A Well written article from one of my Guru to achieve gentle birth.Already got permission from her to publish this on my wall blog. ;)
A WESTERN woman from Europe approaches a
woman of the East. She says, “I would think that in a country like
yours, being conservative and being Muslim-majority, that there would be
many more homebirths than hospital births, as it would be closer to
your beliefs.”
The woman of the East – a Muslim – answers that this isn’t the case
in her country – and in fact, it is in completely the opposite. She
continues to describe the standard birthing scene that a woman in her
country has to undergo...
A passer-by, of the same Eastern country, scoffs quietly. “How
insulting. And I suppose this Western woman also believes we hang from
trees and bathe in mud. We ARE modern, you know.”
It is easy to feel insulted at such comments made by our Western
peers, but in retrospect, there is so much truth in it. As a natural
birth advocate, I agree totally in what the “Western” woman had to say.
But for those who are not on the natural birth bandwagon, it may sound
incredulous that homebirths have anything to do with religious beliefs.
The country I come from is a Muslim-majority country, and one that
churns out babies by the dozen to boot. I nearly have half a dozen
myself, but that’s not the point. The irony of the “Western” statement
above is that though Malaysia comes across as conservative and somewhat
religious in many ways, she prides herself in modernity and
technological advancements in the medical industry – both dangerous and
detrimental to her birth culture.
Birth, for natural birthers, is part of a journey for the female
form, the medical industry parades it in a different way – in a very
“Western” way, one might say. The majority of women birth in hospitals,
not at home, and along with hospitals come intervention, protocol, fears
of litigation and medically-induced complications. Why is this contrary
to faith?
While for many, medicallised births seem the way to go. Why would
anyone want to avoid medical interventions, when they are supposedly
there to save lives? And why on earth would anyone have their babies at
home when there are machines at hospitals that can gauge progress and
complications? Contrary to this popular belief, there is plenty of
statistical data that proves that even the minute intervention,
including monitoring, causes the birth process to become jagged and
distrubed, leading to a cascade of interventions that cause potential
harm to both mothers and babies.
Birth is rushed along in government hospitals where capacity is
usually the pressing issue. Women are admitted and treated like sick
patients, hurried along a factory line, and in many cases emerge with
distasteful experiences. Some wards have been likened to jail cells,
with birthing mothers – in raging on oxytocin – are left strapped down
in fear and doubt, causing hindrances for her baby to be born gently.
These women are often engulfed in protocol and timelines, and leave the
hospital as quickly as they arrive.
In private practice, where the underlying motive for the birth
industry is profits, medical intervention is the cultural norm, with
inductions being scheduled even weeks before the infamous EDD,
regardless of the health of the mother and baby. Scare tactics also run
high, as do non-emergency and elective Caesarean sections (c-sections).
Walk along any neighbourhood and throw a few rocks, at least half
will hit women who have had to undergo c-sections at birth, the
remaining of those rocks will probably hit women how have had traumatic
vaginal experiences.
Still, this has nothing to do with faith? It does, as it does with
having knowledge. The art of birth has been lost along the tresses of
time in this country, Malaysia, and birth is often feared and ridiculed,
associated with pain, trauma and even death. Few women are even aware
that they are able to birth their babies on their own, not only withouth
medical intervention or “assistance” but without doctors themselves.
This isn’t to say that every woman who is expecting a baby should go
ahead and plan an unassisted birth, but they should at least be aware
how birth was designed by Allah SWT, and how they too were designed to
birth, mostly without assistance. They should also at least be aware of
the perils of birthing in a hospital, coupled by the hazards of medical
intervention, no matter how small.
By understanding a little more about pregnancy and birth, women would
be able to be better care providers for themselves rather than rely on
medical judgement for non-medical conditions
like pregnancy and
birth. Over-reliance on hospitals in communities that are perceived as
more conservative or religious is really becoming an oxymoron. There is
so much more to birth than meets the doctor’s eye, and it is for us
women, to try to learn and understand further, and to have faith that
our bodies are able to birth our babies.
Having a little more knowledge takes us on leaps and bounds of our
faith. In the Qur’an, the womb is known as “mekiynin,” defined as the
term “secure receptacle,” or a powerful, sound, unshakeable, fixed
object that is designed by Allah SWT. By knowing this alone, mothers
would stop consenting to unnecessary inductions that usually happen out
of convenience and allow babies to be born on their own accord without
rushing the womb along through augmentation or even a c-section.
The one, single birth mentioned in the Qur’an was the birth of
Prophet Isa (AS), where his beautiful mother, Maryam (RA), birthed him
on her own, assisted only by Allah SWT.
To have the perfection of Maryam is a feat on its own, with one whole
verse in the Qur’an named after her. But to come close to having that
type of tawakkul – the feeling of complete submission – will allow us to
have our babies in gentler, safer environments, without bright lights,
without dangerous medical intervention, without prejudice and
judgement... and maybe even at home. Who knows?
The compounded irony of the European “Western” woman’s statement is
that the highest rates of homebirth are recorded in some European
countries, and these have the best outcomes for both mothers and babies;
whereas countries with high rates of hospital births have the worse
effects on mothers and their babies. Yet we feel insulted when we are
culturally associated with homebirths as this discredits the
modernisation that is paraded by the medical industry. Oh, the irony.
We need to let go of the fear that is fuelling our reliance on the
medical industry and start believing in ourselves. And we certainly
shouldn’t feel insulted if an outsider thinks we should. It’s not
because we are backwards or under-developed. It’s about having a shimmer
of faith in what is natural and letting the gift of birth shine through
as per its design by Allah SWT.
***
Maria Zain never thought she would become a
birth junkie after two disasterous medical births but things changed a
bit when she caught baby number three on her own. Now between
homeschooling her four children (yes, number 4 was also born at home),
writing and editing, she is honing in onto birth advocacy with a du’a
that all mothers will have their own empowering births.
Source: http://saudilife.net/motherhood/29604-the-birth-faith-irony-who-are-we-really-relying-on
