When we as a society begin to value mothers as the givers and supporters of life, then we will see social change in ways that matter.
Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.
Don’t forget to bring your sense of humor to your labor.
It is important to keep in mind that our bodies must work pretty well, or their wouldn’t be so many humans on the planet.
When you cast doubt on some bodily function- you don’t know how sensitive the body is to that kind of idea.
I think that women can be just completely surprised by the change in them from giving birth-you have something powerful in you-that fierce thing comes up-and I think babies need moms to have that fierceness-you feel like you can do anything and that’s the feeling we want moms to have.
The best a health care system can do is to equip itself to meet the needs of each individual woman and birth. Those needs run the gamut from undisturbed home birth to planned cesarean section.
Squat 300 times a day, you’re going to give birth quickly.
Ask the woman, she will tell you everything you need to know.
Simply put, when there is no home birth in a society, or when home birth is driven completely underground, essential knowledge of women’s capacities in birth is lost to the people of that society – to professional caregivers, as well as to the women of childbearing age themselves.
It would be a mistake, though, to consider care by family doctors or midwives inferior to that offered by obstetricians simply on the grounds that obstetricians need not refer care to a family physician or midwife if no complications develop during a course of labor.
If birth matters, midwives matter. In Europe, there are hospitals where the cesarean rate is less than 10%, and you’ll find midwives in these hospitals, you’ll see a lot less re-admissions with infections and complications, and you’ll see a lot less injury to mothers.
I think midwifery was developed by people with common sense, people who were close to nature, and people who observed other species of mammals and saw that there were lessons there to be learned.
The Creator is not a careless mechanic.
Why do we, then, continue to treat women as if their emotions and comfort, and the postures they might want to assume while in labor, are against the rules?
Many of our problems in US maternity care stem from the fact that we leave no room for recognizing when nature is smarter than we are.
The way a culture treats women in birth is a good indicator of how well women and their contributions to society are valued and honored.
Breast stimulation is especially effective in starting labor at term when it is combined with sexual intercourse. Unless your partner is an abysmally poor lover, this combination is by far the most enjoyable method of induction.
I dreaded having a boring life when I grew up. And I certainly can’t complain about being bored.
I had to learn not to let anyone push me around, to be brave and to say things I knew might make people mad.