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Labor Expectations and Experiences

When Dantzel Averett found out she was pregnant, she knew exactly how she'd give birth: in the hospital, without pain medication. "I thought I'd labor for a while, and then have the perfect delivery where they put the baby on my chest. We'd immediately start breastfeeding and bonding," says Averett, 20, who lives in Orem, Utah.

Everything went according to plan until her 32nd week of pregnancy, when she developed preeclampsia. The next week, doctors delivered her son, Elisha, by c-section and whisked him to the neonatal intensive care unit. Averett didn't see him until she was out of surgery, and she couldn't snuggle with him until the next day.

It was hardly the birth she'd expected, but then, do women ever have the delivery of their dreams? And if they don't, does that matter? To find the answers, Babytalk teamed up with, a website where moms across the United States share advice and information. We conducted a national survey of more than 900 mothers, who described their birth expectations and experiences -- the good, the bad, and the unimaginable -- in page-turning detail. The women, of course, confirmed some commonly held beliefs, but they also kicked some gospel truths to the curb. Most exciting: Their insights reveal that you can have a birth experience you love (or at least feel satisfied with), even if the big day is behind you.

"Almost every first-time pregnant mom has a preset, even fairy-tale notion of what labor will be like, and that's only natural," says Wendy Wilcox, M.D., an ob-gyn with Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York. After all, you've been thinking about this day for as long as you've wanted to become a mother, and unless you have an especially frank friend or have witnessed a birth yourself, much of what you've seen and heard has probably been coated with a thick layer of sugar.

Getting past unrealistic expectations





Despite the odds, which are nearly one in three, most women just don't think they'll need a c-section, especially if their pregnancy is healthy and normal. "I tuned out that portion of the childbirth class I took," says Cahill. Like many women, she had every reason to expect a routine birth. But that's exactly why it can be so shocking and upsetting when a complication does arise. Suddenly your supposed-to-be-perfect day is wrought with chaos, anxiety, or worse.

"It's wonderful to dream the perfect birth," says certified nurse-midwife Jerri Hobdy, former program director of the Midwifery Institute at Philadelphia University, "but you're going to have the birth you have."

That may be all well and good in theory, but most women still try to do everything they can to orchestrate the big day. In fact, more than 70 percent of moms said they had a birth plan, either written down or discussed with their practitioner. After all, having a plan for labor is what everyone -- including this magazine! -- has been advising women to do for years.

So we'll be the first to admit it: Maybe we've been wrong all this time. Most of the women who were disappointed with their birth experience -- three out of four, to be exact -- had shared their preferences in one way or another. And with that, we can't help but ask: Should women bother with birth plans at all?

Many doctors say no. "Committing your wishes to writing actually increases the likelihood that you'll be disappointed if the birth doesn't go as planned," contends Randy Fink, M.D., an ob-gyn in private practice in Miami, Florida. "Couples who have 'made a plan' about how they intend their labor to proceed can be frustrated when, for safety reasons, things don't go their way."




Beth Howard is a contributing editor.