What Elephants Would Teach Us Humans In The Best Childbirth Class!
Elephants - The Experts in Labor and Delivery!
Elephants ought to know something about pregnancy and birth since they endure a whopping 22 months gestational period and give birth to a 3 foot tall, 250 pound baby who will nurse for 3 years starting with 3-5 gallons of milk per day! There’s so much we can learn about what humans need to birth successfully when we consult the birthing practices of this majestic mammal. Elephants closely share our human characteristics of being powerful, strong, compassionate, live in complex family social structures, have incredible memories, feel emotions and express themselves through crying real tears of joy and sorrow!
Elephant Birth – A Symphony of Instincts, Physiology & Wisdom
When it is time to give birth the female elephant does not go off and lie down alone like most mammals. Instead, she remains in her familiar environment, seeks out her fellow female elephants and stands in the middle of them, staying on her feet throughout labor, continuously moving to help rotate her baby down into the birth canal. The trusted females of her herd create a tight circle around her standing shoulder to shoulder, tusk to tusk, for as long as it takes, protecting her in her vulnerable time. A formidable show of force, no other animal will dare to threaten her safety while she labors. She is able to relax into her labor knowing she is supported and protected. She is not alone but literally surrounded by her trusted, experienced, familiar herd members. They communicate with her and encourage her. When her calf is finally born into the herd, her family members joyously trumpet and dance in celebration! They literally cry tears of joy! They take turns breaking the circle formation to admire the baby and help the baby calf up by offering a tusk to hold onto. They will then stomp and throw the soil to cover up the evidence that a baby has just been born to deter would-be predators.
The Hospital Doulas Circle
Instinct and wisdom on how to birth safely and successfully are passed down through the female herd members. We see our role as a similar one at The Hospital Doulas and chose our beautiful logo accordingly of an elephant protecting a baby elephant. When it comes to human birth, feeling safe and protected is instinctual and absolutely necessary for the physiological process of birth to proceed. Choosing who to you surround yourself with when giving birth truly matters!
The Special Challenges to Physiological Birth in the Hospital
We chose early on in our company to solely offer our childbirth classes and doula services to those planning a hospital birth by necessity, choice, or compromise. Let’s face it some “birthy” childbirth classes are created with the more “crunchy” home or birth centers in mind. Those low risk births can be wonderful as we’ve seen but those are usually already surrounded with a holistic model of care that completely believes in the woman’s ability to birth and provides her with all she needs to labor and deliver on her own with a transfer to a hospital when necessary. But hospital, or medicalized birth can be very different calling for more preparation with knowledge, evidence based facts, support and specialized skills in navigating the routine care provided in the hospital system. We felt our presence was much more needed in the hospital environment and here in the U.S. 98.5% of births happen in the hospital! Thus, The Hospital Doulas & Associates was born!
Fight or Flight Response - Failure to Progress
Bright lights, hospital gowns, antiseptic smells, needles, monitors, beeping machines, being watched, medical staff in white coats, and shift changes may cause fear resulting in a surge of adrenaline and the fight or flight mechanism to kick in. This response interrupts the necessary symphony of hormones and chemical reactions that helps labor unfold, which can easily cause the labor process to stall out. This stall, or lack of progress in cervical dilation can be interpreted by the hospital as a sign of “failure to progress” and can result in the addition of powerful medications such as pitocin to augment labor, the subsequent need for pain relief of an epidural, and even a possible cesarean. That is just the most overt result that can happen but there’s many more subtle ways that a woman’s necessary instincts to birth can be threatened, dampened, subverted, or silenced.
Barriers to Building Instantaneous Trust in Hospital Setting
Many times she hasn’t even met her health care provider that ends up being on-call for her birth, meets virtual strangers for nursing staff and has to adjust to inopportune shift changes while in heavy labor. She’ll need to immediately trust her birth team and feel they are totally on board with her goals and values when they've only just read her one page birth preferences for the first time. This would be unacceptable to the female elephant who is able to instinctively settle into her labor in her natural environment surrounded by her trusted herd! At best the unfamiliar territory and people are unnerving and at worst she may encounter a provider who can inadvertently or quite purposefully pressure her into accepting their own hospital preferred birth plan for her, stating that after all, “A healthy baby is all that matters”.
You Deserve MORE than a Healthy Baby
Of course, a healthy baby is the point and matters! There are many well educated and skilled health care providers in the hospitals that will indeed provide her with a healthy baby but it needn’t be the ONLY thing that matters. We should be better than that! A mother’s whole experience is important and her emotions matter during the birth and long after. A Listening to Mothers Study showed that feeling that they were listened to and treated kindly in labor was the greatest indicator of being satisfied with their birth experience - not how painful it was or even whether they had a vaginal birth or cesarean. To be well educated and play a part in her health care team’s decision making, having her own experience validated are also extremely important factors.
Overcoming the Hospital Birth Challenges through Education
Elephants benefit from the wisdom passed down from their more experienced female herd members. It's also wise for humans to take advantage of the knowledge and expertise our doulas have accumulated over the countless hours of providing hospital labor doula support. Many clients choose us as first time parents to tap into our deep body of wisdom, pro-tips and proven strategies to successfully navigate the hospital system. Others seek out our services after they have already experienced a traumatic birth and are determined to have a different and more empowered birth the next time around. We hear heartbreaking birth stories of healthy babies but traumatized mothers and partners. They feel things were done TO them not with them, and that their experience didn't matter. So this time, some parents just want to become more educated about all their choices, to learn to speak the hospital language and effectively communicate with their health care team, know their rights and learn more about the hospital culture to better navigate their whole birth experience on their own. For those parents we provide them with our one-on-one online comprehensive Hospital Birth Masterclass or condensed Insider Hospital Secrets Class.
Overcoming the Hospital Birth Challenges through Birth Doula Support
Other moms not only want our expertise but they also want the comfort, protection and support that the presence of our birth doulas can provide them with, just like their elephant counterparts surround themselves with their compassionate female herd members. They choose to benefit from the experience, evidence based information and comfort of one of our specially hospital trained and certified birth doulas who literally stay by her and her partner's side throughout labor and delivery. They hire our birth doulas to support them, champion them, advocate to help protect their goals and desires improving their emotional and physical experience. They hold a safe space for them so they can go instinctively inward in their birthing journey. Birth partners are supported in every way to ensure their positive experience as well. Because it all MATTERS regardless of the way labor unfolds or through which opening their baby is ultimately able to meet them for the very first time. We trumpet the success of their birth experience and their growing family as they join our human family!
Lisa Collins, MA., CD(DONA), ProDoula, Evidence Based Birth® Instructor
Marnie Lea, RDH., CD(ProDoula)
Co-Founders of The Hospital Doulas & Associates LLC
For the Gold Standard of Online Hospital Birth Preparation please visit: https://www.thehospitaldoulascircle.com
