BIRTHING AN INDUSTRY

By Melissa Coleman

Have you noticed how all of our holidays and life events have become industries?

There’s the 45 million turkeys bought for Thanksgiving and the 30 million small pine trees cut for Christmas. (Not to mention the biggest shopping season of the year in between.)

What would Easter be without the chocolate bunny? Or Halloween without individually wrapped candies?

Weddings can cost anywhere between a secretary’s and a CEO’s annual salary and Funerals nearly the same. (Why you need the nicest casket and headstone and wake even though you won’t be there to enjoy it is beyond me at this point in my life.)

Then there’s birth. The most ancient “life event” of all.

400 million births are happening across the world today. Billions will happen this year.

But for each expectant mother, it’s as if this simple miracle hasn’t been done successfully for centuries. We want to make sure we do everything right, from maternity clothes to baby items, to the birth process. So we pass our nine months spending money on things to help us do something that has been done since before any of these things were around to buy.

1) Maternity Clothes

Because you are so excited to be pregnant you will spend $200 on a pair of jeans that might fit for two months.

You’d think these designers stayed up nights just to think up something that you will NEVER wear again. It’s like bridesmaid dresses, the colors and fabrics are always a little off. And there’s the belly panel – perhaps the most unflattering “convenience” a pregnant woman can face next to… girdle underwear, but we won’t go there.

2) Baby Registry

Then you have to deal with the baby registry. Think about it, a baby is a capitalist’s dream. It comes into the world with nothing and hence needs everything. I printed out the “helpful” checklist. Three pages of small print totaling thousands of dollars, which in my case with twins is times two.

• crib

• changing table

• diaper genie

• Sesame Street mobile

• ear thermometer

• baby nail clippers

• parent pager

• receiving blankets

• baby bathtub

• car seat

• stroller

• portable cribs

• baby bouncers

• baby swings

• high chairs

And all the disposable items

• 10 diapers per baby a day

• wet wipes

• bottles

• pacifiers

Of course they’re going to say you NEED all these things. It’s good for business.

3) Prenatal Doctor Visits and Delivery

The spending doesn’t stop when you get to the hospital. You are subjected to all kinds of expensive procedures such as:

• Sonograms to monitor the baby’s growth

• Amniocentiscis to check for birth defects

• Doppler and fetoscope monitors to monitor the baby’s heartbeat

• Epidurals to numb the pain of contractions

• Episiotomies to cut the perineum

• Pitocin to induce labor

• Cesarean sections to surgically remove the baby

• Incubators for premature babies

• Birth tubs for relaxation

• Breast pumps

• And so on…

Now while many of these things can come in handy, I’d like to share with you the story of my mother’s much simpler experience.

She gave birth to me in a cabin in the woods without running water, electricity or phone. When I was due, the dirt roads were so muddy the midwife’s car got stuck and she had to walk the final couple miles to our house. She finally arrived just in time to catch me and cut the umbilical cord and give me to my father so he could put me on my mother’s breast to nurse.

To top that off, my sister was born in the same cabin, but this time my father went down the road to the nearest phone to call the midwife. He came back to find my mother had given birth while he was gone and was happily nursing the healthy babe. My mother said she knew what to do just the way animals know what to do.

Neither my sister nor I went to a pediatrician growing up and the only time we’ve been to the hospital was for an appendicitis for me at age 32 and for my sister to give birth to her first child at age 28.

Instead of endangering our lives, the simple way we came into the world seems to have blessed us with good health. I consider myself lucky both to be healthy and to have this perspective from which to approach my own experience of giving birth.

Expectant mothers never know how things will turn out, but even if we buy all the stuff and do all the planning we can still have difficulties. In the end, the number of girdle panties we buy won’t make any difference.

All we can do is hope for the best and trust that the natural instinct to produce a healthy baby prevails.