Three highjackers of your natural birth
IAs the big day approaches, you're probably thinking more and more about the birth. You may have already planned in your mind—or even written a birth plan—how you envision bringing your baby into the world. And if you’re having a healthy pregnancy, with no complications for you or your baby, I suspect that you're hoping for a natural, intervention-free birth—just like most expectant mothers.
Unfortunately, reality often paints a very different picture. The ideal of a natural, intervention-free birth often doesn’t come true. In fact, if I’m being honest, it’s more likely not to happen than it is. In the Western world today, most births are highly medicalized. They're typically actively managed by a doctor, and the “better” scenarios are the ones that don’t end in the operating room.
In this post, you’ll learn about the three highjackers that can unexpectedly steer your birth toward a more medicalized path—even if everything is normal. These are not extreme or abnormal conditions, but rather completely natural variations of pregnancy and birth. Yet if you’re not careful, if you’re not informed, these can easily derail your plans for a natural birth.
Let’s look at them one by one:
1. Your labor starts with your water breaking
We often see this in movies, and many people imagine this is how labor normally starts. But in reality, this is actually the exception! Only about 10% of labors begin with the water breaking. Far more commonly, labor starts with contractions, and if left undisturbed, the amniotic sac usually doesn’t rupture until much later—toward the end of labor, around the pushing stage.
It’s important to stress that both ways of starting labor are completely normal!
So why can water breaking be a tricky start? If you ask different midwives, doctors, or doulas what to do when your water breaks, you’re likely to get just as many different answers. A common piece of advice is to go straight to the hospital, due to the supposed risks of infection or danger to the baby.
Let’s look at these perceived and real risks more closely.
The first concern: umbilical cord prolapse
This is a real and very serious emergency. Imagine a sudden gush of amniotic fluid carrying the umbilical cord down into the birth canal, where it gets trapped beneath the baby. This can compromise—or in severe cases, cut off—blood flow through the cord, which is life-threatening. The only solution in such a case is immediate surgical delivery.
Before you panic, let’s pause and look at how often this actually happens: studies show that umbilical cord prolapse occurs in only about 1 in 200 to 1 in 1,000 births, meaning it happens less than 0.5% of the time. It’s also more likely if:
The water gushes suddenly (not if it trickles slowly)
The cervix is already partially dilated
The baby is in a breech position
There’s a lot of amniotic fluid
The placenta is located low, near the cervix
The baby is very small or premature
If cord prolapse happens at home and you don't know the emergency position to take, there’s a real risk you won’t get to the hospital in time. However, the “good” news is that most cases actually happen in hospitals—usually when the water is artificially broken during labor!
Still, if your water breaks at home and you feel or see something unusual in your vagina, immediately get into the knee-chest position and stay in it (even in the car or ambulance) until you’re in surgery.
The second concern: infection
In hospitals, you may hear that after your water breaks, the baby must be born within a certain number of hours—because the "clock starts ticking." Yes, when the sac breaks, a potential pathway opens for bacteria to enter. However, your body continues to produce fresh amniotic fluid, which naturally flushes out any bacteria trying to move upward.
But once you're admitted to the hospital, a vaginal exam is almost always performed. That internal check gives bacteria a free ride directly to the baby. This is when the risk of infection truly increases—and the clock really does start ticking.
Also, water breaking does not always mean labor starts right away. It can take a day or two (or even longer) before contractions begin. But if you go to the hospital too early after your water breaks, the risk of infection increases—and medical staff will likely intervene to start labor artificially.
In some hospitals, the approach is slightly better. They may wait a bit longer before intervening, but after about 12 hours, it’s common to start IV antibiotics every four hours.
So, if you haven't thought through what you’ll do in case your labor begins with water breaking—and if you head straight to the hospital because of it—there’s a good chance your birth will start following the hospital’s timeline instead of your baby’s. And that one single decision can be the first major step toward a fully medicalized birth.
One more important note: if the amniotic fluid is not clear—if it’s brownish, greenish, yellow, or blackish—then your baby has likely passed meconium (their first stool) in the womb. In that case, definitely go to the hospital to have the baby's condition monitored. This isn’t automatically dangerous, but it can be a sign that the baby is under stress. If the fluid is clear, watery with possibly some white specks, and smells slightly sweet—that’s completely normal! Drink plenty of fluids so the baby continues producing urine (which is what amniotic fluid partly is), stay calm, and wait for contractions to begin and build strength. Only head to the hospital once things are truly underway.
2. You test positive for Group B Streptococcus (GBS)
In recent years, GBS screening has become standard practice in Belgium late in pregnancy. Here, if the test is positive, it's common for hospitals to administer IV antibiotics during labor to reduce the risk of infection. For this to happen, you’ll often be advised to come to the hospital earlier, so the antibiotics can be given ideally about four hours before the baby is born.
Antibiotics do reduce the risk, but they don’t eliminate it completely. Also, a negative test doesn’t guarantee you won’t pick up the bacteria in the final days before birth—this is simply not monitored. So, it’s important to understand that GBS testing is not foolproof. And if you test positive but don't receive antibiotics (due to fast labor, for example), that also doesn’t necessarily mean your baby will get sick.
(Remember: this test didn’t even exist when you were born!)
But if you rush to the hospital only because of a positive GBS test, you may end up facing unnecessary interventions. Want to understand why? Check out my free mini childbirth prep class, where I explain all the cause-and-effect relationships!
3. You go past your due date
Your due date is simply an estimate—an educated guess about when your baby might arrive. In fact, babies born anytime between 37 and 42 weeks are considered full-term.
Despite this, in Belgium it’s common for doctors to start talking about induction on your due date, and many will want to induce by 40 weeks and 6 days. The idea is to reduce the risk of stillbirth, which does indeed increase slightly after 39 weeks—but it’s still a very, very small risk, measured in fractions of a percent.
Also important: the risk of stillbirth is never zero—not at 39 weeks, not at 40, not at any point. Tragedies, sadly, can happen—but they are extremely rare.
So if you go past your due date, it doesn't mean anything is wrong with you or your baby, or that the baby “forgot” to be born. It often just means your baby isn’t quite ready yet.
We’re not all the same—just like some people have size 37 feet and others wear size 40, pregnancy lengths vary too! Research shows that first babies often take a little longer, with an average delivery time closer to 40+5 to 41 weeks.
So I encourage you to think ahead: would you want your labor to be induced just for going past your due date? That decision alone can drastically increase the chance of a medicalized birth—and even raise the risk of ending up with a C-section.
Prepare now for the “what ifs.” Talk to your partner. Think through your options. Prepare thoroughly for birth using reliable information. You do have choices in most situations—and your choices really can influence the way your birth unfolds.
Wishing you joyful preparation and a calm, beautiful birth!
