Childbirth, Natch

I need to say something about childbirth. Here's what you should know: I have never had a child. But I think we need to change the term for "natural" childbirth.

After all, what exactly is "unnatural childbirth"? Until we have, say, robot-assisted childbirth (and ooh, I cannot wait for that day, sign me up) I'm just going to put it out there that all childbirths are natural. Yes, some may be using drugs, or Ceasar style in a brightly lit hospital with muzak. And others may be on someone's sorry futon at home with a bunch of earth-mothers looking on.

There are many ways for this elemental act to happen. Women may experience insane amounts of pain, take days to deliver and yell till glass breaks. They may schedule a C-section. They may induce labor with drugs. They may do all these things at once. But still, I say to you, it is all
very, very natural.

But like everything else in women's lives, childbirth is something to be judged on.

The ideal in the Bay Area, from hearing my friends and coworkers talk, is an unmedicated, vaginal birth with no complications. In Brazil, the ideal is a scheduled C-section. Isn't labor hard enough without adding on the pressure to have the right sort of delivery? When really the ideal is that the mother doesn't die, which used to happen all the time during, um, natural childbirth.

And really, hats off to all the women who make this miracle of life happen all the time, and then, just days later, get up and walk around as if it's nothing but a thing. Naturally.