Let the mother return to her natural state and get out of the cycle of childbirth

Professor Zhang Hongyu has been engaged in clinical midwifery for more than 40 years and has delivered more than 10,000 babies, which can be said to be a veteran midwife in China.

When it comes to childbirth, most people think of fear, and my wife, who is also a midwife, went to the delivery room early when she gave birth due to premature rupture of membranes. Oxytocin, fetal heart rate monitoring, long waits... Even in the familiar delivery room and the care of colleagues, the memories are still painful.

Mothers who have experienced childbirth, have you also felt fear?

Professor Zhang said: "Too many medical interventions, which are always risky and risky everywhere, have caused unnecessary fear and suffering, making us forget the physiological state of the instinct of childbirth. The mother is not a patient and childbirth is happy because it is itself a natural act of the reproductive system."

Editor: Wang Hailong

Zhang Hongyu

Professor of Midwifery at Hainan Medical College

The first person to initiate the VBAC project in China

The first scholar to advocate the concept of "late cord cutting" in China

Speech Transcript:

Hello everyone, how many of us have babies here, what does it feel like to have children, is it happy? I heard only one person say happy, but he was a male.

When it comes to childbirth, many people think of painful scenes. In our current medical process, when giving birth, many cases tell you that you are going to give birth, do you think this is correct?

About 5 years ago, I knew such a mother, her first child's delivery was given a birth booster injection, 4 days of birth booster injection did not urge out, and finally turned into a cesarean section, when she was pregnant with the second child, extra care, the result in more than 8 months of prenatal examination, it showed that the baby's fetal heart rate was abnormal, the more you listened, the worse it was, how can the fetal heart rate not reach 10 points (in reality, many mothers will have such an experience, have you also had the experience of being detained in the hospital because of abnormal fetal heart rate monitoring).

This mother is very nervous, so, she found a familiar doctor friend to help, he was more nervous than her, tossed for a day, at night, this mother is very afraid, always worried that tomorrow the baby may not be there, in this case emergency cesarean section, the baby was cut out only more than 4 pounds, and then lived in the NICU, lived for more than ten days, but unfortunately, the baby was diagnosed with autism later, he could not speak, could not communicate with adults, and could not take care of himself.

Why is this a situation, in fact, I think this is a difference in thinking, Western medicine has entered our social system, and we gradually forget how our instincts and physiology are.

Western medicine is a defensive medical treatment, and its system is based on risks in everything and risks everywhere. When you come, I will assess your risk, exclude this, exclude that, and the mother is also treated as a patient.

So, you are checking throughout your pregnancy, just getting pregnant in the early stage, you have the risk of miscarriage, the risk of ectopic pregnancy; Then, your baby may have all kinds of risks, just now the mother was like this, he said that your baby's fetal heart rate is not very good, your placenta may not be good, etc.; By the time of delivery, there may be problems with your uterus; There are still risks after giving birth, your uterus may not contract well and bleed; In fact, childbirth is an instinctive and natural event, there is no doubt about this.

That is to say, before we had a hospital, no cesarean section, no forceps, no anesthetic drugs, we humans, like other mammals, lived endlessly, and completed human childbirth through the laws of nature.

Of course, there will be some dangers, before there was no medical treatment, for example, this case, it is called placenta previa, the placenta will block the exit of the uterus, if there is no medical assistance, there will be maternal deaths in the past, and our problem now is to treat all people as such dangerous people, and there is almost no normal mother.

If you are pregnant, you know that when you come to the hospital for evaluation, you will always have all kinds of problems. We have spent so much money and paid so much money, and it is worth it to be able to ensure the health of mothers and children, because the health of mothers and babies is no small matter. Unfortunately, this excessive medical treatment increases the risk.

We look at a set of data, which is analyzed from the world, the Netherlands dominated by the natural birth model and the United States represented by the obstetric intervention model, we look at their impact on maternal and child outcomes, the Netherlands has a high spontaneous birth rate, its maternal mortality rate is only 7/100,000, and the infant mortality rate in the Netherlands is only 2.6/1000.

Note that this is always a relatively low level, contrary to the American model, its cost is the highest, more than 10,000 dollars per capita, its anesthesia delivery rate is as high as 70%, the highest in the world, and its spontaneous birth rate is only more than 60%.

The most intolerable thing is that the United States, as a highly developed industrialized country in the world, its neonatal mortality rate is one of the highest ten countries in the world, the cost of the American model is so high, why does it have so many neonatal deaths, and its infant mortality rate on the first day is the most, which is easy to associate with this and the process of childbirth is very close.

This reminds everyone that too many medical intervention measures increase the risk to newborns, not reduce the risk. The other is the widespread concern in the industry, it has invested so much money, its maternal mortality rate has been rising continuously since the 80s, in 2014, it was 18 per 100,000, which is very close to our country.

As an instinctive physiological process, what should childbirth look like? It is happy, it is as happy as you are in love, it is happy as your sexuality because it is itself an act of the reproductive system.

However, many people may not know that childbirth can be happy because our propaganda is biased.

Although we don't know why contractions start labor, there are always reasons to think that the uterus is dangerous. The baby is not safe to be inside for a day, for example, your baby is so big, the longer it grows, the bigger it gets; Your placenta may be too old to support your baby; When the amniotic membrane is broken, it creates a route of infection; Less amniotic fluid is not good, more amniotic fluid is not good, amniotic fluid is cloudy have heard of it, your baby poops in it.

Why does it induce childbirth, now science is also working on it, but there is a more mature conclusion, that is, after the baby matures, its own hormones will change, breaking the balance of the uterus during pregnancy, the original pregnancy of the uterus is quiet and does not contract, who makes it transform into a state of contraction? It is the baby, the baby passes through his own glands, he grows up, his adrenal hormones secrete more, and then this balance is broken, and the uterus begins to contract, which is a relatively formed truth. But we humans are just overly anxious.

For example, the so-called water breaking, as long as the water breaks, we think that we are going to be infected, the baby is very dangerous inside, but in fact, it is just a process of delivery, some people are contractions first, and then the amniotic membrane is broken, and some people may break the water first, and then slowly have contractions.

In short, we are just too self-righteous, we always think we are right.

Patients with this kind of premature rupture of membranes, usually we will take oxytocin, after which it will be painless, and finally it will not be born. Many people may say, medical treatment is so advanced, why do oxytocin have to be painless, why so many medical measures have not helped me give birth, why after I give birth to a baby, I feel very painful?

You may have heard that the oxytocin used for induction is a synthetic oxytocin, which is a kind of oxytocin that we chemically synthesize. Well, the oxytocin that triggers our natural contractions is produced by our brains themselves, so the two substances are completely different.

First of all, its production does not pass through biofeedback, it we artificially infusion, may lose excessively, excess will make contractions very strong, beyond the range that the fetus can bear, more than the uterus can bear, so oxytocin will increase postpartum hemorrhage, increase maternal death, it will squeeze amniotic fluid, into the ruptured blood vessels, the mother will die suddenly, because it is beyond the normal contraction range.

In addition, it does not produce happiness, only this oxytocin produced by itself, it has a feeling of happiness.

This happy substance is the hormone of love, it cannot be given, it is the feeling of warm love, like the feeling of falling in love, like the feeling of you having sex.

Another hormone is endorphins, endorphins are a natural analgesic substance, it is 200 times stronger than the analgesic effect of synthetic morphine substances, so you have your own analgesics, why do you have to fight painless?

Narcotic drugs have two Achilles' heels:

First, it blocks the nerves that transmit contractions, anesthesia is from the epidural, from the inside of the spine, it will block the nerves that conduct contractions, so you will not be painful. Do we want no pain, we want to have a baby, we want contractions, but after blocking this nerve, the intrinsic concentration of endorphins and oxytocin is reduced, and the contractions are gone.

Therefore, we have created another problem, no pain and no birth, people are really powerful, we are too capable, contractions are gone, we play synthetic oxytocin, synthetic oxytocin will cause too strong contractions, the fetus may not be able to stand it, contractions are too strong, fetal heart rate is not good, so many people toss and toss, and they cut again.

Second, anesthesia drugs it passes through the placenta, through the placenta will be transmitted to the fetus, that is to say, the fetus also has to follow you to smoke anesthetics, this anesthesia will have a potential impact on the fetus.

I also want to emphasize a wrong way, that is, after birth, quickly cut the baby's umbilical cord, this mistake only people will do, other animals are not as smart as us, you see puppies and kittens, it is lying there after giving birth, it will not move this umbilical cord. So, what will happen at this time, this placenta will take a while to break away from the uterine wall, about 3~5 minutes, the placenta will continue to supply Xiaobao with about 100 ml of blood, and eventually the uterus contractions, will make almost all of the placenta blood supply to the newborn baby, this process is called the process of late cord clamping.

The process of late cord clamping can prevent anemia in newborns, because Xiaobao is given about 100 ml of blood, which is why natural childbirth is necessary, because natural childbirth will give the baby more natural gifts, and our interference will hinder many benefits.

At the beginning, I talked about a mother who had two cesarean sections, all hospitals do not provide vaginal delivery after cesarean section, and after she has two cesarean sections, this is a high risk. But she said, my two babies are not good at section, you help me, I don't want to cut it again, you don't have to worry, I won't blame you if something happens, I was very brave to accompany her, I said, we have to give birth slowly, follow the laws of nature, that night, we spent an unforgettable night together, and in the morning, a healthy baby boy was born.

If you have had a cesarean section, if you do not have an absolute need for cesarean section in your next delivery, you can have a vaginal delivery, and the success rate is very high, which is the result of our research in Rongcheng, Shandong.

Too much interference will increase the risk of mother and baby, we must follow the ancient precepts, in fact, our Chinese nation is very good at childbirth, the ancients warned us how to give birth, must be quiet, to achieve undisturbed childbirth, to create a loving environment.

Chinese dad, do you know what people have called you, shadow father. It's that you, like shadows, may pay your salary. So, when you give birth in the future, you have to come out of the shadows, hug your wife, and say I love you, because this can promote the release of maternal oxytocin and endorphins.

Note that childbirth you come with analgesics, childbirth can be carried out naturally, the more relaxed you are, the more oxytocin synthesis of your body will be, the better your contractions will be, the happier you will be, follow our traditional Chinese national childbirth culture, here are the six-character proverbs, sleep, endure pain, slow to the basin.

We must first do ourselves well and improve our own childbirth situation, so that we can share China's wisdom with the world.

It is important to remember that childbirth is a natural event, not a medical event, and you are not a patient.

Childbirth this thing is your body, your baby, your uterus, not to mention how advanced a hospital, can make you foolproof, a perfect childbirth experience, can be the whole process without intervention, no birth, no painless, no side cut, accompanied by your husband, you can kneel to give birth, when a little treasure is placed on the mother's chest, you will reach the most hilarious time in your life, that is, oxytocin burst, and then, you will faint, you will forget all the pain of childbirth, You feel like the world is so big, just me and the baby.

So, the problem now is that we don't do a good job of natural childbirth, a lot of people need a cesarean section, we want to have better mother-child outcomes through natural childbirth, less choking, less bleeding, better babies, every baby is healthy, very smart, will call mom, will say I love you, I love you, I love the world. Let's work together to create a spring of natural childbirth.