Believing that vaginal birth is an achievement depends on a fundamental misunderstanding about why some babies fit and others do not. Women have NO control over whether a baby is going to fit, therefore they should not be taking any credit if the baby does fit and they should not be taking any blame if the baby does not fit.
In other words, the claim that vaginal birth is an “achievement” or “empowering” or worthy of praise makes as much sense as believing your eye color is an achievement or empowering or worthy of praise. You have to be pretty desperate for positive attention to take credit for bodily attributes that are beyond anyone’s control.
Let’s leave aside for the moment the issue of whether the baby can tolerate labor and look only at the factors that determine whether the skull of the baby will be able to pass through the bones of the mother’s pelvis. Four major factors are involved: pelvis, passenger, fetal position and power. Women can control NONE of them.
I’ve written about the pelvis and the passenger (fetus) before:
Most people imagine that the pelvis is like a hoop that the baby’s head must pass through, and indeed doctors often talk about it that way. However, the reality is far more complicated. The pelvis is a bony passage with an inlet and an outlet having different dimensions and a multiple bony protuberances jutting out at various places and at multiple angles. The baby’s head does not pass through like a ball going through a hoop. The baby’s head must negotiate the bony tube that is the pelvis, twisting this way and that to make it through…
There are bony protuberances that jut into the pelvis from either side (the ischial spines) and the bottom of the sacrum and the coccyx, located in the back of the pelvis, jut forward. How does the baby negotiate these obstacles? During labor, the dimension of the baby’s head occupies the largest dimension of the mother’s pelvis. But because of the multiple obstacles, the largest part of the mother’s pelvis is different from top to middle to bottom. Therefore, the baby is forced to twist and turn its head in order to fit.
If the pelvic inlet is toot small the baby’s head may never even drop into the pelvis. If the ischial spines stick too far into the pelvis,the head the head will not be able to get past them. If the sacrum and coccyx are angled too far forward they may stop the head from going farther.
It isn’t a matter of the absolute dimensions of the pelvis, but the dimensions relative to the individual baby. Almost all women can vaginally deliver a small baby, but a big baby is another matter entirely. The claims of natural childbirth and homebirth advocates that “a mother cannot grow a baby too big for her pelvis” is simply made up. The size of the mother’s pelvis is determined by her genes and the size of the baby is determined by her partner’s genes as well. His genetic contribution may lead to a large baby and that isn’t going to change simply because the mother’s pelvis is small.
Over time, babies have evolved so that the bones of the skull are not fused and can slide over each other, reducing the diameter of the head. This is called “molding” and accounts for the typical conehead of the newborn. But there is a limit to the amount of molding that the head can undergo and ultimately, the baby may not fit.
That’s pelvis and passenger. What about position? The optimal position for a baby to enter the pelvis is head first, spine facing the mother’s front. This position is known as occiput anterior. Babies don’t always cooperate. If the head is in anything other than the ideal position the fit will be even tighter. That’s why babies in the OP position (facing frontwards) and babies with asynclitic heads (the head titled to one side) are much more difficult to deliver vaginally. Their heads no longer in the smallest possible diameter. It’s like trying to put on a turtleneck face first of over your ear instead of starting from the back of your head. It’s much more difficult.
The final factor is power. Even if the baby is small enough to fit through the pelvis, it won’t go through unless the uterus is pushing against the baby with a sufficient amount of force to counter the resistance of the soft tissue and pelvic bones. The power is the strength, duration and frequency of uterine contractions. Any or all of these can be insufficient to push the baby through the pelvis. That’s where pitocin comes in. Inadequate contractions can be strengthened by pitocin, and the frequency and duration of contractions can be increased. Many women and babies who would have died before the advent of pitocin for labor augmentation have smooth uncomplicated labors once pitocin is given to the mother.
What can the mother do about these factors? Absolutely nothing. She cannot increase the diameter of her pelvic inlet, change the shape of her ischial spines or decrease the angle of her sacrum. She can do nothing about the size of the baby. She can do nothing about the position of the baby. She can do nothing about the power of her uterus.
The only thing a woman can do is to continue with a protracted labor and hope that the baby will eventually fit through. This is where we have to return to the issue of whether the baby can tolerate labor.
Labor is stressful for the baby. Every contraction cuts off blood flow to the placenta. Therefore, the baby is essentially “holding its breath” with every contraction. The placenta is supposed to transfer enough oxygen between contractions so that the baby can tolerate being deprived of oxygen for a minute or more every two minutes. The oxygen transfer capacity of the placenta can be compromised by a variety of factors including high blood pressure, post dates, or an undiagnosed deficiency in the placenta itself. Even a healthy baby with a healthy placenta may be unable to withstand labor indefinitely. The longer the labor lasts, the greater the risk to the baby.
Strictly speaking, the baby is either going to fit or not going to fit and there’s nothing the mother can do about it. If the baby is not going to fit she will eventually have to consent to a C-section or she will ultimately die.
If the problem is poor uterine power, the baby may eventually come through after a very long labor, putting the baby at risk of distress and the mother at risk of postpartum hemorrhage. Treatment with pitocin when the labor is diagnosed as protracted will take hours off the labor, with benefits to both mother and baby. Refusing pitocin can paradoxically increase the need for a C-section by increasing the length of labor until the baby can no longer tolerate it, or until an infection develops or some other complication occurs.
Yes, it is true that a baby born vaginally after a multi-day labor was always capable of fitting and might have been delivered by C-section “unnecessarily” but the corollary is that the baby that ultimately fits may sustain damage from oxygen deprivation during the prolonged labor.
Either way, vaginal birth is not an achievement. If the four factors are not properly aligned, the baby is not coming out through the vagina no matter what. The only issue is how much stress the mother is willing to expose the baby to before she acknowledges reality.
Also, there are many things a woman can do about the things you listed…first…the “POWER”…a mother can eat correctly and exercise during her pregnancy so that when the time comes, she will be strong enough and healthy enough and her body will have what it needs to work correctly. Secondly, she can avoid drugs so that she can have full use of her body and muscles during labor and delivery. This also is true for the “PASSENGER.” If the mother has been eating well and exercising, and avoiding all drugs during pregnancy and labor, her baby will have the best chance of being strong and healthy and tolerate labor well. Babies are tough and are made to be able to tolerate the natural contractions of a mother’s body, but it is when we mess with labor and start adding pitocin which causes much stronger contractions that would never happen in nature that baby becomes oxygen-deprived and distressed. Next, the PELVIS….the pelvis is wonderful in that during pregnancy, hormones are released that soften the ligaments surrounding the pelvis so that they stretch and move so the baby can fit through. A woman doesn’t need to DO anything….nature is doing it for her. Also, eating and exercising regularly can help her more easily get into the best positions for labor the stretch those pelvic muscles and ligaments. Finally, the POSITION…yes, there are many things you can do for the position of the baby. There are lots of different ways to get a baby to turn and get into the best position, but mainly the very best way to encourage a baby to get into a good position is to avoid all drugs so that you can move yourself and get into whatever position feels best, because those are the ones your baby needs you in to move down into the pelvis correctly. if you are lying on your back with an epidural you are working against gravity and you baby cannot move as easily as it needs to and can get stuck. FINALLY…..the ONLY way to tell if a baby will not fit is to do a trial of labor. That is a scientific fact. There is no other way to tell, no ultrasound, no measuring, no doctor can tell you your baby won’t fit because only God knows how much your body will stretch and how much your baby’s head will mold. So I’m sorry, you present labor, birth, and women as helpless pawns in a fate we have no control over, but that just ISN’T true. there are many, many, things women can do, and the first is EDUCATE themselves on the truth! Thank you for reading.
please understand, I do understand there are things that go wrong, and I understand that, but labor, birth, is a beautiful, joyful experience that need not be avoided or put down and there is so much we CAN do to make it the best experience possible.
because there are certain hormones that come into play, as well as physiological, psychological, and emotional changes that happen during labor and vaginal births that simply do not happen during a c-section, especially a planned one. a mother who has gone through labor and then had a c-section will get some of those benefits, but not all. there are many studies out now that prove that there are many benefits and reasons to have a vaginal birth that include better bonding, better breastfeeding, less chance in injury/infection……there is a suggestion now that even women who are planning on having a c-section would benefit from going through labor because it is so important in so many ways. c-section is a major surgery and research shows that a vaginal birth (where possible) is far superior to a c-section.
Let’s see some links.
I went through natural, unmedicated labor for about 14 hours before my first daughter, then had a last minute c-section due to deep transverse arrest. I ended up with PTSD as a result. Not because of the c-section, because of the labor. For my second daughter, I chose to have a scheduled c-section, which was absolutely lovely. I was pregnant with my second daughter when I wrote the above comment. I’d like to see your research sources, because I fail to see how going through labor is going to benefit those women who have scheduled c-sections, unless they would like to do it for the experience.
Let’s see some of these studies, then.
Great article. Where does the belief that you can’t make a baby too big for your pelvis come from? If the baby is too big, it’s too big, and squatting, giving birth upright and moving around are only going to help a certain amount. It needs repeating over and over again that ‘The size
of the mother’s pelvis is determined by her genes and the size of the
baby is determined by her partner’s genes as well. His genetic
contribution may lead to a large baby and that isn’t going to change
simply because the mother’s pelvis is small.’