I will be the first to admit that I am on the slightly crunchy side of mainstream when it comes to pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. I’m a sleep sharing, baby-wearing, breastfeeding, gentle-disciplining mama. In spite of my two epidural filled inductions, (or maybe, because of them?) I’m a natural childbirth advocate. I truly believe that it is *ideal* for moms and babies.

However, in my latest perusal of all things granola, I’ve come across the frightening concept of Unassisted Childbirth or UC. With UC, a woman (hopefully) obtains prenatal care through an OB or midwife and educates herself with the goal of delivering her baby by herself.

I cannot even describe how much this swing of the birth pendulum terrifies me. I totally agree that the C-section rate in the U.S. is out of control. I understand and encourage women to take back their bodies for themselves and for their babies. In many cases, I believe women would benefit from midwifery being the standard of care whether they are in a hospital, birth center, or at home. The point being that someone with training other than the woman in labor is there to help. Women cannot be rational or objective in labor. And please don’t leave me comments about how you balanced your checkbook during transition. I’m not buying it. There is always going to be a point where the intensity is all you can handle. Often, that is the moment when things can go wrong.

I’m also not jumping on the “women have been doing this since the dawn of time” argument. While that may hold true for supporting un-medicated labor, the fact is that women (or their babies) often died if they were alone when it came time for their births. Reading through many of these UC stories, there seem to be frequent mentions of “transfered to the hospital” at some point during labor or “admitted to the hospital three days after the birth” because of complication x, y, or z. I’m willing to speculate that if a trained attendant had been present at the birth, there would be far fewer “transfers” of mamas or babies who were trying to go it alone.

And the people who forgo all prenatal care as well as plan a UC? Well, lets just say I don’t have time to address all that stupidity tonight. Maybe another time