I'm on my third read through of "Natural Hospital Birth: The Best of Both Worlds" by Cynthia Gabriel. Every time I read it this one sentence really speaks to me in the intro: "So many North American women have experienced the pain of labor, and then an epidural, that our collective memory about birth is now full of hurt but is missing the feelings of ecstasy and success that natural birth provides." Now, I do not believe that all women that have medicated births or c-sections do not feel the accomplishment or the ecstasy of birth. But I do think that this statement really is indicative of the prevalent dialogue we have going here in the United States.
And THIS is why you hire a doula!
This fun/semi-horrifying little article on The AWL yesterday is the perfect example of why even women who intend to have medicated births should have a doula! "When the Only Way to See a Doctor While Going Into Labor Is to Tweet at a Brand" explores the story of BuzzFeed's Senior Political Writer, McKay Coppins' wife, Annie's labor at NYU Langone medical center.
Long story short: Annie wanted an epidural desperately! It took hours for her to receive one because the hospital was at capacity and understaffed. McKay stuck with Annie through each contraction but ran out in the short intervals between to try to get somebody—anybody to help! In the end, it took McKay tweeting at the hospital to finally get recognized by a doctor and for Annie to receive an epidural after having already fully dilated!
Had they had a doula, not only would she have been able to answer McKay's pleas for breathing methods to manage the pain, given information about other pain medications that they could request and just helped Annie through each contraction until she did get the epidural, but McKay would have been able to leave Annie's side for more than 2 minutes at a time to successfully track down a nurse, doctor or anesthesiologist. As presumptuous as it may be to say, with a doula, Annie may have decided she didn't need the epidural at all!