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?
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.
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.
If you can’t be a hero, you can at least be funny while being a chicken.
It’s good to laugh at times that feel inappropriate.
Don’t criticize nature, stand in awe of it.
Why should nutrition matter less in the creation of young humans than it does in young plants? I’m sure that it doesn’t.
It will take your breastfed baby an average of five to six months to double her birth weight.
When a child is born, the entire Universe has to shift and make room. Another entity capable of free will, and therefore capable of becoming God, has been born.
Let your monkey do it.
Why should insurance companies continue to get away with limiting the skills that a health profession has always previously required of its members if they were to be considered fully trained?