Dear Dr Eve
I have had 3 natural births. They were all without medical intervention - one in a birth centre, one in a hospital and one at home but they were also all midwife led.
My husband has always been very involved and even helped with perineal massage beforehand. He's been through all the labours and births with me and witnessed it all. Thankfully I had no tears (which I attribute largely to our perineal massage) and did not need intervention (this does not mean the labours were not hard and challenging in many ways). My husband has incredible respect for me and my body and has made me feel very proud of myself which has increased the sexuality in our relationship. Through my birth preparation and labours I've also become more in touch with myself as a woman and a sexual, powerful woman. We even used our intimacy to help progress labour. This has all served to improve our sexual relationship. After all 3 births we have made love about 2 weeks afterwards and regularly after that.
I understand on your radio show that you were trying to bring to the fore that it is normal to have pain, dryness etc after natural birth but I feel that your conversation came across very pro Caesar for intimacy and sex life. I feel that the problem lies in the medicalisation of birth and the loss of power of the birthing woman and her partner and this is very traumatic for both. There is a rising movement to link birth and sexuality and it's very exciting. I took part in a telesummit last year called "Ecstatic Birth Telesummit" http://www.ecstatic-birth.com/ and there is also a movement headed up by Jaiya reclaiming sexuality before and after birth. I will forward you her latest email.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a different take on birth - not the "painful", "damaging", "mother sacrificing herself for her child's Apgar score" that you referred to? Rather bringing the same hormones and intimacy which helped create this new life and using them to help birth our children. Birth can be such a positive, empowering, sexual experience, sometimes even orgasmic for women, but it doesn't have to be to still be pleasurable. But the change has to come from how we prepare for birth, what we read, who we talk to, how we change the language of birth, how we "train". We need to be able to take our minds and bodies to a different place, to access our alpha waves and detach ourselves from reality as we do during our lovemaking. Unfortunately the medicalised hospital births often don't afford us that luxury (they're not really conducive to lovemaking and being intimate) and so when labour stalls we are subjected to inductions, forceps, ventouse, emergency caesars. If only women know that they had the power within their own bodies. In both our second and third babies' births my husband and I had to send everyone away when things stalled and we just concentrated on each other. By relaxing and allowing our love and intimacy to take over, my labour changed and progressed incredibly and I avoided the intervention which was pending.
I understand that in your show you were trying to validate and help women who've had such painful and intrusive experiences (which is incredibly important and they need to know how to get help) but if I had not had my own children and I had listened to your and Redi's show I would have heard the message "Have natural birth for all the benefits it affords your children but have a Caesar for all the benefits it affords you, your husband and your sexual relationship". If I had gone ahead with natural birth I would have been terrified that this was going to tear or stretch me forever (which it certainly has not done even though my last baby was 4kgs) and this would not have helped me to relax and "let go" in labour as I needed to. I think that the bonding that I experienced during my births with all that oxytoxin helped the bonding with my husband too and I know our sexual relationship is a lot stronger than most of my friends who had caesars where there's not nearly as much oxytocin flowing!!
I encourage you to look at Ecstatic Birth and perhaps contact Sheila Kamara Hay and hear about these exciting developments in birth and sexuality. And as I mentioned I will forward Jaiya and Ellen Heed's email to help women who've had difficulties with sexual function post birth.
Dr. Eve Replies;
Thank you for taking time to write your lengthy letter. I have posted it here in full so everyone can read your personal experience and get a different view of childbirth. My show was sharing research in which the author had conducted an etensive literature review of this topic, namely impact of birthing process on sexuality and sexual health. At the outset I anounced that the results were inconsistent so no conclusions can be drawn. However the research is clearly showing that vaginal delivery, specifically assisted vaginal delivery, has negative sexual consequences up to 6 months.
Your shared experience talks to a marriage that is a happy, informed safe partnership. Let's imagine that this is not the experience of the majority of women giving birth- we can't even get men into a labour room never mind massaging his woman's perineum. Let's imagine women not having any knowledge on how to give birth in a manner that is least disadvantaging to her sexual vagina.. she tears, she screams, she is sewn up shoddily. Or she may even have a C Section and wonders why she continues to have no sexual interest, has dryness and even pain.
I hope your letter, like my show, empowers women to include sexual health into their discussions with their health care providers so the health care provider will show sensitivty to this aspect of a couple's life, pre and post delivery.
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