Unless you end up with a totally traumatic birth I would doubt that any birth experience would prevent you from bonding with your baby.  Bonding - and I am not a psych major or anything - is more about the years after the birth rather than the first 10 minutes.  

what's bad for bonding is mental illness combined with CPS stealing your kid based on lies and insufficient information.  Otherwise, I've got no personal experience with the subject, and everybody I know bonded well with their newborns, regardless of method of birth of medical interventions.  I am sure that coercive treatment, or medical truama could interfere...

Actually, what happened to us did interfere to some degree with my husband's early bonding with the baby.  He was under so much stress that he came to associate the baby with all that anxiety and interference, threats, severe sleep deprivation, etc.  It took him several months to get over it.

Bonding, to me, is bullshit. There have been so many studies refuting the bonding process AND so much anecdotal evidence about appropriate adjustments to the mother/infant relationship post traumatic/adoptive/preemie births  that I tend to reject the "bonding" concept outright. Indeed, it is often used as yet another club with which to beat mothers/women into guilty submission.

Here's an abstract on the matter:

A study of the research on postpartum mother-infant bonding shows that results from poorly constructed research programs were published in major journals and became a part of hospital policy because the bonding concept was politically useful in the struggle between advocates of natural childbirth and managers of the medical model of birth. The concept was also uncritically accepted because it was consistent with a longstanding ideology of motherhood that sees women as the prime architects of their children’s personalities.

And here'sa link to the book, "Mother-Infant Bonding: A Scientific Fiction," by the same author.

I had a reasonable birth experience  w/DD and a less than great one with DS (who was taken to the NICU immediately and then to Children's Hospital w/in hours of his birth) and see no differences in the way I cared for, felt about, nurtured, etc. both of them.

but we probably would have died in a home birth

thank god we were in a hospital each time

My mother had all of us at home...and certainly didn't bond with any of us. I had both of mine in hospital with emergency c-sections...and I bonded immediately (well...quickly...there's always a few days of shock) and very strongly. I think it has way more to do with your mental state at the time of birth than anything else. If you don't want kids and aren't ready for them...and are going to resent their arrival, then guess what? You may not bond easily no matter what manner of birth you have. If, on the other hand, you do want kids (even if you didn't when you got pregnant!), and have prepared yourself mentally for having them...I think there's a good chance that you'll bond.

I'm in a "natural parenting" group, in which my birth is a distinct minority. Most of the families had home births (some unassisted). While they treasure their experiences (and luckily didn't have any bad ones!), they would never say that they bonded better with their babies than I did. They might say that they had more peaceful, comfortable and family centered experiences. But then...I was happier in the hospital, so a home birth would have been anything but peaceful for me!

I would say, ignore the bonding crap. Prepare yourself for what comes after the birth. And choose the birth that you personally are comfortable with. If you don't have any risk factors and are terrified of hospitals, home may be the best place for you. If you want the comfort of knowing that there is help around the corner, do the hospital and get yourself some help in advocating for you to get what you want. But remember that the birth doesn't last long. It's what comes after that is hard.

Definitely not ideal birth experiences, but I bonded with them just fine.  Feeding time was the clincher for me.  Gotta love the feeling of holding a baby while he/she eats and those little slurpy sounds.

you'll bond no matter what your birth experience is.  

...was in the hospital. I was induced, labor was a breathtaking 2 1/2 hours, no epidural or any other pain medication, and I was able to immediately hold my daughter and start nursing.

And then I realized I was scared s**less and I didn't know what to do with this little person I didn't know or understand at all!

Bonding has come over time, from me taking care of her, and from us learning about each other.

I think home births can be great, if everything goes well -- it's nicer to be in your house than a hospital, I'm sure (I understand you can rent hot tubs -- one friend of mine did that and had it in her living room! She could soak in the tub every night while waiting to go into labor!). Labor can take a while to get going and progress and finish, so the more time you can spend somewhere comfortable and relaxing, the better. And from what I understand, nursing is easier to get going after a natural birth, because both baby and mom aren't so out of it.

But birth is the smallest part of the whole raising-a-kid experience.

not because I think it matters all that much to the infant, but because a mom may have issues if she's in a bad way after a birth (which could happen in different ways), which could affect the first months. I don't think vaginal v. c-section matters, or hospital v. home, as far as long term psychological health. In the end, assuming everyone survives, it all turns out OK. If you have any doubts, think of all the adoptive families who love each other and turn out great.

My vote was for Section Vs vaginal birth, and in that case, I felt FAR more bonded to my son, even with a low-key fever.  Part of it has to with how soon afterwards you get the baby and how many drugs you're on, I'm sure, but I had a much easier time bonding with DS than DD.

But homebirth vs Hospital birth?  Eh.

the premise that a more organic and solid bond between mother and infant tends to occur after home births.

Hospital-born babies don't bond as well with their mothers?  That is absurd.

for three hours after they were whisked away and I was left to be sewn up and rest.

I didn't know this fact until years afterwards when I was looking at the time stamps on the photos.

No problem what so ever with the boding.

No problem with bonding and child number three either

the goal of labor is a healthy baby (or babies) and a healthy mother. Nothing is perfect, especially childbirth. I think having a reasonable plan and recognizing in advance that anything could happen and there could be unanticipated changes to your birth plan is the best way to arrive at the destination in a place where you can glory in the process and love your child(ren) at the end. Hospital v home, unmedicated v medicated, Caeserean v vaginal; they're all paths we can take.

As you can tell from all our responses, there are a million and one ways to have a child and a million and one ways to bond with your child. Don't worry that not having the "perfect" labor and birth experience will damage your ability to bond with your baby. Or try not to, anyway!

as a mom you will screw up.  you will screw up badly. you will screw up in silly way. you will screw up in serious ways but you WILL screw up.  You will also succeed in ways you never dreamed you had the ability to succeed  and how how handled being human and screwing up and suceeding and keeping a good relationship with your kid or kids is more important than where they actually came into this world.  That's the teeniest tiniest start to the parent child relationship.  liza was born in the hospital after a quick labor with no pain meds (not my choice believe me. I was all 'bring me the DRUGS but she came too fast) and ....we were the WORST breastfeeding team in history. The day I stopped trying to do something we both hated, and picked up a bottle was the day our real bonding began.  

now she's nearly 9 and while her birth and infancy are lovely memories -- oh dear lord there are SO many more things to revel in, to delight in, to marvel in and to tear my hair out over I can honestly tell you to us it just doesn't matter at all. She could have been born on the subway for all it matters at this point.  ;-)

you'll be fine. don't over think it too much.  

To answer your poll, a definite No.  Doesn't matter one bit.  We are humans, not geese or whatever animal it is that needs to imprint or whatever or they start following the wrong animal around.

In fact, I think it's the natural birth movement that can affect bonding, if one let's it.

If a new mom sits around lamenting the fact she didn't get her homebirth, or drug-free birth, or vaginal birth or whatever perfect birth she envisioned instead of getting down to business of physically recovering and getting to know her new baby, then sure, some bonding could be disrupted.

because the hospital staff was convinced I was psychotic, but they wouldn't come out and say, "We don't think it's safe for you to be with him (maybe if your husband were here too)."  They just kept putting me off when I asked if I could start trying to breastfeed.  And that was before CPS took him for 5 days.  But we are exceedingly bonded now.

There are a lot of bonding experiences.  Co-sleeping has been a big one for me, and just general snuggling and hanging out.

I do think it about the parents' mental state.  The baby just wants to be healthy and safe, and have affection.  Depression interferes with healthy relationship building, but at the same time, I feel that often having DS interferes with depression.  Everything can be going badly, and I can be at my wits' end, and then I'll see DS running around in maniacal glee, demonstrating all the fun one can have with a broom, and it can break through a lot of the clouds.

your responses have comforted me. BTW, my bond with my dog is undeniable. My husband is convinced that Huxley thinks he must be my biological offspring, totally pathetic, I know. It does help keep the door open for adoption though.

I just felt compelled to ask about bonding and birth, mostly for back up. There seem to be quite a lot of people chomping at the bit to tell mothers-to-be all the categorical imperatives of motherhood which negates the idea that mothering is natural and that the mistakes we make are part of the human condition.  

Besides, if I was a perfect mother it would be a hell of a daunting thing for any child to live up to. At least, that's what I'll try to tell myself when I screw up royally.

The number one goal when all is said and done is a healthy baby and healthy mom. Anything that gets you there is OK.

Especially with the first child, you don't know what to expect.  When our son was born, my wife did not go into labor, she had to be induced.  Our son ended up with an infection, and spent the first week of his life in Newborn ICU (where he was the healthiest child)

The one good new is that the hospital (Kaiser) had a room where mom could stay after she was discharged.  So when baby needed to eat, the nurses came and got her.

When our second child came, it was totally natural. Labor was so fast that there wasn't even time for an epidural.  I never knew my wife could yell like tarzan)

The baby never left mom's side, and we were home in 24 hours.

The result?  both kids are bonded just fine to both of us.  Sometimes I think our son is a little closer to mom, and our daughter to me, but the difference is minor

It's all about your state of mind anyway. Like others said, if you had your heart set on a particular kind of birth that didn't end up happening and you obsess over that, or if you have severe PPD, or if you weren't ready for kids, you might not bond immediately with your baby no matter what. If your heart is ready for your child (which it sounds like it already is), you will be bonded the second you lay eyes on him or hear his cry. And visa-versa.