Thoughts on birth and other stuff...

It’s the day before my due date and I’ve decided I want a home birth.

Or rather, I don’t want an over medicalised hospital birth. Yes, this may be last minute panic or those crazy pregnancy hormones again but it’s more likely a result of my recent reading material.

I’ve been collecting information for a new section on birthing choices for tinygreenpeople and it has been an eye opener. Mammydiaries sent me a collection of links before she had her own wonderful home birth and I have been perusing them today (I know, superb timing as always).

It probably doesn’t help that my current bedtime reading material is ‘The Politics of Breastfeeding: When Breasts are Bad for Business’ by Gabrielle Palmer. Instead of winding down with a novel and drifting blissfully to sleep, I find myself being outraged again and again and waking himself up so I can rant at someone (be grateful that I don't have a laptop by my bed).

I’ve also spent a lot of time the last few months visiting friends and family in the local maternity hospital. This is a brand new, purpose built, ‘centre of excellence’. Why then does it seem so unsuitable for babies and mothers? Surely there is no need for it to be such a ‘hospital’. There must have been a way to design things so mothers and babies could bond gently without having to contend without the noisy family of ten visiting next door, without outrageously early morning rounds, food of little nutritional value and staff that is too overworked to provide the emotional and practical support many first time mothers need.

I know most of these problems stem from our individuated society and lack of community. Oh for a place where women could be women and share their experiences without judgement and children could be raised by family and community as opposed to a sector of the workforce.

Oh to live in a society rather than an economy.

But, I digress………again.