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Spring 2018
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birth
plan blues: when childbirth doesn't go as planned by malia jacobson f or the birth of her first child, charla ojala
envisioned a simple, uncomplicated birth at a carefully chosen birth center minutes away from her home. she hoped for all the components of a gentle, low-intervention birth: natural pain control methods, immediate skin-to-skin contact and nursing, and for her husband to cut the umbilical cord. when her son?s birth day arrived, ojala labored for hours at her chosen birth center, but her simple, uncomplicated birth plan soon slipped away, and she and her provider fumbled through a series of confusing directives, miscommunications and missed cues. a?er pushing for four exhausting hours, she was abruptly transferred to the hospital via ambulance for failing to progress. though her son was born healthy, the experience was completely traumatic. ?what i got was a complete 180 from what i wanted,? she says. ojala is hardly alone in her frustration over a birth gone awry. in a recent study, nearly 60 percent of women
said that birth shouldn?t be interfered with unless medically necessary. but between 60 and 80 percent of first-time mothers end up with an epidural, and nearly a third of u.s. babies are born through a cesarean section. failure to launch advances in health care for mothers and infants mean more choices and better outcomes?in theory, anyway. ?birth planning,? or the concept of planning one?s desired birth, developed in the 1980s as women sought to partner with care providers for a more satisfying birth experience. however, research on the effectiveness of birth plans is mixed, and many mothers, like ojala, wind up with a birth that?s a far cry from what they?d planned. researchers say the gap between a woman?s expectations and her actual birth can lead to feelings of disappointment, failure, and loss, and may increase the risk of depression, anxiety, and postpartum depression (ppd). according to one study, 21 percent of women experience some sort of birth trauma and up to 6 percent of those women 2 4 p i n k ? b l u e | s p r i n g 2 018
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