1. It’s the healthiest choice for baby.
   Babies born during unmedicated births are more alert, breastfeed more successfully and have lower incidence of asthma and other illnesses than those born by cesarean. Likewise, many researchers are now questioning the connection between the use of medications and unnecessary cesarean sections with the steep rise in autism diagnosis among young children.
2. It’s the healthiest choice for mom.
   Moms who give birth vaginally without medication or episiotomy heal quicker and resume normal activities sooner and, as a result, also experience much less difficulty breastfeeding. Women who have undergone cesarean sections may be predisposed to future pregnancy risks.
3. It’s the ultimate act of feminist empowerment.
   It keeps the control where it belongs: in the woman giving birth. Natural childbirth encourages women to embrace their strengths and to approach birth as a beautiful positive feminine act. The current trends of coercing women into medications complicate the process of birth, put women in a state of vulnerability and fear, and ultimately place the health of women and their babies at risk. Natural birth encourages women to take back their reproductive rights in the labor and delivery room.
4. It challenges the miserable downward spiral of birthing meds.
   Survey a handful of women who were given Cervidil, Pitocin, Demerol, Epidurals or other common birth medication, and ask them if these methods actually worked to progress labor or assuage pain. Despite popular myth, birth medications oftentimes do not work and actually cause more harm to mom and baby. Many lead to further measures ending in an unplanned cesarean section. The phenomenon is so common that it is frequently referred to as “the downward spiral of labor meds.”
5. It calls for more midwives (and less doctors) to attend more births.
   It may seem like stereotyping, but the statistics consistently ring loud and clear. With drastically fewer complications, midwife-attended births garner much healthier outcomes for mothers and babies than doctor-attended births. Interestingly, midwives are able to achieve more consistently positive results with little use of medications or interventions and less stress to mothers and babies. By contrast, the growing trend of doctor-attended births to routinely use medications, induction and various interventions show increasing incidence of complications—30% of which now end in unplanned c-sections. Disturbingly, doctors make an average of $8,000 on a vaginal birth while the figure doubles for a c-section. Worse yet, some statistics suggest morbidity rates are actually increasing among doctor-attended births. Not so with midwives.Are women being coerced by doctors to be medicated during childbirth simply to speed the process, be hospitalized longer and pay more in fees with no real benefit to themselves or their babies? We’ll never know, and quite frankly no one should live in fear or mistrust when lives are at stake. Do yourself a favor: if you don’t personally know and implicitly trust your doctor, heed the statistics and hire a midwife…preferably one you know and trust.

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