Ida Tin’s “Dear Men” Series: Part 16 of 29 – Giving Birth
Dear Men, post 16/29 on Birth, in this series on what it feels like to have a woman’s body.
Giving birth is maybe one of the most unifying human experiences that any group of people have had in the history of humanity, aside from a few basics like eating, and having sex maybe. Every woman who has given birth vaginally understands something that people who haven’t will never quite understand. And yet every birth is unique, even for the same woman.
Some will experience ecstatic orgasms (at least so they say) to torturous trauma, and for some, it means death, as in actual death. For most, the experience is probably somewhere in the middle, which means extremely painful, but also wild, amazing, and powerful. At least that describes my own experience pretty well.
There is a link to an article about my birth experiences in the comments.
More and more women globally will have a C-section, or a cesarean. Some because giving birth naturally is dangerous for the mother or child, but most are done because healthcare systems incentivize both mothers and doctors to choose them.
About one in three births in the U.S. are C-sections, well above the 10-15% rate that the WHO considers “ideal.” The national C-section delivery rate increased in 2023 to 32.4%, up from 32.1% in 2022, (CDC).
Cesarean section use continues to rise globally, now accounting for more than 1 in 5 (21%) of all childbirths, (WHO).
I have a lot to say about that; I wrote about it in the mentioned article.
I had one myself because I had a class 4 rupture (the worst kind, where the sphincter muscle (eh, the a-hole) is completely torn apart) when I had my first baby. Long story short, you can stitch that up OK the first time, but the second time the scar tissue is not great to patch together again. And you really want that part of the body to work.
You can imagine it doesn’t if you give birth in a place where you don’t get a first-class surgery like I did. I cringe thinking about that.
Oh, and yes, it hurt. A lot. But I am fine now.
Here I realize that I should have a post about the body after giving birth. For many, giving birth is the beginning of lifelong serious trouble. If they survive. Right now a rising number of women, especially women of colour are dying giving birthing the US. Abortion restrictions doesn’t help.
How and where, and even when women give birth is shaped by our systems and culture. I wish it could be shaped more by women themselves. Things would go better; the data shows that is the case. When women have doulas and midwives and not only doctors, and have a safe space and enough time, things flow better. No wonder, since this is, after all, a bodily process where a woman has to open up her body in the most extreme way.
-This post by Ida Tin is shared on LinkedIn and is republished here with her permission. The SheSight Team has not made any changes to the content.
