Natural birth is when you choose to give birth with no medications at all. Instead you rely on techniques such as relaxation and controlled breathing for pain. During natural birth, the mother is in control of her body. She is guided and supported through the various stages of labor with the help of a labor assistant.

Many women who engage in natural birth do so  because they want to treat labor and delivery as a natural event. Despite the pain, most women find the experience empowering  and rewarding.

This method of childbirth includes :

• going through labor and delivery without the help of medication. This include pain relievers such as epidural
• using a few or no medical interventions such as episiotomies or continuous fetal monitoring
• allowing the woman to lead the labor or delivery process  by dealing with it the way she feels comfortable

What are the advantages of natural birth

Here are some of the pros of natural birth

• most of natural births are not invasive so there is little room for harm for you or your baby
• many women feel empowered after going through this kind of birth
• there is no loss of sense or alertness  so you can move freely and find a position that can help you through labor. You are also able to participate in the delivery  process
• you are less likely  than  those who get epidurals to need interventions such as pitocin to make contractions stronger, bladder catheterization or vacuum extraction or forceps delivery
• you can get your partner involved as you work to manage the pain
• you can use breathing exercises , visualization and self hypnosis during labor and later on.

What are the disadvantages of giving birth naturally

The cons of giving birth naturally  include  the following :

• natural pain techniques do not eliminate pain unlike an epidural
• the natural approach may not offer adequate pain management  especially if you end up with prolonged labor or complicated labor that may require intervention.