To have a baby is the most creative opportunity available to most people, and the finishing-school for your adult life — not just for parenthood. Every child is a uniquely crafted living expression of the wholeness of his parents’ relationship, which he helps you to fulfil. You are not doomed necessarily to repeat any mistakes your parents made. ach new child’s growing unfolds the unspoilt truth before your senses, exposing any half-truths and illusions you were brought up to. If only you will look and dare to act on what you see, you too can grow along with your baby.
Pregnancy is not a disease but an accomplishment of health. It unfolds naturally as part of your family life. Good Midwives and Family Doctors sincerely respect your preferences and inclinations, and cater for them as fully as they can. They make no attempt to fit you into a statistical category, but study your individual potential, cultivate it and watch it unfold. If and when you come under stress (Leaflet P38) which threatens the security of your pregnancy they advise you how to ease it, separating you from your home only in the last resort. They seek the assistance of an Obstetrician — a specialist in the medicine and surgery of diseased pregnancies — only when they judge that your own capacities are exhausted or soon will be.
If you approach your delivery in good health there is no need to induce it; your baby will initiate his own birth when he is ready. Throughout its early stages you can remain actively occupied at home under your midwife’s surveillance, eating and drinking normally and regularly while you can. Feel free to move, shout or rest as the impulse takes you: a close female companion or your husband can indulge your whims. Only when your labour is well established need you transfer to hospital, accompanied by your Midwife, if that is your plan.
A good maternity ward runs more like a hotel than a hospital, allowing you privacy under discreet surveillance. Your Midwife avoids at all costs disrupting your confident frame of mind, letting you progress in your own way, at your natural pace. You are never unattended. Medicines are avoided so that you and your baby remain alert. Delivery takes place in whatever posture is most comfortable, quietly in subdued indirect light. The cord is only cut if its tightness impedes delivery, and any womb-shrinking injection is postponed until after your placenta has ceased to function: that way your baby need not gasp his first breath urgently but can sip it gently and get used to it. You are given your baby as soon as he is born, to hold skin-to-skin while you are attended to. Natural delivery of your placenta is awaited aided only by your baby’s suckling, but your cord is cut for convenience when it shrivels and ceases to function. You are permitted to get up and bathe your baby if you wish, with your placenta still unborn if necessary, so long as you are not bleeding.
You let your baby get used to breast feeding (Leaflet M04) before you go home, within a few hours if all else is well. Your baby stays in bed with you, overnight if you wish. Facilities are provided for your husband and your other children to stay as well if you would like them to.
What to do
1. Explore yourselves thoroughly, create your home and settle down in it, before contemplating pregnancy. Do not panic about your age!
2. Start positive family planning (Leaflet M01) at least six months before you hope to conceive. Meanwhile muse together over how you would like your pregnancy to be, what you want from your attendants, and what you expect of family life.
3. Know that the law permits you to have your baby in any way you choose, provided you summon a midwife or doctor in good time before the birth takes place. You can register under the NHS with the Maternity Medical Practitioner of your choice, who need not be your own doctor. See him together to register, and explain your aspirations from the beginning. If you would like to have your baby at home, say so. He will not give promises but his reaction to your suggestions will indicate the attitude you can expect.
4. Make friends with your Midwife and cooperate fully in your antenatal care. If you visit the obstetrician, take with you a note of your wishes to be incorporated into your hospital records. Keep a copy for yourselves.
5. Register with a good parenthood class. The National Childbirth Trust (9 Queensborough Terrace, London W2 3TB) and The Birth Centre (33 Colebrook Avenue, Ealing, London W13 8JZ) offer well-conceived courses which take full account of your point of view. Your Health Visitor or Midwife will have arrangements too, which may expound things from a more medical point of view; but these courses will vary as much as the people organizing them. Shop around a bit and go to one of each kind if you can, especially first time.
6. Explore homoeopathic remedies for the simple ailments of pregnancy, rather than drugs. The booklet ‘Homoeopathy for the Family’published by the Homoeopathic Development Foundation (Suite 1, 19A Cavendish Square, London W1M 9AD) will help you choose.
7. Vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine, 50-100mg twice daily) often helps in pregnancy sickness (Leaflet P09) and Brewer’s Yeast often helps you over a tired patch (Leaflet Q10). A good general daily multimineral and multivitamin supplement (Nature’s Own, or Lambert’s Health Insurance Plus — addresses Leaflet S20) is well worth while from your pre-conceptional interval onwards.
8. You can ignore generalized warnings or forecasts of trouble that are based only on statistical attributes like your height, age or weight. People do not behave as predictably as that and you are entitled to be treated as a unique individual for so long as you are actually well. However you should take seriously all professional advice that is based on factors in your own present condition or past history. Simply ask why you are being advised to adopt any particular course of action you distrust. A specific reason will be promptly and confidently given and you can easily distinguish the vague, uncertain or evasive excuses that will be offered if no good reason exists.