Have another? Love Cocktail Please.

I often hear women talk about their impending labor and the resounding message is, ”I can’t even imagine the experience without drugs… I need my drugs” they say, “What do I have to prove?” My answer, ”It’s not about proving anything. It’s about making the best medical decision for yourself and your baby, something the medical community should be backing.” Somewhere along the line our healthcare providers got off track.  

It’s sad really, how women have lost trust in their own bodies. Women are seemingly terrified of the pain of labor- they want someone else to be in control. I suppose I was one of them until recently. With all the cultural images of horrible, life-threatening labors with terrified, drugged-up, screaming women… I’m not surprised we’re afraid.  But have you ever seen a labor with a woman who has been trained and educated for a natural delivery? A women who has a support staff who know how to comfort and help her during this time?

Imagine if the media’s portrayal of birth looked more like the image to your left than the image to your right? Do you think women would be less afraid?

For me, when you hear about the side effects of drugs so eagerly administered by your doctor, the number one thing that tips the scales is the opportunity to bond with your baby after birth.  I did a little research to see what the difference is between a natural delivery and one with medication.

In a natural labor, the mother’s Oxytocin neurons start releasing oxytocin into her brain. Oxytocin is the bonding, protective, love hormone. Those hormones then travel down the blood stream and into the uterus triggering contractions. This is when science believes the switch to the maternal brain gets turned on - where the brain love cocktail was developed by mother nature to keep the new mom focused on her helpless infant. The result; a state of complete and total dependence.

But what happens if nature doesn’t take over and doctors step in to use drugs to induce labor? Remember Pitocin? Pitocin is an extremely common drug given to mothers in their IV to help move things along.  It is also the synthetic version of Oxytocin.  But Pitocin doesn’t act like normal oxytocin would in the brain, perhaps preventing the natural hormones from working the way they are supposed to.  Perhaps preventing the love cocktail from being switched on.

So what would happen if these hormones weren’t released? Looking at other mammals for some clues, the bond between mother and infant is almost always compromised if labor is not done naturally.   For example, if a monkey has a caesarean they completely lose interest in their infant and make no attempt to take care of it.  Now don’t get me wrong, if you must have an emergency c-section it doesn’t mean you are making the wrong choice for your baby and it doesn’t mean you’re not going to be the best mother. But if it does come down to choice… I’m not going to choose a synthetic version of something I produce naturally.

If you need more proof! Ruth Feldman, psychology professor at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, did a study to demonstrate the link between Oxytocin levels in a mother during pregnancy through postpartum and it’s relationship to bonding with her baby.  The study found that the “increase in {higher levels of naturally occurring Oxytocin} from early to late pregnancy correlated with higher maternal-fetal bonding.”