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Two Birth Poems

Apr6

I shared these on my Facebook page recently too and as long as I was updating my birth quotes, I thought I’d post the poems as well. They could be good for a mother blessing or blessingway ceremony or just to print up for a mother preparing to give birth, to to one who has just given birth, or to a birthworker (another favorite birthing poem is posted here):

Being Born

by Carl Sandburg

Being born is important
You who have stood at the bedposts
and seen a mother on her high harvest day,
the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.

You who have seen the new wet child
dried behind the ears,
swaddled in soft fresh garments,
pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth
toward nipples where white milk is ready.

You who have seen this love’s payday
of wild toiling and sweet agonizing.

You know being born is important.
You know that nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand that the payday of love is so old,
So involved, so traced with circles of the moon,
So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood.
It must be older than the moon, older than salt.

—-

Ordinary Miracle

by Barbara Kingsolver

I have mourned lost days
When I accomplished nothing of importance.
But not lately.
Lately under the lunar tide
Of a woman’s ocean, I work
My own sea-change:
Turning grains of sand to human eyes.
I daydream after breakfast
While the spirit of egg and toast
Knits together a length of bone
As fine as a wheatstalk.
Later, as I postpone weeding the garden
I will make two hands
That may tend a hundred gardens.

I need ten full moons exactly
For keeping the animal promise.
I offer myself up: unsaintly, but
Transmuted anyway
By the most ordinary miracle.
I am nothing in this world beyond the things one woman does.
But here are eyes that once were pearls.
And here is a second chance where there was none.

—-

(hat tip to Birth True for posting the Kingsolver poem—Barbara Kingsolver is one of my favorite authors, but I had never read the poem before seeing it on the Birth True blog.)

Birth Quotes and More Birth Quotes

Apr5

Time for my semi-regular birth quotes update post!

“Birth is the doorway for integration of body and mind.” –Gayle Peterson

“Good timber does not grow with ease; the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees.” – J. Willard Marriott

“Most mothers are instinctive philosophers.” – Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Sometime in your life you will go on a journey. It will be the longest journey you have ever taken. It is the journey to find yourself.” – Katherine Sharp

“Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of beginning. Probably that’s why we decide we’re done. It’s getting too scary. We are touching down onto something real. It is beyond the point when you think you are done that often something strong comes out.” ~ Natalie Goldberg

(This is something I try to convey in my birth classes–that when it seems “too much” and you manage to “dig deeper,” you find so much strength that you didn’t know you had and that knowledge of strength can continue to inform the rest of your LIFE!)

“When a woman has a child, it is equivalent to taking life vows.” –Stephanie Demetrakopoulos

“You do not know how a pregnant woman comes to have a body and living spirit in her womb.” –Ecclesiastes 11:5

(I guess tecnnically we “know,” but I think this is talking about the mystery of how we get from no where to now here…)

“Childbirth is a rite of passage so intense physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, that most other events in a woman’s life pale next to it. In our modern lives, there are few remaining rituals of initiation, few events that challenge a person’s mettle down to the very core. Childbirth remains a primary… initiatory event for a woman.” –Maren Hansen

“Birth is an active, completely engaging process and requires that a woman be actively engaged, not only physically and emotionally but also in the decision-making process (before and during the birth).” –Awaken Your Birth Power e-newsletter

“Although women have been giving birth since time began, the lack of cumulative female knowledge and sharing in our society has led us to seek information about birth in books and classes rather than from the native wisdom of community experience.” –Elizabeth Noble

“…many women see the experience of birth as mystical, something they turn over and refocus on all their lives.” –Stephanie Demetrakopoulos

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.” ~August Wilson

“You know being born is important to you. You know nothing else was ever so important to you.” –Carl Sandburg

“Spring has returned. The earth like a child that knows poems.” –Rainer Maria Rilke

“Hope is like a bird that senses the dawn and carefully starts to sing while it is still dark.” ~Anonymous

“Giving birth and being born brings us into the essence of creation, where the human spirit is courageous and bold and the body, a miracle of wisdom.” –Harriette Hartigan

“Giving birth is a transformation and it doesn’t matter whether you’ve had eight babies before. It’s still a transformation the next time you have another baby, because you are no longer the same woman you were before you had that baby.” –Penny Handford

“When a woman births without drugs…she learns that she is strong and powerful…She learns to trust herself, even in the face of powerful authority figures. Once she realizes her own strength and power, she will have a different attitude for the rest of her life, about pain, illness, disease, fatigue, and difficult situations.” –Polly Perez

“It is certainly true that for an increasing number of women, the birth experience is ecstatic. But it’s very important to keep in mind that, from a global perspective, the birth experience is still not a positive one for millions of women.” –Judy Chicago

“Woman is the first environment. In pregnancy our bodies sustain life. At the breast of women, the generations are nourished. From the bodies of women flows the relationsiop of those generations both to society and the natural world. In this way the earth is our mother, the old people said in this way we as women are earth.” –Katsi Cook Mohawk midwife

“When we let our light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.” –Marianne Williamson

“Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of passing the stillness of the eternal.” –Abraham Joshua Heschel

“Loss makes artists of us all as we weave new patterns in the fabric of our lives.” –Greta W. Crosby

“Pregnant woman, at once universal and individual, lives the compelling force of creation within her whole being.” –Harriette Hartigan

“Childbirth is a rite of passage so intense physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, that most other events in a woman’s life pale next to it. In our modern lives, there are few remaining rituals of initiation, few events that challenge a person’s mettle down to the very core. Childbirth remains a primary initiatory event for a woman.” –Maren Hansen

“Male science disregards female experiences because it can never share them.” –Grantly Dick-Read

“I usually claim that pregnant women should not read books about pregnancy and birth. Their time is too precious. They should, rather, watch the moon and sing to their baby in the womb.” –Michel Odent

(Personally, I LOVE books–of all sorts–and reading is THE top way for me to learn about anything. I think the best prep I did before having my first baby was to read and I always give a recommended reading list to my clients. However, I also “hear” what he is saying here and wanted to share the quote. My personal opinion is that in our current birth culture it is nearly impossible to go into birth just planning to “go with the flow” and let labor unfold without expectation [if you are birthing in the hospital that is—because the hospital is FULL of expectations and those will often run right over your flow]).

“No matter what your size, shape, percentage of body fat, or BMI, you and I…can start right this minute to express gratitude to our bodies for being home to our souls and allowing us to express our uniqueness on the earth at this time.” – Dr. Christiane Northrup, The Wisdom of Menopause

“In pregnancy’s sculptured beauty, one body grows within another. Energy becomes human in the alchemy of the womb.” –Harriette Hartigan

“The experience of birth is vast. It is a diverse tapestry woven by cultural customs, shaped in personal choices, affected by biological factors, marked by political circumstances. Yet the nature of birth itself prevails in elegant design of simple complexity.” –Harriette Hartigan

“Stress hormones are contagious–if someone in your birthing space is stressed, you will feel it and become stressed.” (Awaken Your Birth Power)

Following Your Body’s Urges to Push…

Apr2

Sense and Sensibility is having a blog carnival around Healthy Birth Practice #5: Avoid giving birth on your back and follow your body’s urges to push.

For this blog carnival, I feel like sharing my own personal experiences with following my body’s urges to push. I gave birth to my first son over six years ago in what was the only freestanding birth center in the state (related side note: when I told my landlord that my new baby was born in a freestanding birth center, she said, “oh, so does everyone there have them standing up?”;-D). When I arrived at the birth center, I was surprised to be ten centimeters dilated already. Fortunately, the midwife on duty said, “go ahead and push when you feel the urge,” and went about her business, rather than encouraging me to push simply because I was at ten or exhorting me to push with loud counting and the near-aggression as is so frequently depicted in the media. After some time, I decided to experiment with the “pressure” feeling I’d been feeling for several hours—as soon as I gave a couple of small, experimental pushes like that, my water broke. I stayed on my knees on the floor for some time—head and arms on the bed—and eventually the doctor suggested that I get up on the bed, where I ended up giving birth to my son in a semi-sitting position.

During this birth, I was very sensitive to suggestion and to “being good,” and so when the bed was mentioned, I felt I had no choices even in such a gentle birth setting. I feel if left to my own urges, I would have stayed kneeling on the floor.

With my second son, who was born at home, I was alone with my husband for nearly the entire labor. As I got closer to giving birth, I felt “driven” to my hands and knees where I began to push spontaneously (and again my water broke with the onset of pushiness). It was a very wild and rapid birth and I barely had conscious thought of whether or not I felt like pushing—it just happened! After several pushes on hands and knees, my son eased out where he was received by my midwife after her arrival five minutes prior.

My third son (second trimester m/c), was born at home with just my husband present.  My labor was again extremely rapid and I found myself kneeling on the floor in child’s pose. This position felt safe and protective to me, but I finally coached myself into awareness that the baby wasn’t going to come out with me crouched on the floor in that manner. I told myself that just like with any other birth, gravity would help. So, I pushed myself up into a kneeling position and my water broke right away. I crouched forward again—feeling fearful—and then told myself to move upright again. As soon as I was back on my knees, some blood clots emerged. I stood then, with knees slightly bent, and my baby was born.

For me, being nearly alone is the best way to follow my body’s own promptings. I feel it can be difficult to heed our bodies’ own wisdom when other people in the room are encouraging directed pushing or are “cheerleading” loudly. Freedom to move as desired and to push spontaneously according to the body’s own urges is a mother and baby friendly approach to birth.

Some of my other posts about second stage labor include: pushing the issue of pushing; waiting before pushing; and thoughts about pushing.

For more information about spontaneous pushing check out this video from Mother’s Advocate.

And, don’t forget my handout: helpful ways to use a hospital bed without lying down.

Consumer Blame

Mar31

Two things came to my attention today that made me think about how ironic it is that the medical system “lets” or doesn’t “let” women do so many things with regard to pregnancy and birth care and yet if something goes wrong, the locus of control shifts suddenly and it is now her fault for the situation. I see this often with things like “failure to progress”—“she’s just not dilating”—and even with fetal heart decelerations (“the baby just isn’t cooperating”). With induction—“her body just isn’t going to go into labor on its own”—and with pain relief—“she’s just not able to cope anymore” (yes, but is she also restrained on her back and denied food and drink?!). There are other ugly terms associated with women’s health that blame the “victim” as well such as “incompetent cervix” and “irritable uterus” and even “miscarriage” (and its even uglier associate, “spontaneous abortion.” And then for women with recurrent pregnancy losses we have the lovely, woman honoring term, “habitual aborter.” EXCUSE me?!). And then today, via The Unnecesarean, I read about a doctor inducing “labor” and then performing a cesarean on a non-pregnant woman.

Okay wow. So much could be said about that, but the kicker for me is that the woman was blamed—“The bottom line is the woman convinced everybody she was pregnant.” Huh?! So random surgery is totally acceptable if the person is “convincing” enough? What happened to diagnosing something first? Or, for taking responsibility for an inaccurate diagnosis?

The final thing that happened is that I got a completely unexpected refund check for over $400 today from my own local medical care system. While I’m not complaining about $400 that I thought I’d seen the last of, I had to shake my head in disbelief at the reason for the refund—“you overpaid”—excuse me, but I think the real reason is, “you overcharged me.” I checked back through my bills and I paid what I was billed (which, now that I think about, did seem like a heck of a lot for services NOT-rendered. If I had been in less of a state of grief and shock perhaps I would have questioned it more!), but now it has become “my fault” (in a sense) by switching the language to my overpaying vs. them overcharging.

What interesting dynamics these are…

Thoughts About “Let”

Mar28

“The effort to separate the physical experience of childbirth from the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of this event has served to disempower and violate women.” –Mary Rucklos Hampton

Related to my recent birth consumer post, I wanted to write a little bit more about the word “let.” One of my strongest birth-related pet peeves is the use of the word “let” when applied to birthing women. Women and providers and even doulas and CBEs often use terminology like “well, they let me get up for a while and walk around” or “my doctor is going to let me go to 41 weeks” or “the nurse let her get off the monitor for about 30 minutes” or “my husband won’t let me have a homebirth.” I do not like this phrase because of the “victim” mentality I feel like it conveys—-that women are passive and things are being “done to” them and they have no power of their own. I feel like it removes autonomy and empowerment and women’s control over their own bodies and births.

I often remind people that birth is not a time in a woman’s life when she should have to fight for anything. I also like to gently remind clients that no one can “let” them do anything. With colleagues, I occasionally have to clarify or explain my perception of the term as disempowering. Though in the end, sometimes I need to let (!) it go and realize that some people are perfectly satisfied with the term. And, I also have to acknowledge that the word DOES accurately describe many women’s experiences-—they are “let” or “not let” to do things even if I think it should be different and think they should have more power and control during their own births!

Becoming an Informed Birth Consumer

Mar26

Though it may not often seem so, birth is a consumer issue. When speaking about their experiences with labor and birth, it is very common to hear women say, “they won’t let you do that here” (such as regarding active birth–moving during labor). They seem to have forgotten that they are customers receiving a service, hiring a service provider not a “boss.” If you went to a grocery store and were told at the entrance that you couldn’t bring your list in with you, that the expert shopping professional would choose your items for you, would you continue to shop in that store? No! If you hired a plumber to fix your toilet and he refused and said he was just going to work on your shower instead, would you pay him, or hire him to work for you again? No! In birth as in the rest of life, YOU are the expert on your own life. In this case, the expert on your body, your labor, your birth, and your baby. The rest are “paid consultants,” not experts whose opinions, ideas, and preferences override your own.

There are several helpful ways to become an informed birth consumer:

  • Read great books such as Henci Goer’s The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth or Pushed by Jennifer Block.
  • Hire an Independent Childbirth Educator (someone who works independently and is hired by you, not by a hospital). Some organizations that certify childbirth educators are Childbirth and Postpartum Professionals Association (CAPPA), BirthWorks, Bradley, Birthing From Within, Lamaze, and Childbirth International. Regardless of the certifying organization, it is important to take classes from an independent educator who does not teach in a hospital. (I’m sure there are lots of great educators who work in hospitals, but in order to make sure you are not getting a “co-opted” class that is based on “hospital obedience training” rather than informed choice, an independent educator is a good bet.)
  • Consider hiring a doula—a doula is an experienced non-medical labor support provider who offers her continuous emotional and physical presence during your labor and birth. Organizations that train doulas include CAPPA, DONA, and Birth Arts.
  • Join birth organizations specifically for consumers such as Citizens for Midwifery or Birth Network National.
  • Talk to other women in your community. Ask them what they liked about their births and about their care providers. Ask them what they wish had been different.
  • Ask your provider questions. Ask lots of questions. Make sure your philosophies align. If it isn’t a match, switch care providers. This is not the time for misplaced loyalty. Your baby will only be born once, don’t dismiss concerns your may have over the care you receive or decide that you can make different choices “next time.”
  • Find a care provider that supports Lamaze’s Six Healthy Birth Practices and is willing to speak with you seriously about them:
  1. Let labor begin on its own
  2. Walk, move around and change positions throughout labor
  3. Bring a loved one, friend or doula for continuous support
  4. Avoid interventions that are not medically necessary
  5. Avoid giving birth on your back and follow your body’s urges to push
  6. Keep mother and baby together – It’s best for mother, baby and breastfeeding

Remember that birth is YOURS—it is not the exclusive territory of the doctor, the hospital, the nurse, the midwife, the doula, or the childbirth educator. These people are all paid consultants—hired by you to help you (and what helps you, helps your baby!).

Book Review: Get Me Out

Mar12

Book Review: Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth From the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank
By Randi Hutter Epstein, MD
W.W. Norton & Company, 2010
ISBN 978-0-393-06458-2
302 pages, hardback, $24.95
http://www.randihutterepstein.com/

Reviewed by Molly Remer, MSW, ICCE

Since it shares a subtitle about the history of childbirth, I expected the new book Get Me Out to be very similar in content to the recent book Birth Day by Mark Sloan or to the book Birth by Tina Cassidy. I wondered how much more could possibly be reported about the history of childbirth. It turns out there is plenty more and I was delighted to discover that Get Me Out stands alone as a unique and interesting contribution to books of this genre.

Written by a physician and mother of four, Get Me Out focuses on some very recent elements of birth history including assisted reproductive technologies (ART), ultrasound, and freebirth, subjects not addressed in the books referenced above. Aside from familiar content about things like the Chamberlen brothers and the Twilight Sleep movement, the remainder of the text was fresh and engaging. Part one included an interesting and disturbing chapter about Marion Sims and his research and experiments with fistula repair on enslaved women. A later chapter explores Sims’ research with artificial insemination (this time with middle class white women). In fact, the latter half of the book contains an extensive historical look at artificial insemination, moving into present day history including an exploration of sperm banking and cryo-preservation of eggs.

Unique among birth history books is Epstein’s chapter on freebirth (more commonly known as “unassisted childbirth”) followed with a chapter about ultrasound including content about 4D and “novelty” ultrasounds. There is also a chapter exploring DES and its effects on reproduction.

Also different than Birth Day and Birth, is the total absence of memoir or personal reflective content. Epstein is a medical journalist and Get Me Out is written in that voice. There is a light, personal tone to the text, but nothing personal aside from occasional descriptions, observations, or quotes from interviews with sperm bank mangers (for example). I found myself feeling a little curious about her personal history of childbirth, an element freely interspersed throughout the texts of other recent birth history books.

As the author says, “…the way we give birth is a story about our deepest desires and our fundamental concerns about life, death, and sex.” Get Me Out is a fascinating tale focusing on our collective, cultural story about birth in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as dip into the story that continues being written today.

—
Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book for review purposes.

Birthing Room Yoga Handout

Mar10

In my classes, I teach a short little series of prenatal yoga poses called “Birthing Room Yoga.” I learned the series from the excellent video, Yoga for Your Pregnancy by Yoga Journal and Lamaze. My rationale for including the poses in all my classes is that while academic/intellectual information is useful (and is my personal learning style), birth happens in your body and not your head—-lots of us are uncomfortable with our bodies, so I try to get people to use their bodies a lot during classes. This helps women become comfortable with using their bodies, plus gets them out of their heads-space and into body-space, plus each exercise chosen has pregnancy or birth related benefits. Physical work is important for partners too—-birth is a physical event (both for the person helping and for the partner watching the pregnant woman work during labor).

I didn’t learn this series of poses until after my first two children were born. I was interested to see that I used all of the poses (or variations thereof—I also show a variety of variations during class) during my labor with my first son—even though I didn’t call it “yoga” or consciously “practice” during labor. I think that is a powerful reminder of the wisdom we carry in our bodies—as long as there is space and freedom in which to do so, this “birth yoga” arises spontaneously out of our own inherent wisdom, no training required!

Here is the Birthing Room Yoga handout I give with the pose reminders! The pelvic circles are particularly good and can be done seated on the edge of a hospital bed while having fetal monitoring.

Birth Quotes Update

Mar8

More birth quotes collected for my Facebook pages. Maybe I need to start compiling a book!

“…natural birth is full of magnificent, life-changing wisdom.” –Christiane Northrup

“The major role that the body’s natural oxytocin plays in birth encourages the idea that birth is an experience of love…birth is a spiritual experience simply because it is largely an act of love on the part of the body physiology and the indwelling spirit.” –Cathy Daub

“It makes sense that we should help our bodies with the amazing work of giving birth, rather than make the process more difficult and complicated. However, along with all the life-saving benefits modern [L & D] units provide, many of today’s routine practices…and interventions can actually slow down labor, increase pain, cause unnecessary stress for baby, and make cesarean surgery more likely.” (Mother’s Advocate)

“…experiences have clearly shown that an approach which ‘de-medicalizes’ birth, restores dignity and humanity to the process of childbirth, and returns control to the mother is also the safest approach.” –Michel Odent, MD (via BirthWorks)

“A calm, watchful, loving presence protects the fragile harmony of birth; frantic coaching has *never* been part of nature’s plan.” –Pam England

“Yes, of course, some women have a choice about becoming pregnant, but whether a woman chooses to give birth or not, once she is in the throes of labor, her individuality counts for little; she becomes caught up in the universal act of ‘giving life.’ She can do this with control and passion or be totally unconscious and unable to participate–but once begun, the birth process is unstoppable.” –Judy Chicago

“A knowledgeable childbirth teacher can inform mothers *about* birth, physiology, hospital policies and technology. But that kind of information doesn’t touch what a mother actually experiences IN labor, or what she needs to know as a mother (not a patient) in this rite of passage.” –Pam England

“Women…are storytellers. They are nurturers…filled with creative forces when they are fertile, pregnant or birthing. Millions of years of biology are on their side to ‘bring forth.’ Nothing can stop the power behind that force, not even the woman herself…She is the living essence of the future. She is a holy woman and there is intelligence at work in her. It is sacred energy.” –Sister MorningStar

“When enough women realize that birth is a time of great opportunity to get in touch with their true power, and when they are willing to assume responsibility for this, we will reclaim the power of birth and help move technology where it belongs–in the service of birthing women, not their master.” –Christiane Northrup

“Before I had children I always wondered whether their births would be, for me, like the ultimate in gym class failures. And I discovered instead…that I’d finally found my sport.” –Joyce Maynard

“Our body-wisdom knows how to birth a baby. What is required of the woman who births naturally is for her to surrender to this body-wisdom. You can’t think your way through a birth, and you can’t fake it.” –Leslie McIntyre

“Birth is an opportunity to transcend. To rise above what we are accustomed to, reach deeper inside ourselves than we are familiar with, and to see not only what we are truly made of, but the strength we can access in and through Birth.” –Marcie Macari

“So the question remains. Is childbirth painful? Yes. It can be, along with a thousand amazing sensations for which we have yet to find adequate language. Every Birth is different, and every woman’s experience and telling of her story will be unique.” –Marcie Macari

“The natural process of birth sets the stage for parenting. Birth and parenting mirror each other. While it takes courage and strength to cope with labor and birth, it also takes courage and strength to parent a child.” –Marcy White

“The instant of birth is exquisite. Pain and joy are one at this moment. Ever after, the dim recollection is so sweet that we speak to our children with a gratitude they never understand.” ~ Madline Tiger

“…celebrate ourselves for our courage to birth. The real question becomes not, ‘Have you done your breathing exercises?’ but rather, ‘Can you love yourself no matter how you birth, where you birth, or what the outcome?'” –Claudia Panuthos

“Listening to your heart is not simple. Finding out who you are is not simple. It takes a lot of hard work and courage to get to know who you are and what you want.” –Sue Bender

“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

“VITA MUTARI – the literal translation from Latin to English is ‘Life Transformation.’ That is the closest thing I could think of the feeling of labor/birth…what you are feeling isn’t pain, it’s life transformation. Is it dramatic? You bet! I think it should be!” –Stephanie Soderblom

“…Birth is a rite of passage of women. Their journey should be honored, their rights should be fiercely protected, and their stories should be shared.” –Marcie Macari

“How you view childbirth is a reflection of your philosophy of life…I feel…sad about…our culture where the message is that women can’t have a good childbirth experience without turning themselves over to the control and interventions of the medical community.” –Marcie K. Richardson (OB & instructor at Harvard Medical School!)

“Birth is a three legged stool, a healthy mom, a healthy baby and a healthy birth. Without ANY one leg, it is equally unstable!” –Sharon Muza

“While all of your (birth) planning may spin a cocoon of security, in actuality, the course of your labor is unknowable…your critical task is to prepare for a birth that has NO script.”–Pam England

“A woman in Birth is at once her most powerful, and most vulnerable. But any woman who has birthed unhindered understands that we are stronger than we know.” –Marcie Macari

“Breastfeeding… led me to self-discovery and to a greater appreciation of the full humanity of the babies who were entrusted to me. Each woman needs to trust her own instincts, her own feelings, and her own sense of what will work for her with each baby.” –Viola Lennon (1923-January 22, 2010, LLLI Founder and profound influence on the world)

“Whether a woman is making children or other works of the womb, the creative power of her uterus is amazing to behold. Some of a woman’s greatest transformations involve the changes in her womb: menarche, pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, and menopause.” –Tami Lynn Kent

“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.”~ Ashley Smith

“I would say in obstetrics you are numbed by the technology. Your ability to understand the more sacred and spiritual aspects of birthing is extremely numbed.” –Dr. Eden Fromberg, OB/GYN (in The Business of Being Born)

“There is such a special sweetness in being able to participate in creation.” –Pamela Nadav

“Never underestimate the power of a woman AND never underestimate the power of YOU!!” –Nicole at Your Birth Right

“Although pregnancy and birth is a richly intuitive and instinctive process, a woman will prepare her ‘nest’ and birth according to the style of her culture, in the same way that a particular species of bird will build its nest with whatever is available.” –Pam England

“keeping active during labour and adopting natural, upright or crouching birth positions is the safest, most enjoyable, most economical and sensible way for the majority of women to give birth.” –Janet Balaskas

“Until women themselves value and honor mothering in all its forms, there is little chance that the cultural paradigms will change…Many women with children have come to respect the art of mothering, but still need to advocate for its value when faced with external expectations and pressures to feel professional success.”–Tami Lynn Kent

“…birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers…” –Anita Diamant

“We are made to do this work and it’s not easy…I would say that pain is part of the glory, or the tremendous mystery of life. And that if anything, it’s a kind of privilege to stand so close to such an incredible miracle.” –Simone in Klasson 2001

“A woman is the full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform.” –Diane Mariechild

“Women are AWESOME – We can do such out of control, yet in-control cool stuff with our bodies.” –Desirre Andrews

“There is power that comes to women when they give birth. They don’t ask for it, it simply invades them. Accumulates like clouds on the horizon and passes through, carrying the child with it.” – Sheryl Feldman

(I don’t think the power “invades” so much as it is already there, inherent, just not tapped into…)

“Mothering is a subtle art whose rhythms we collect as much from one another as from instinct.” –Louis Erdrich

“The woman about to become a mother, or with her newborn infant upon her bosom, should be the object of trembling care and sympathy wherever she bears her tender burden or stretches her aching limbs…. God forbid that any member of the profession to which she trusts her life, doubly precious at that eventful period, should hazard it negligently, unadvisedly or selfishly”. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

“The knowledge about how to give birth is born within every woman: women do not need to be taught how to give birth but rather to have more trust and faith in their own body knowledge.” –BirthWorks

“A new year is unfolding – like a blossom with petals curled tightly concealing the beauty within.” –Anonymous

“Birth is about radical, creative, life-affirming change. It is about adaptation on a nearly unbelievable scale.” –Mark Sloan, MD

“Understanding birth technology shouldn’t lull you into thinking you understand *birth*. The profound mystery and spirituality of birth can never be understood with the mind, they are known through the heart…” –Pam England

“Attempting to fulfill an idea of the ‘perfect’ mother can only prove soul-destroying, as no such person exists.” –Adela Stockton

“Pregnancy, birth and motherhood move us further along on life’s continuum. They challenge us to create a new nomality.” –Pat Thomas

(I feel like having children is an essential part of my “development” as a human being–without them, I’d be a less developed person…)

“Pregnancy and birth knit womankind together. Help weave a gorgeous thread to add to the fabric. Be supportive. Be kind. Be wise. Be open.” –Desirre Andrews

“Birth is a mystery. Words are not enough.” –Marie O’Connor

“Birth matters. It brings us into being, on many levels.” –Ananda Lowe

“Babies are bits of star-dust blown from the hand of God. Lucky the woman who knows the pangs of birth for she has held a star.” –Larry Barretto

“Midwifery calls upon you to be the best you can be: the best advocate, guide, healer, counselor, mother, comrade, and confidant of the women seeking your care.” — Anne Frye

“This is the day which honors the bond between sisters and the freedom of all women. There is no slavery today…Today all women are joined in the joys of motherhood: for we hold up, not our own, but our sister’s children to the sun.” –Ovid, Fasti (today, March 1, was known as “Matronalia” in ancient Rome, the great spring feast of motherhood.)

“I think of women’s kinships as pottery kilns, where two together shape the rough clay of emotion into humankind’s most valuable and prized vessels: human community.” –Pythia Peay

“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.” –Ina May Gaskin

“…to give birth with power, without drugs, means having to go to the edge, and beyond…the hospital ‘battle field,’ in striving to be sterile and clean, inadvertently sends a confusing message to women giving birth. Birth-warriors don’t stay clean, made-up, and poised…” –Pam England

“Strange as it may appear…the results of trials and investigations show that fewer women die when treated in their own squalid ill-ventilated houses and nourished by the coarsest of food than when inmates of the best-equipped and best-managed lying-in hospital in the world.” –New York City newspaper ~1801 (I got this quote from the new book Get Me Out. Of course, I would prefer that women have access to non-squalid homes and non-coarse food, but I thought the sentiment was interesting–and relevant!)

“Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.” –Barbara Kingsolver

“…fear has to be present in order for courage to exist. The English word ‘courage’ is derived from the French word for the heart, coeur. Finding the heart to continue doing the right thing in the face of great fear inspires others to become nobler human beings.” ~ Gloria Lemay

“When I stopped seeing my mother with the eyes of a child, I saw the woman who helped me give birth to myself.” — Nancy Friday

“Giving birth is not an isolated event in a person’s life. A woman births with both her mind and her body and participates in the attitudes toward childbearing of her culture and her family.” –Rahima Baldwin

“For each of us as women, there is a deep place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises…Within these deep places, each one holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman’s place of power within each of us…it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep.” –Audre Lorde

“The way we give birth is a story about our deepest desires and our fundamental concerns about life, death, and sex.” –Randi Epstien

“…what is normal today is not the same as what is healthy.” –Barbara Patterson & Pamela Bradley

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” –Martin Luther King Jr.

“Pregnancy and birth are the most crucial and powerful passages in a woman’s life. Most births around the world lead to some degree of preventable trauma for the mother and baby…preventable because much of it is iatrogenic, that is, caused by the doctor or midwife. In many cases, if the mother, baby and birthing …process had been treated with respect, the trauma would possibly have never taken place…Instead, the mother likely would have had the most miraculous experience of her life.” –Midwifery Today e-news

“Rigid plans work best if you’re building a skyscraper; with something as mysteriously human as giving birth, it’s best, both literally and figuratively, to keep your knees bent.” –Mark Sloan, MD

“It is not ‘ladylike’ to give birth. The strength and power of labor is not demure.” –An Easier Childbirth (quoting a midwife)

“Mothers need to know that their care and their choices won’t be compromised by birth politics.” – Jennifer Rosenberg

“To rediscover midwifery is the same as giving back childbirth to women. And imagine the future if surgical teams were at the service of the midwives and the women instead of controlling them.” -Michel Odent, MD

“…Childbirth in itself is a rite of passage. Being born is an initiation and giving birth is a transforming experience.” –Benig Mauger

“We must attempt to tell the whole truth about birth, the truth that includes the transformation, mastery, satisfaction, personal power and the difference between pain and suffering.” –Cheri van Hoover

“Giving birth is a transformation and it doesn’t matter whether you’ve had eight babies before. It’s still a transformation the next time you have another baby, because you are no longer the same woman you were before you had that baby.” –Penny Handford

“We need nothing less than a revolution in our attitudes towards conception, pregnancy, birth and parenting.” –Sophie Style

“When you destroy midwives, you also destroy a body of knowledge that is shared by women, that can’t be put together by a bunch of surgeons or a bunch of male obstetricians, because physiologically, birth doesn’t happen the same way around surgeons, medically trained doctors, as it does around sympathetic women.” –Ina May Gaskin

Birth Violence

Mar6

“‘Old wives’ tales,’ says the Oxford dictionary, are ‘trivial stories, such as are told by garrulous old women.’ It is significant that no one ever talks about ‘old husbands’ tales’ or ‘old doctors’ tales.’ Women are blamed instead. It is implied that there is poison in their speech and that the only safe thing to do is remain silent. The experiences that women share with other women are thus rejected and trivialized…In reality, it is not other women who instill and fuel anxiety in most pregnant women, but the medical system itself.” This quote from the 1980’s book, Giving Birth, by Sheila Kitzinger, remains strikingly relevant today. When women in the United States today enter the hospital to give birth, many experience some form of institutional violence. They may not explicitly define it as violence, but listening to their stories provides a disheartening picture of maternity care today.

What kinds of violence occur in the birth place? Here are a few possible examples of “normative abuse” women may experience when giving birth in U.S. hospital setting

• Restriction of movement
• Restriction of nourishment
• Domination by those in positions of authority—must obey even when it is against her own best interests.
• Routine, forced interventions such as IVs
• Repeated, possibly painful, vaginal examinations by many different people
• Denial of option for VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean)
• At the most extreme example of overriding patient rights, a forced cesarean section
• Vaginal cutting (episiotomy)
• Abusive language
• Separation from family/restriction of companionship
• Lack of respectful treatment
• Voice and wishes disregarded/unheard
• Emotional manipulation using baby as a “card” to force compliance (“you want a healthy baby don’t you?” No mother doesn’t. It is degrading and dehumanizing to suggest that she doesn’t.)
• Forced separation of mother and baby
• Administration of medications without consent
• Cord traction and interference with third stage (placenta) that may lead to hemorrhage.

The emotional treatment of women in labor is the most significant factor contributing to their satisfaction with their birth experiences (emotional factors of highest importance include having good support from caregivers and being treated with respect). According to Kitzinger, “We are only now discovering the long-term destructive effect on human beings and families of treating women as if they were merely containers, to be opened and relieved of their contents; and of concentrating attention on a bag of muscle and a birth canal, rather than relating to, and caring for, the person to whom they belong. The violence which is a common element in childbirth today leaves many women feeling that birth has been a kind of rape. This sort of experience is not easily forgotten. It can shatter a woman’s self-confidence, make her doubt her ability to mother her baby, destroy joy in the expression of her sexuality, and attack her very sense of self–the roots of her identity. It is psychologically mutilating.”

And, as Mary Rucklos Hampton says, “The effort to separate the physical experience of childbirth from the mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of this event has served to disempower and violate women.”

—
Molly Remer, MSW, ICCE is a certified childbirth educator and activist who blogs about birth at https://talkbirth.wordpress.com and midwifery at http://cfmidwifery.blogspot.com.

Note: In 2009, I wrote an article about birth violence for International Women’s Day, but it appears to have never been published. So, I decided to post it here (and on the CFM blog in honor of this year’s International Women’s Day on March 8th). I also read two relevant articles recently: How childbirth caused my PTSD and Birth Trauma: An Introduction.