5 reasons why your baby wants a natural birth

We often hear why we should be considering natural birth, but usually this is positioned as something to consider from the mother's perspective. But that's not what I want to talk about here. Instead, I'd like to offer up reasons why we should be thinking about a natural birth but from baby's perspective.

What is a natural birth? Well, a natural birth is unmedicated one. That is to say, free of the medical interventions such as pain relief or anaesthetics.

Why opt for a natural birth?

I chose to aim for a natural childbirth because I wanted what was best for my baby. When I was pregnant, I was conscious about trying to do the right thing “for my baby”... you know, things like eating well and avoiding certain foods and drinks. So for me it seemed like a natural thing to want to continue trying to do the best thing for baby in my birth choices. Once I started educating myself around the impact of the various birthing choices, it didn’t take me long to decide that aiming for a natural birth was the right thing for me and my baby.

Now, I say “aiming” because, that’s all you can really do. You never know how things are going to unfold on the day. Any number of complications may arise and your idea of a natural birth might have to go out the window if you or baby are suffering, but I think its crucial to understand our choices fully so that we can make better decisions… and more importantly, decisions that we can live with.

So here are 5 reasons why your baby wants you to have a natural birth.

5 reasons why your baby wants you to have a natural birth

1. Baby is more alert

Babies born naturally without medication tend to be more alert, responsive and have higher Apgar* scores.

*Virginia Apgar invented the Apgar score in 1952 as a simple and replicable method to quickly summarise and assess the health of newborn children immediately after birth.The Apgar score evaluates the newborn baby on five criteria; Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, Respiration.

Now it’s not hard to see why a baby would be more alert without the drugs. Let’s just stop and think for a minute what’s happening drug wise… When a woman chooses to have an epidural to kill the pain, essentially the bottom half of her body is numbed. Given that the medication also goes into the baby’s system, just imagine what it must be doing to the baby. Babies typically weigh less than 5% of their mothers, so it doesn’t take Einstein to figure out how that epidural must be affecting her baby; they must feel completely zapped! No wonder it can take baby days to recover.

2. Better connection with mum and dad

During a natural birth, the baby benefits from the abundance of hormones flooding mum’s body, which helps to foster a strong connection between mum and baby. Also, because they’re more alert, they can use their instincts better. When an alert and active (undrugged) baby is placed on the abdomen of an alert and undrugged mother, amazing things happen: the baby and mother are able to create a strong bond. Because they are both flowing with oxytocin, the bond is a real chemical one that feels very strong. As the baby is alert, they are able to make significant and deliberate eye contact with the mother and father and respond to them. Some mothers who had difficult, medicalised births often say that it took them weeks to start loving their baby as they missed out on that initial love hit that comes from having all the hormones flowing uninterupted.

3. Easier to breastfeed

Baby will be much better able to find the breast through breast crawling and begin feeding. This simply does not happen when mother and child are drugged, and as a result breastfeeding starts off on a much rockier road and mum might find it hard to FEEL the connection with her baby. Difficulties with breastfeeding can cause mum and baby quite a lot of...