"Birth More Like the Amish: How media & tolerance effect the birth process"
by Jordan S. Saalfrank, MSW, CD(DONA)
Ok, I get it – you’re scared of the pain. I don’t blame you – your life has been one long childbirth education class and you didn’t even know it. Boys, girls, women and men absorb information from media and dramatic television that depict only the entertaining, emergency elements of birth rather than the truth of real normal birth. You’ve seen it: women writhing in pain swearing that they’ll ‘never do this again,’ men squirming as the mom squeezes his hand to the color of a badly bruised banana, women lying in bed with an oxygen mask and what seems like fifteen different wires protruding from her hospital gown, epidurals ‘saving’ moms from the ‘agony’ of labor, bells ringing and heartbeats plummeting causing mom to sign consents and be whisked off to a cesarean section. The US appetite for a good TV show has left women with fear-based feelings of birth and inaccurate images of what birth is all about. Perhaps we need to turn to the Amish community for a little education on the truth about real childbirth and see how far our English culture has drug us from true birth-reality and tolerance of the process.
Amish are raised in a community that is virtually shut off from media and it’s depictions of birth. Pregnant Amish women, while curious, never talk about being pregnant or seek out a bounty of information. Amish grasp early on that birth is a normal process and people all around their community do it with little to no intervention. If you speak with them they understand that sometimes there are birth situations that require medical help and they will transfer from their home to seek that care. But for the most part, Amish women are tolerant that birth is indeed a process for which their female bodies were designed. The English, media-rich environment doesn’t truly get to experience this confidence in, and tolerance for the sometimes long process of birth. Honestly, would you really tune in to watch an 18-36 hour labor of a mom and a nurturing support team waiting for mom’s body to tell them when it’s time? No bright lights and physicians rescuing or managing moms in a distressing labor.” No room chanting to 10 urging the mother to “…psh, psh, psh, PUUUSH!” The Amish room is quiet, she is walking around the house doing light house work or chatting with family during contractions, eating whatever she feels like eating, distracting herself with games or coping rituals suggested by her support team. There’s no doubt, no need to rescue because there is confidence in the process that things may get intense, but that’s normal. Confidence that if she hits a wall and loses a little control she will come back from labor-land and be herself once more.
As a Childbirth Educator I am seeing glimpses that the ‘Amish Secret’ may be leaking out. More and more of media-rich English women are seeking out better information, demanding classes that teach how to move through labor - not how to be a good patient, counting on doula support and reassurance for her and her partner throughout nursing shift-changes and unpredictable doctor rotations, and working against the ‘instant gratification’ of our culture to gain a little more tolerance for birth process.
Birth more like the Amish: turn off the TV and close the over commercialized: “What to Expect When You’re Expecting.” Be done with being fed inaccurate information from media entertainment and open up your possibilities for real evidence-based resources and support.
