in the middle of the night until she was 2; she went right back to sleep but just needed to know we were there. She is very independent and needs to have a sense of control, I believe this stems from her separation from me and all the poking and prodding she went through those first days of her life. Nancy Newton Verrier makes reference to this in her book The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child which I read after finding out I was adopted at 40. Verrier writes about how early trauma is carried with us forever and that NICU babies and adoptees often have similar traits. I find that interesting because people often comment that she has similar personality traits to me. Now I wonder if they are genetic or cause by the traumas surrounding our births.

I researched childbirth in Jamaica, my husband and I spent our honeymoon there. We had the opportunity to leave our opulent resort and see some of the country where the poverty level of the Jamaican people was obvious.  In a 1995 article in Midwifery Today, a midwife in Negril was highlighted. There is one clinic in the area where the expectant mothers can come for prenatal care once a week. They can wait for hours on hard wooden benches to be seen by the staff that consists of a registered nurse, a licensed midwife, a nurse practitioner and a public health nurse. Two doctors share duties four days a week. The midwife attends most of the births and travels by taxi. She has converted a room in her own home into a birthing room and sterilizes her instruments by boiling them. For equipment she has a blood pressure cuff, a stethoscope, a fetoscope and birthkit. She has no oxygen, suction equipment, fluids or emergency transportation. The nearest hospital is more than an hour away.  The Jamaican government regulates what she can get paid for attending births to about $20 US, but most can’t even afford to pay her that. This is much different to the shiny floors and comfortable birthing room I arrived to. Attending doctors being on call 24hrs a day, several nurses, anesthesiologists and others.  My bill was much different also.

References

Verrier, N. (1993). Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child. LeVerne, TN: Ingram Book Company.

Whitefield, Kathleen.  (1995, June). Midwifery in Jamaica. Midwifery Today and Childbirth Education,(2), 13.  Retrieved September 8, 2011, from ProQuest Central. (Document ID: 613221471).