If I do say so myself, I may be amassing the best collection of birth quotes on the internet 🙂 I like to share quotes via the Citizens for Midwifery and Talk Birth Facebook pages and then every couple of months I update this blog with the most recent collection. I think I’m going to start doing this on a weekly basis instead, to make it more manageable! I’ve mentioned before that while these quotes are obviously not my own words, I do appreciate a linkback to my site if you re-post them because I have a significant amount of legwork invested in finding and typing the quotes. Most are not recycled from other pages (I give credit if they are), but are typed up when they catch my eye in the books/magazines/journals I’m reading.

“A child is not a vase to be filled, but a fire to be lit.” –François Rabelais (via Confident Beginnings UK)

“It is not only that we want to bring about an easy labor, without risking injury to the mother or the child; we must go further. We must understand that childbirth is fundamentally a spiritual, as well as a physical, achievement. The birth of a child is the ultimate perfection of human love.” ~Dr. Grantly Dick-Read, 1…953
(via Birth Without Fear)

“I did not want my children to love me because I had been an adequate mother, because I would never be one, this I already knew. I wanted my children to love me for the same reason I want my children themselves to be loved: because we are all irreducible, irreplaceable.” -Gina Bria

“I believe the act of giving birth to be the single most miraculous thing a human being can do and it is surely the moment when a lot of women finally understand the depth of their power. You think it can’t possibly be done, you think you can’t possibly take the pain, and then you do-—and afterward you look at yourself… in a whole new way. If you can do that, you can do anything.” – Ani DiFranco

“Women who are giving birth, trust yourselves. Trust your inner power. Trust your ability to give life. This is something absolutely sacred that is inside all women in the world. A doctor, nurse, and all midwives in the world are people who are not in the position to teach a woman how to give birth, but to make it easi…er for her to do what she already knows how to do.” ~Ricardo Jones, Orgasmic Birth (Unfolding Lotus Birth Support)

“Whenever and with whomever they give birth, women are vulnerable unless information is shared with honesty and they can actively participate in decisions about everything that happens. Any setting in which the providers of care have total control over the management of childbirth can become one in which power is used to abuse women… –Sheila Kitzinger

“One of the most important things I have learned about birthing babies is that the process is more of an unfolding marvel than a routine progression of events.” –Tori Kropp

“I am proposing that the first way to change birth in our culture is to change how we tell children their first story, or stories, about birth. Not only the stories we tell children directly, but also to become aware of the birth stories we are telling adults within earshot of young children.” –Pam England (♥ her and also Birthing From Within!)

“Just as a woman’s heart knows how and when to pump, her lungs to inhale, and her hand to pull back from fire, so she knows when and how to give birth.” – Virginia Di Orio (a classic quote for today courtesy of Lamaze International‘s pregnancy e-newsletter)

“Take a moment to place your hands on your belly or gaze upon you baby or child and take a big breath. Drink in the beauty of connecting to them. And exhale gratitude.” —Pregnancy Awareness Month

“As women, we are inherently both power-filled and power-full. Each one of us knows on some level that we do have awesome strength at our core.” –from the book Mother Rising

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great ones make you feel that you too, can become great.” – Mark Twain (via Lamaze International pregnancy e-newsletter)

‎”Childbirth takes place at the intersection of time; in all cultures it links past, present and future. In traditional cultures birth unites the world of ‘now’ with the world of the ancestors, and is part of the great tree of life extending in time and eternity.” –Sheila Kitzinger

“Yes, hospitals offer free childbirth classes, but that is because it is a way for them–for the most part–to get people to become passive, compliant consumers of whatever it is that they are offering, which may be the induced labor, the scheduled cesarean, whatever. So, the independent childbirth educator is crucial.” –Suzanne Arms

“In terms of mortality and injury, we know that driving a car is hundreds of times more dangerous for women and children than giving birth…Though it’s proven to be extremely dangerous and can often be fatal, no one accuses a pregnant woman who drives a car every day of being ‘selfish.’ And, when she arrives at her destination without having a crash, no one tells her how ‘lucky’ she was.” –Jennifer Margulis

“It is true that naturally occurring labor can feel larger and greater than the woman birthing. This is not so as she creates from within the very hormones that increase the strength, power, and frequency of her work of labor. That is the good news, it is from her, for her, by her.” — Preparing For Birth

“…birth, if she has her way, happens below the head. In the end, fantasies and images from the stories a woman holds in her heart are what emerge with power…” –Sister MorningStar (The Power of Women)

“In giving birth to our babies, we may find that we give birth to new possibilities within ourselves.” –Everyday Blessings

“I told my dads that they were their partner’s lover and that their most important role at the birth was one they did everyday without classes, books or practice: Loving the mom. You could literally see the dads relax as this thought sunk in and took root.” ~ Lois Wilson, CPM (via Midwifery Today)

“Parents can only give good advice or put them on the right paths, but the final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.” ~ Anne Frank

“The happiness, bliss, and love that a new mother feels for her baby come from deep inside her and do not need to be taught. In the same way, the knowledge about how to give birth is already inside every woman. We can have trust and faith in our bodies to do the job of birthing.” —Birth Works International

“Birth is not a cerebral event; it is a visceral-holistic process which requires all of your self–-body, heart, emotion, mind, spirit.” –Baraka Bethany Elihu (Birthing Ourselves into Being)

“Trust your body. Trust yourself. Listen to the voice inside you that says you know how to grow this baby, how to bring forth this child, how to nourish your baby. You know how to be a mother.” — Lamaze International e-news

“Things which matter most should never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” ~ Johann Von Goethe

“Learn to respect this sacred moment of birth, as fragile, as fleeting, as elusive as dawn.” ~ Frederick Leboyer

“A doula gives from the heart to help another woman discover what birth and life are really all about.” –Connie Livingston

‎”The gift of creating new life needs to be, once again, welcomed and honored as one of the most mysterious of human powers. And women need to be confirmed in their decisions to use this power however and whenever they see fit.” –Patricia Monaghan

‎”Giving birth naturally is not just a nice option or the opportunity to have a transforming experience; giving birth naturally is the safest way to give birth for mothers and babies.” –Judith Lothian (in an article in Lamaze International‘s Journal of Perinatal Education, Fall 2009)

‎”…pregnancy is not something to be endured…it is a time of self-celebration, enriched inner life, and a chance to grasp that each woman not only richly deserves self-care but must have it if she is to survive and thrive as a mother. Pregnancy offers us the excuse to be gentle with ourselves. That excuse can become a habit. That habit can slowly become a lovingly held belief: ‘I AM worthy of self-care, not just when I am carrying a child but every day.'” –Jennifer Louden (The Pregnant Woman’s Comfort Book)

‎”Lessons in preparing for childbirth are really lessons in living.” –Lynn Moen (Around the Circle Gently)

“Birth is what women do. Women are privileged to stand in such power! Birth stretches a woman’s limits in every sense. To allow such stretching of one’s limits is the challenge of pregnancy, birth, and parenting. The challenge is to be fully present and to allow the process because of inner trust. How can women find their power, claim it, and stand firm in it throughout?” –Elizabeth Noble