The Perfect Birth Team for a Natural Birth
Many parents dream of a natural birth but often underestimate the support and preparation required. After all, having a baby is a normal natural process, how hard can it be to have a natural birth the way our bodies were meant to.
We can forget that hospitals have policies and procedures that encourage and require interventions that can derail your natural birth.
It can be difficult to plan and prepare for the birth and challenging to navigate the different tests, procedures, and requirements that surround modern birth.
The good news is, you can easily bring order to the chaos by building a skilled and supportive birth team that can help you achieve your natural birth.
In this post, I’ll define natural birth and highlight 3 team members who can help you experience the birth you desire. I hope that this will give you a roadmap so you can get started with planning your natural birth and have an inspiring and empowering experience.
What is the perfect birth team for natural birth?
Natural birth means giving birth without the use of pain medications or other invasive interventions. It can happen at a hospital, in a birth center, or at home. (It can technically happen anywhere… in the mall, in a barn, in a car on the side of the road…but most families prefer to plan to be in a more stable and comfortable location!) When you plan for a natural birth, you are envisioning a birth where you birth your baby without epidurals, IV pain medications, pitocin, or other things that can interfere with your body’s natural process.
In other words:
You intend to give birth in your full power with the strength of your body, heart, and mind leading through to meet your baby.
The added benefit is that a natural birth allows you to have peak oxytocin (the love hormone - also the hormone that causes contractions), prolactin (the mother hormone - also the hormone that causes breastfeeding) and endorphins (the natural hormones of transcendence) higher than at any other time in your life. These hormones are interrupted with outside interventions and a birth team that doesn’t feel comfortable or supportive. Just like an animal, your body won’t labor effectively if scared, worried, or feeling observed.
You need to spend real time and intention in choosing your birth team so all the healthy peak hormones can bring your baby to you.
Team Member #1 - Midwife
If you are going to have a natural birth, working with a midwife is critical.
This is a crucial component because midwives are specialists in normal, natural birth. Midwifery optimizes the normal, natural, biological processes of pregnancy, labor, and postpartum. Midwifery prioritizes partnership between the midwife and the mother. When you hire a midwife, you are hiring someone who is specifically trained and qualified to help your healthy body do what it is naturally able to do - birth your child without unnecessary intervention.
Many families who hope to have a natural birth simply go to the OB office in their area and believe that care they receive will automatically support them in having a natural birth. However, it’s important to note that OBs are trained surgeons with expertise in high-risk pregnancy and birth.
OBs are skilled at helping women who are having a complex pregnancy and labor give birth safely. They are not necessarily skilled at helping your healthy body give birth without intervention. OBs are generally biased towards intervention. They are typically advocates for doing things to speed up labor (like inductions or pitocin) or expecting women to birth on a particular timeline (dilating one centimeter per hour) or having women give birth on their backs instead of in an upright position. They do not have the training and expertise in what is really needed for a healthy natural birth - sitting back and letting your powerful healthy body do its thing unless and until there is a problem that needs to be addressed.
Additionally, OBs are often part of a more top-down model of care where the doctor holds all of the knowledge and information and the patient - ie mother - simply follows doctors orders.
When you work with an OB office you will often wind up with a far more interventions such as frequent cervical checks, pitocin to speed up labor (causing contractions that are MUCH more painful that natural contractions), pushing on your back, and directed pushing (where you hold your breath and push as hard as possible to get the baby out).
The key is to hire a midwife. You can find midwives at hospitals, birth centers, and at home birth practices.
There are several different types of midwives. For now let’s talk about the two main credentials in the United States:
Certified Nurse Midwife: CNMs are advanced practice nurses who have specialized training in pregnancy, labor, and postpartum care. While CNMs can work in any setting (hospital, birth center or home) they are frequently part of hospital practices and work closely with OBs. CNMs are able to prescribe medications (including pain management medications like epidurals and pitocin to speed up labor) and attend births in hospitals. While their education typically exists on the more medical end of the spectrum, CNMs are highly trained in normal healthy birth and can help you have a natural birth.
Certified Professional Midwife: CPMs are independent practitioners who are exclusively trained in natural out-of-hospital births. They are not hospital based providers. CPMs are the absolute experts in natural birth. They work in independent birth centers and in home birth practices. While most CPMs carry and use emergency medications and resuscitation equipment, they do not provide any kind of medications for pain in labor or medications to speed up labor. Their skill is in helping birth occur normally and naturally - using waterbirth, position changes, herbs, hands on skills/support, emotional and mental support, and patience.
Both of these credentials are able to consult with and transfer to OBs if needed during a pregnancy or birth. By hiring a midwife, you get the focused skill of a provider who knows and respects natural birth while also being able to access OB-care in an emergency or complication. When you save OB care for complications and receive routine care from a midwife, your chance of a normal, healthy, natural birth skyrockets!
Team Member #2 - Doula
The next team member you need to hire is a doula
A doula is a trained professional who specializes in physical, mental, emotional, and informational support during pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. A doula is NOT a medical provider, but an experienced guide who can help you prepare for and journey through your birth.
Many mothers think that having their partner with them in labor will be plenty of support, but partners are having their own BIG experience of the birth too. It’s often emotionally, physically, and mentally challenging to support your loved one through labor. There are often questions to be asked and decisions to be made. If you’ve never given birth before, and you are both experiencing it for the first time, remembering all the labor positions and all the advocacy tools, plus juggling the heady emotions can be A LOT.
What can you do?
Enter the doula.
The doula meets with you during pregnancy to get to know you as an individual. Together you craft your birth plan. When you have questions about testing options or birth choices, your doula helps you research and choose the path that is best for you. When labor starts, your doula often meets you at your home for early labor support, helps you determine when to call your midwife or head to the hospital/birth center. Your doula offers physical comfort measures like massage and suggested position changes, emotional encouragement, reminds you of your birth plan, helps you with decision-making in labor, and amplifies your wishes in the birth room. In the postpartum, your doula can help you with breastfeeding, light errands and household tasks, screening for postpartum depression and mood disorders, and processing your birth story.
The research on doulas shows that parents who use doula services are more likely to have spontaneous vaginal deliveries, less likely to use pain medications in labor, have higher rates of breastfeeding, lower rates of postpartum depression, and higher overall birth satisfaction. Dr. John H. Kennell said, “if a doula were a drug, it would be unethical not to use it.”
Team Member #3 - Bodywork Therapist (Chiropractor, Acupuncturist, Physical Therapist, Massage Therapist, Craniosacral Therapist, etc.)
The next team member you need for your healthy birth doesn’t attend the birth with you.
The next team member is a bodywork therapist.
A bodywork therapist is a professional in the fields of massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, physical therapy, craniosacral therapy, breathwork, or many other physical wellness modalities.
Giving birth is a profoundly physical experience (understatement of the century LOL). You will benefit from investing in focused physical preparation. In a way, giving birth is not unlike preparing for a marathon or other endurance event.
If you invest in the care of a bodywork therapist, you will find that the discomforts of pregnancy decrease drastically. You will move more easily throughout your pregnancy and birth and have a smoother recovery postpartum. Your pelvis, spine, and pelvic floor will be prepared for labor and work in a coordinated way during your birth.
By making sure that your muscles and pelvis and back and whole body are in alignment and functioning well, you help your growing baby fit into your pelvis in a way that is best for birth. In the birth world, we call this optimal fetal positioning. Optimal fetal positioning is part of ensuring a smooth labor. When your baby is lined up in the right position, your uterus can contract more effectively and everything unfolds in a healthy, natural way.
Once you’ve selected your bodywork therapist, you’ll be well on your way to a more comfortable, confident, and natural birth.
Putting it All Together for Your Perfect Birth Team for a Natural Birth
There you have it! The 3 components of your perfect birth team.
It may sound like a lot, but you deserve every ounce of support for such a life-changing event as meeting your baby. Your birth can affect your physical, mental, and emotional health (and that of your baby) for decades to come. Building a team to help you have the best and most positive experience possible is an investment in your long-term wellbeing.
Here’s a secret about having a natural birth - the natural birth really begins months before you go into labor. When you make conscious choices to build your birth team, natural birth becomes a natural outflow of the intention you have brought to the entire childbearing experience.