WHEN model Miranda Kerr boasted about her drug-free labour with baby son Flynn, she sparked fury amongst mums across the globe.
The Victoria’s Secret model claimed she opted for a natural birth as she didn’t want her son to be ‘drugged up’.
And Kerr, 29, who is married to actor Orlando Bloom, flippantly said she wanted to give her son ‘the best possible start in life’ by refusing an epidural.
Her factually inaccurate pop at women who have epidurals to ease the pain of labour has angered both mums and medical experts.
There is no evidence that epidurals – an anaesthetic injected into the mother’s spine to numb the lower body – do any harm to the baby.
In fact, they reduce birth trauma and foetal distress and around 30 per cent of mums opt for an epidural to help them through long and painful labours.
Here, we meet two mums who had completely different births – to find out what they think about Miranda’s controversial comments.
LORNA, LOIS & JACK ROME
MUM-of-two Lorna Rome, 38, had a drug-free birth with daughter Lois, two, after a disappointing labour with son Jack, five.
Lorna, who teaches hypnobirthing at Your Body, Your Baby, said: “For me, personally, I had a bad experience with my first birth as I was so drugged up, so I wanted to go natural the second time round.
“It was absolutely amazing and I felt no pain.
“Looking back, I was backed into a corner and told I should take drugs and that I wasn’t coping the first time.
“I didn’t feel any pain the second time, I walked into hospital fully dilated and had no pain relief.
“However, it really isn’t anybody’s place to judge other women.”
“I think it’s each to their own and we should all, Miranda Kerr included, respect other women.
Lorna, of Prestwick, Ayrshire, had a long and painful labour with son Jack in 2007.
She said: “I think a lot of women beat themselves up about having the wrong birth.
“I wanted to do something positive instead. My first labour was awful. I was doing fine but the midwives suggested I wasn’t coping with the pain.
“It’s a domino effect and you end up taking pain relief because you’re offered it.
“I had an epidural, but it made me so numb I couldn’t push properly.
“I felt like I wasn’t part of the whole birth experience.
“I was so drugged up.”
Although Jack was a healthy baby, Lorna wanted to avoid a repeat of her experience when she fell pregnant again in 2009.
Lorna’s midwife suggested she read up on hypnobirthing.
She said: “I only started reading up on it when I was 37 weeks pregnant and my second birth was just incredible.”
Lorna laboured at home, and looked after her toddler son between contractions.
She said: “I was just having a normal day but stopping and practicing breathing if the surges were more intense.
“When my mum came down and my wee boy went to bed I felt like I could let go a bit more and I had a bath. I was fully dilated when I arrived at the hospital.
“The midwife didn’t think I was in labour, she was going to send me to a room to have tea.
“I told her I didn’t want it. I wanted to get on a bed and have a baby.
“I wasn’t in any pain at all, I just felt pressure. It was amazing.
“I had put in my birth plan I didn’t want pain relief offered – that I would ask for it if I needed it.
“I felt wonderful giving birth. It’s a huge hormone relief.
“I would never have trained to be a birthing practitioner if I hadn’t had that experience.”
Six months after Lois was born, Lorna began training to teach hypnobirthing.
“I think birth choice is an individual thing. But if you can learn to relax you can have an amazing, natural birth.”
LEE-ANN & JUDE
NEW mum Lee-Ann Beaton, 31, a PR account director, and her husband Kieran had their baby boy, Jude, on May 17.
Lee-Ann opted for an epidural and dismisses Miranda Kerr’s claims it meant she was failing to give her son the best start in life.
She said: “When are women going to stop running each other down just because they’ve made different choices?
“Miranda seems to have appointed herself the poster woman for mummy perfection.
“She didn’t ‘drug up her baby’, breastfeeding ‘came easily’ to her and she does what her granny recommended and slips on a dress and a slick of lipstick for her man coming home.
“While she might claim her comments have been taken out of context, the reality is, as a world-famous model, she should know better.
“The comment that really irks me is she claims she wanted to ‘give him the best possible start in life’. All mums want to do that, Miranda, but we each have to decide what works best for us.
“Labour is painful but thanks to medical advances we don’t have to writhe about in agony if we don’t want to.”
Lee-Ann didn’t set out a birth plan and was open-minded about her labour.
She said: “I used gas and air until I was seven centimetres dilated and then got my epidural.
“It gave me a chance to rest and prepare for the hard part. So when the time came to push I had the energy to do it, and there wasn’t one swear word uttered either, it was all pretty calm and actually good fun.”
Lee-Ann says there was no sign of baby Jude being “drugged up”.
The healthy baby boy weighed in at 7lb 14oz.
She said: “We cuddled up together and I was able to feed him myself too, it was better than I could have imagined.
“I was able to enjoy every minute of it with Kieran and we have a wonderful, contented little baby who
is thriving.
is thriving.
“I can also look back on the experience and genuinely say it was amazing and was pretty much pain free.
“Good luck to those who opt to do it with no pain relief, but don’t have a go at others for making a different choice.”
THE MIDWIFE'S VIEW
Professional advisor for the Royal College of Midwives, Mervi Jokinen, supports choice for women when they give birth.
She said: “It’s become a lot more acceptable in society to have an epidural. Everybody thinks the pain of labour is awful and the epidural is the saviour.
“I am a supporter of choice, but I think that choice depends on the quality and level of information a woman receives. The epidural does have an effect on the later stages of labour, as it can actually make pushing more difficult.
“And the baby will be sleepier so it can make breast-feeding harder.
“However, in some cases, if there are medical problems for example, an epidural may be necessary and can help the labouring mother.”
source: dailyrecord.co.uk
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