Self-Directed Pregnancy: Beyond the “Wild” Label
As the movement toward de-medicalizing birth gains traction, more women are sharing stories of their “wild pregnancy” leading to a freebirth. Defining terms always helps clarify intentions. What constitutes a “wild” pregnancy? Why are women choosing it? Is it a wise option? Plenty of questions can be asked, and most of the answers are bespoke to each woman wondering.
When influential organizations promote dogmatic definitions, individual intuition can be dismissed and dangerous situations result. After debriefing some deeply heavy stories of full-term loss with mothers who chose a “wild” pregnancy by other people’s definitions, I have come to hear this term as loaded and expectant, and not as flexible or free as it first seems.
According to some, to qualify you must have no professional prenatal care, or at least nothing that could deem you “captive” to the medical system. No appointments with a licensed midwife or obstetrician, no ultrasounds, no exams, and no tests. Some would even count a urine home pregnancy test as not wild. It reminds me of my years as a vegan, when other vegans would one-up each other to prove themselves “more vegan,” avoiding white cane sugar because the processing used bone char, or fussing over flavorings with some animal byproduct in the supply chain. Most of us ended up with nutrient deficiencies anyway, and eventually recognized a need to step away from the dogma to nourish ourselves.
I admittedly took on the challenge of qualifying for that “wild” label. After I surrendered my womb to the Lord (following back-to-back miscarriages I partly attribute to nutrient depletion from over five years of veganism), I determined to not even take a pregnancy test. The exercise in patience was beneficial for me. I felt much less stressed than in my first pregnancy when I was going to typical OB appointments, anxious that they would find something wrong (because their job is to find anything that might be!). As the weeks passed I had no monthly bleed, nausea began, nursing my toddler gave me aversions, and my belly started to grow. I trusted the Lord’s signs, and was grateful to be pregnant for however long He would have me. Eventually I started feeling flutters, then kicks, and found heart tones with my fetoscope. Wait: did that make it not “wild”? I went to a Webster-certified chiropractor to keep my body in alignment. Was that not “wild” of me? At 34 weeks I realized I would need official documentation of the pregnancy for a birth certificate and my husband’s work benefits, so I went to a pro-life pregnancy center and gave them a urine sample. Does that disqualify me? If a wild pregnancy must in every way reflect a truly wild animal reproducing with no human observation, then I guess mine was not wild. I am happy to have many of the comforts of domestication as a 21st-century Western human, indoor plumbing included.
Perhaps “self-directed” pregnancy should be taken up instead. Whether a woman considers herself in or out of the medical system, I would hope her pregnancy care is directed by her. She is the one in her body and mind and intuition, and she is the one affected by the outcomes.
Too often, inside the system, care is directed by policy and standards that are not actually evidence-based, individualized, or flexible, and women feel as if they have been put on an assembly line. Even outside obstetrics, pregnant women tend to seek support of some kind and may find themselves under a different cookie-cutter influence, encouraged to reject every aspect of the system, and in the process override the inner knowing that would help them decide what is right for them. The connectivity of the internet is a blessing; it also separates us from the in-person experience of being with a woman, which is so key in prenatal interactions. Online communities repeat and amplify messages, blindly encouraging people to conform to the unifying beliefs, unaware of the nuances of the individual.
As a Christian, I find it vital to submit all my decisions unto the Lord. When I seek validation from someone outside myself, my first step is prayer, and my next is waiting on His response. I live in a dichotomy of knowing God designed birth to work in a very good way, set against living in a world broken by sin that affects His original design. Also evident is His grace in the medical technologies that can compensate for some of this brokenness. Sinful humans, living in fear of death instead of fear of the Lord, have overused and abused these graces and regularly cause iatrogenic harm.
When you are seeking a self-directed pregnancy, those two steps should stay in play. It is good to desire the wisdom of the One who created you. A third step is to get curious with yourself, especially when you notice a concern in your body or thoughts arise. If the questions cannot be answered by yourself, go a step further and engage the body of Christ, asking for prayer and input from people you trust around you.
For my fifth pregnancy I am choosing to be self-directed, or really more God-directed. This baby in my womb is prayed for multiple times a day, with a reminder to look for the Lord’s direction in all things. Due to my situation, I am getting curious about what medical graces (like RhoGAM, which deserves its own blog post) may be relevant to my family, and how that could be obtained. I am not seeing a medical provider, but I would find one if my DIY prenatal care indicated any major concerns, such as unusually high blood pressures or reduced fetal movement. I am seeking to live as designed by God, nourishing and moving my body, and would escalate to gentle or forceful interventions with continued prayer and waiting as appropriate. Less dogmatically under a society’s influence. More focus on submitting to God in how He is guiding this image bearer into the world, and on accepting the graces He offers.
If you are curious about curating a self-directed pregnancy yourself, I would be happy to connect and share more about what I have learned of the extraordinary and extra ordinary experience of childbearing. You already carry authority in this birth, and responsibility for how a generation is formed through your womb. Do you feel called to do something different? I would love to hear about it.
