Natural birth arrogance

I saw this magazine cover from “The Onion” — the hysterical satirical publication — and I had to laugh out loud.

The cover features a man with his hands wrapped around the naked pregnant belly of a mommy-to-be with the headline, “Natural Childbirth: How Morally Superior Does it Make You?”

I laughed because this spoof was dead on. There’s an unspoken competition between most moms about who is the tougher, better and more pioneer-esque mommy. And going “natural” during childbirth is like the gold medal of mommydom. (Many of you may deny this, but deep down, you know it’s true.)

As a woman who would have gotten an epidural in her fifth month of pregnancy, I never experienced drug-free childbirth. I’m glad I went with the meds, but sometimes I wonder if I shortchanged myself out of the beauty and pain of doing it naturally.

Some natural birthing experts even say childbirth can be as pleasurable as sex.

Wow. I must have been doing something very wrong in the delivery room.

I also can’t help but wonder if natural birthing moms look down on me for taking the meds. Some of my friends feel the same way, that maybe we are a notch lower on the mothering scale because we were numb from the waist down.

What do you think? Do natural birth moms really feel morally superior to us medicated moms, or are our feelings of inadequacy all in our minds?