“The Back Up Plan”…Is That What Labor is Like? 09/03/10

A couple days ago my hubby and I were watching The Back Up Plan with Jennifer Lopez. I have got to say that it was a pretty funny movie and cute, and whatever else comes with romantic comedies. However, the way birth was portrayed was nothing less than amped up for Hollywood.

There is a girl that is having a homebirth with all her friends and sitting on a birthing pool. What should be a calm and magical moment gets turned into this weird scene with crazy chanting, distorted faces, and lots and lots of screaming and howling.

I pause and wonder if that is what my friends imagine when I tell them that I am having a waterbirth at a birthing center?

So many of them have no idea what its like and when they think they know what its like I am more than sure that they are imagining something like that scene in The Back Up Plan.

I also have to point out another scene in the movie where Jennifer’s sister is bad mouthing having babies and what they do to your bladder and surrounding organs.

It was pretty funny that she says, “Oops, I just peed a little”. As funny as that was, it seems like natural birth is portrayed in such a negative light when in reality its what our bodies were created for.

I came across an interesting blog which is also a book, Pushed Birth, that really addresses the issue or concern that most moms have about keeping healthy “down there”.

The post But My Vagina is very informative as to the real cause of many of the issues that women wonder about. Some of the ones discussed are long and painful recoveries, incontinence, severe tearing, and sexual pain.

Some of the reasons listed for the cause of these issues are caused by strict hospital policies such as:

Episiotomy
Directed pushing
The use of forceps and vacuums
Laboring and pushing on your back
Fundal pressure

Even as a tremendous amount of evidence has shown these practices to do more harm than good for a mother we have yet to see a change in rigid hospital procedures.

The more that I become informed the more sure I am of the kind of birth that I want. Even as hospitals and Hollywood have a completely different view on labor and delivery I fight to make others understand the beauty of what awaits me.