I homeschool my children and we were doing a project about horses. I looked up a few videos on Youtube and our learning led us to birth videos of animals. We watched a few different types of births and I could not help but see the strong correlation between humans and animals birthing. I also noticed the huge differences. Animals listen to their instincts. What other choice do they have? Humans, on the other hand, have an ‘educated mind’ that unfortunately interferes with the natural process of birth.
I want to share three videos with you. I am going to title them and let you see the differences for yourselves.
Unhindered
Inteference (or as my 5 year old son said, “They were mean.”)
Instincts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWLCzw4rJ-wWhat would it be like for women if we truly started listening to our instincts when we birth?
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17 Comments
Max's Mommy
The second one made me cringe! Ugh! Poor horse. The elephant one was amazing! She had a big baby and didn’t tear, what are women so afraid of!? 🙂
MammaBint
As the mother of 4 boys, and the owner of a beautiful arab mare, I hope that more women can appreciate and have faith in themselves and listen to their natural ‘animal’ instincts.
I have had 4 boys, all weighing between 9.2lbs and 10lbs, I’m only 5ft2 and weigh under 8st, and had no intervention . Learning to listen to yr body before and during yr pregnancy is invaluable. You can give birth without intervention, remember its what all or our bodies have been built for.
Amy
I can’t even watch the second video. Just the image is enough to make me shudder…
Leila
I glanced at some of the youtube comments on the second video, along the lines of, ‘what are people complaining about? farm animals usually need assistance in birthing. it just makes it easier’. I think a lot of farm workers are convinced that after centuries of domestication animals have lost the capacity to give birth without someone pulling it out. I’m not convinced. But I guess that’s the way they do it because that’s how their fathers did it. My DH used to work at a dairy, they told him if an animal is still in labor after 8 hours, to reach in and wrap a chain around the baby’s legs and pull it out. Ugh! And he related that to me while I was in labor – double ugh! This correlates to those OBs that think interventions are necessary because that is what they were taught, or they have excuses like modern women are too dainty, or evolution has made our babies heads too big. Please! Evolution has made our babies’ heads the perfect size. If it were otherwise the human race would have been wiped out the moment we started walking on two legs.
Kirsten
I saw lots of comments about the momma horse being too tired to deliver the foal. How much you wanna bet they didn’t let her eat anything while she was in labor?
AnaMaria Bruce
that’s exactly what I was thinking because that is what my doctor told me my first birth….don’t eat
ashley
with all 3 of my babies the dr’s didnt let me eat or drink anything till a while after they were born…
Becky
The only time we help any of our animals give birth is if they’re breech. Then we go in and turn them..but then let the birth continue naturally. We never clean them off either unless after some time the mother shows no interest in doing it.
Elizabeth
oh my goodness they are lucky in the second one they didn’t kill the baby!! he was still in bag he was FINE you NEVER EVER do that with a birthing mama. that poor baby could have died from tha treatment and so could the mother. oh what an idiot!!!
ashley
yeah i agree with you, i had to look away from some of it…i feel soo bad, the poor momma horse was probably stressed like crazy giving birth in a cement stall with no natural light and people staring at her…this video made me cry a little…they couldnt even bond after baby was born cuz the babe was instantly smothered by people…
Kim
I learned to foal out horses while at college(or rather watch them foal, unless dire emergency) and think they are one of the absolute perfect examples of nature & birth working as they should be.
It takes most horses 15mins-30mins to birth their foals(start to finish) and they do most of their work (the best,most productive kind) when they go into a trance-like state during. While I attended one foaling, the mare was in this ‘trance’ and was doing awesome…the only time we entered her stall was to move her hind legs as she was pushing her foal out into a wall and didn’t realize it (she just happened to lay down at a bad angle toward the wall- wouldn’t have happened in a pasture). As soon as we moved her legs (which she had no prob, w/not being aware of us) all continued as normal. 15 mins and it was all over. Placenta passed a few mins after the foal. Foal was standing and nursing w/in the hour.
An amazing testament to nature at work.
Btw..this was at a broodmare vet farm where the mare had a birth alarm sewn into her vulva (yeah..ouch!), so when birth began the vet would know (as they don’t normally sit around watching) and the birth was complete before the vet even made it to the facility! It doesn’t only happen to midwives- ha ha ha!
Mrs. BWF
That is so awesome! Thank you for sharing.
Holly
The first video was beautiful. I grew up on a ranch and what you can’t hear in the video is the precious little nickers the mare makes as she greets her foal. 🙂
The second one made me cringe! Momma was doing just fine…and ANY one who helps an animal birth should know that you don’t just yank the baby out. If help is needed, you should only tug during a contraction – work WITH momma. Then to see him rock back and forth to “wiggle” baby out…ugh!
The elephant was amazing. 🙂
Thanks for sharing!!
Bren
I watched all three but couldn’t get even half way into the second video. It was too sad. The third video made me cry, it was so wonderful. Thanks for sharing. The videos of animals giving birth give me more confidence in having my child. If everyone else can do it naturally, why can’t I?
Ingrid
yeah I couldnt finish the second one, it made me cringe! I remember seeing my cousins, uncle, and friends “pull calves” growing up. It was how I thought it was supposed to be done…..obviously now I know its not. Animals know what they are doing. Although I did cringe at the elephant video too, just the drop, and the kicking, even though thats natural also 🙂
Kate
I lived and worked on a professional horse farm too, my father bred standard breds and we were agisted and foaled down other people’s valuable broodmares.
The second video shows this ‘attendant’ performing a major no-no – depriving the foal of the placental transfusion at birth. Just like the crazy practice with cord clamping at human birth, a hypovolemic foal with be lethargic, struggle to obtain adequate colostrum and be weakened. This guy is a complete moron (as too are clamp-wielding birth attendants).
The baby elephant does not have this issuse, since the umbilical cord snaps off in-utero, afterwhich the elephant has around 20mins to be born safely. The problem here is being dropped from the mothers body headfirst onto CONCRETE! This zoo animal was housed in a concrete enclosure, just think what surface that baby was meant to be dropped onto…grassland.
Crazy crazy world…
Andrea von Schoening
Thanks for posting these! The first two are perfect examples of the difference between undisturbed birth and one with interventions. Reminds me of Leboyer’s work regarding Birth Without Violence and it seems to me that interventions automatically result in violence for the baby and the mom.
The video of the elephant is amazing, but I also question what they were thinking, making her give birth on a concrete floor! I’m pretty sure that a wild elephant would not search for a rock to drop her baby onto! It also makes me wonder just how much this hard landing has to do with the troubles that the little one experiences after being born….