Oxytocin: The Love Hormone

(Unfortunately, the code on this news clip is faulty, so I can't post the video here -- but click on the title to see the video.)

My current childbirth fascination is with the hormones that start labor. Released by the brain, oxytocin is the hormone that causes the uterus to contract. Pitocin, the synthetic oxytocin used to induce contractions, is introduced directly into the veins by IV. So while Pitocin mimics oxytocin, it bypasses the brain, and the chain reaction release of endorphins that follows the release of oxytocin - the body's own painkiller - doesn't happen.

Incidentally, oxytocin is also released by the brain after you've had a good meal. So a delicious dinner and great sex makes for one fantastic evening! It's another good reason to eat in labor.

Another excellent discussion of the hormones involved in creating and sustaining a spontaneous labor is in the book Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering, but Sarah Buckley.

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Ummm, WHO delivered that baby?

I have been co-moderating a mothers e-group for a few years. It is a wonderful, supportive, and caring resource of information for moms in Boston. Every now and then, a newly pregnant mom asks for recommendations on an OB or midwife (usually an OB). The responses come pouring in, women sharing their stories about the tender prenatal care they received from one provider or the wonderful support given by the OB who happened to be on-call when they went into labor. But the one thing that makes me crazy is that this is said, over and over again: "Dr. (insert name) delivered my baby."

It doesn't matter how it happened: medicated or unmedicated, induced or spontaneous, vacuums or forceps. Mothers deliver their babies. Doctors and midwives attend births, assist births, catch babies, and perform procedures, but Mothers Deliver Their Babies! Even the babies who are born via the surgical skills of high-risk OB's, their mothers deliver them from the safety of their bodies, releasing them into the big, wide open, world to give them life.