Unassisted Childbirth: DIY Delivery?

Joining me this week is Christy Callahan-Shearer from Atlanta, Georgia. Christy is a prenatal coach specializing in helping families have the birth experience they desire. She is going to be talking to us today about unassisted childbirth. This is delivering your baby yourself. I’m sure that a lot of you are already familiar with unassisted childbirth, but I have to tell you that I had never really thought about it. She will be telling us today about her birth experience and how prenatal coaching can help you if you are choosing to have an unassisted childbirth.

 

She is a mom of two and she is here to tell us all about prenatal coaching and unassisted childbirth. Hi Christy! Welcome.

 

CCS: Hi Kemi. Thanks for having me.

 

RM: Now, Christy, what exactly is prenatal coaching? What do you do?

 

CCS: Prenatal coaching is a way for a woman or a couple who are getting ready to conceive or give birth to a child to have some gentile support to guide them through that process.

 

RM: How did you begin thinking about having an unassisted childbirth?

 

CCS: Really in my pregnancy with Lucas, I went from a shift of, “Babies are born in the hospital; that is just what you do”, I had an HMO and we were going to go in and do the hospital thing. After taking a childbirth education class and visiting the hospital, I didn’t really think that was going to work out the way I wanted it to. I didn’t want to have to fight to get the kind of experience I wanted.

 

Someone else in our childbirth class said, “I’m in the same situation. I don’t want to give birth in an HMO hospital. We are hiring a local midwife.” I was like, “If they can do it, I can do it too.” So I interviewed this midwife and it was a good fit for us, so we went ahead with the home birth. It was kind of the idea, if this other couple could do it, so could we.

 

Having forgotten that my mother was born at home—so was her older brother and younger sister—that was just what people did. On a farm with a country doctor, and the Amish have their babies at home 99% of the time. It is just, in those cultures, it’s normal; it is just what you do. I had just kind of forgotten that part of my past. I knew that I wanted a natural birth, and so did my mom—it’s not what ended up happening for her, but that was her intention. I did some research on the web to find out more about home birth and read a lot. I was really fascinated, already at that point, I was a birth junkie, even though I didn’t know what that was.

 

RM: I was on a birth junkie’s website the other day.

 

CCS: Oh, the birth junkie? One of the website’s I came across was Laura Shanley’s website on unassisted childbirth. She was really a pioneer. There were some others—Marilyn Moran, Pat Carter—and I got the idea in my head, the seed was planted where I thought, “Wait a minute, I read about all these stories about these women doing birth just very organically and naturally and privately. Why can’t I do that? Why am I hiring a midwife to do this?”

 

At the time, it wasn’t the right time or right situation for it to happen. I learned a lot from having the experience of having a midwife and I am grateful to her because she really served as a model to me that birth is natural and normal and not a medical crisis, but a highly-spiritual and miraculous event that you go through, but not something to be scared about.

 

She herself had her first baby at home and with her second it was like three pushes on the kitchen floor and there the baby was. She was just with her and her husband. I was like, “Wait a minute, I can do that.” So I learned a lot about tuning into myself through that first birth. For me personally, it is really easier for me to just have my own timing and not be worried about when do I call her? Is she coming? Is she on her way?

 

With my first birth, I was having to start to push before she go there. I didn’t realize that that was what it was. I thought I had to go to the bathroom. I didn’t know that I could just push this baby when I feel it’s time. So I waited for her to get there, and that is when I started pushing. It came to a certain point when I got really distracted by the counting and I felt like I was supposed to be in a certain position—what was easier for the birth attendant—and even though there was a lot of support and a hands-off approach, I got distracted and was not able to tune into myself as much as I was able to in my second birth because there was that outside presence.

 

At a certain point after having pushed and exhausted myself, actually the midwife offered to cut a small little episiotomy to help and that didn’t help. I realized that I really needed to tune in inside and a voice told me I needed to get up off the sideline position and within two pushes, Lucas’ head popped out and with the next push his body popped out.

 

RM: Wow.

 

CCS: So for every woman, wherever you give birth, whether it is in the hospital, if that is where you feel safer, or with a midwife at home or by yourself, there is that point where there is a voice inside you that will guide you.

 

RM: We have moms tuning in from around the world, and I’m sure that some moms are coming from cultures where unassisted childbirth is the normal process, that is what everyone does. For those moms for whom this may be brand new and the idea of delivering your own baby just maybe never crossed their minds, I’m sure they have a couple of questions. Those I’m going to ask you about. Logistically, how do you prepare for a delivery? Are there certain supplies you need to have? Are there mental preparations you need to do? I know that you are a prenatal coach. Talk to me about the process that you need to do to deliver your own baby.

 

CCS: That is a simple question, long answer. Simply put, the biggest preparation involved in this kind of birth is mental. It is making a mental shift to believing that it is possible. Like crossing over a barrier, a fence, from one side to the other side. It sounds simple, yet it is a complex process. It is really about having faith in the unseen.

 

RM: Talk to me about your faith. You know I have a real interest in the relationship between faith, spirituality, and parenting practices. How has your faith impacted your birth choices?

 

CCS: Absolutely. I believe that we can tune into—like I was saying about my first birth—that inner voice and when we tune into that, that is what is really a big factor in this kind of birthing. Everybody who has this kind of birth, whatever kind of religious faith they are from, whatever background, a common thread is believing in the unseen and believing that the power that created the process of birth brings you safely through it. Giving birth is designed in such a way that given privacy and support and love, the body knows what to do.

 

As far as the preparation and faith part of it, it is tapping into that spiritual side of you through prayer, meditation, whatever is important to you, to get in touch with that side. Instead of seeing the world through more of a physical way, you see it through more of a spiritual lens. So that is a big part of the preparation.

 

As far as what kind of supplies to have, that is really up to the family as to what you feel like you need. Some people want to have an oxygen tank there, they feel more comfortable having more supplies like that. Really, in an emergency, people have babies in a taxi and stuff like that; you need a soft, clean place that is warm. It’s not really that complicated.

 

I got a lot of information off the web. I joined a Yahoo! group that gave me more information. Having had a home birth with a midwife, I had a supply list and I would happy to assist your listeners if they would like to write me at my website, www.prenatalcoaching.com, I would be happy to direct them to that information and I would love to support families who want to have this kind of birth but are kind of unsure, they want more support.

 

This is really what I am passionate about. I love babies and I believe that when we can give them this kind of beginning, which is really a gentile, loving start, and also one that helps mom and dad bond with each other, that they are just so happy and so loved and it is a great way to begin life.

 

RM: Christy, let’s talk a little bit about your prenatal coaching objectives. What do you find are maybe some of the things that families really need to help prepare for before they bring the baby into the world? What are some of the common issues that you find families working through?

 

CCS: That’s great. Some issues are different between moms and dads because we are kind of wired differently. A lot of what I hear is that a lot of people are worried about money and can we afford to have a baby? Are we at the point in our careers where we can have a baby?

 

Part of making that shift that I have been talking about—the spiritual shift from looking at the material to looking at the unseen—is trusting in financial provision and that there is enough to go around. There are plenty of resources on the planet and the same God who created the world also provides for us financially and materially. That’s another shift to lead parents through.

 

There are other fears that other people have depending on their particular situation. Some people have had difficult births and so when they think of giving birth or being there with their partner giving birth, some of those fears can come up. That can vary for each individual, so I would work with people on a one-on-one basis to really help them create a new belief around birth, that it is normal and safe and natural.

 

RM: What would you say, for example, to a mom who may have had maybe a difficult birth experience? Let’s just say a mom had had a breech birth. How would you help to walk that mother through the process of saying, you know what, I can actually deliver my baby at home?

 

CCS: Let’s talk about breech for example, then we’ll talk about let’s say a traumatic birth experience. I will separate those two and talk about the breech first.

 

Really, a breech baby, a baby that is born butt-first instead of head-first, it’s really just a variation of normal. It’s like some people are left handed and some people are right handed. Our world is kind of more geared toward right-handed people, but being left handed is okay too. It’s just a little different. A baby who is breech, you can say to the baby, “It would be easier if you were born with your head first, so if you would like to turn, that would really help things.” If the baby doesn’t want to turn, then you say, “Okay, then we are just going to do it this way.”

 

The main thing for a breech delivery is just to be relaxed and let the body do its thing and have the woman in an upright position. Women who have unassisted births, and Laura Shanley tells the story on her website, she had a dream about her baby in that position and what position to be in when she gave birth. It worked out beautifully. It’s kind of like changing our mindset about birth—that it really is normal. If there are slight variations, it’s okay and you just go with it, and your instincts will tell you what to do.

 

If a woman has had a birth which wasn’t what she’d hoped for and wasn’t ideal and there are feelings of disappointment, anger, even rage, or if it turns into depression—it’s like anger turned inward—it is ideal to work through that experience before having a next baby. That is what I like to help people do as well—to process the birth and to gain peace about it so that you’re not carrying those feelings into the next birth experience.

 

RM: What sorts of services do you offer at prenatalcoaching.com?

 

CCS: The services I offer range from free information on the website—you can request a report titled “Overcoming the Seven Obstacles to a Satisfying Birth” and I am happy to send that out to anyone who is interested in it—I also offer free tele-classes for folks who are interested in different topics of natural parenting. Those are free tele-classes. I also have tele-groups for moms as well as birth professionals, where you can call in and get support from other people. I coach those groups. I also work with couples and families one on one by phone. It is very convenient wherever you happen to be. You phone in and also receive support by email. I really start with where a person is and work toward where they want to be.

 

RM: So wherever you are, even if you have yet to conceive, it’s not too early for a prenatal coach, right?

 

CCS: Absolutely! I say the earlier you start the better. Laura Huxley, the widow of Aldous Huxley, says that two years before conception is the ideal time to start preparing. Not all of us get this information that early. With my first, I didn’t know as much as I know now. You start wherever you are and that’s okay, that’s exactly where you need to be. If you are already pregnant that’s fine, if you have yet to conceive, that’s great. Everyone who has worked with me who was preparing to have a baby ended up getting pregnant. I need to put that warning on my website: Caution: Use of This Service May Result in Pregnancy.