OPEN!

Yes. Being THAT open can be painful. Being vulnerable, raw, open to change, opening your heart and your arms to welcome a new life is almost always an intense, powerful, painful, and mind blowing experience.

http://wonderfullymadebelliesandbabies.blogspot.com/

I wonder why we call childbirth "Labor" instead of "Open"? "She's in labor", is what we often hear. "She's opening, it's her birthing time" resonates more with me. What words would you like to use? How can we change the language around birth to better draw a visual picture of woman's power and beauty during her opening time? Much of the way we communicate has changed in recent years. Many new words have been born. Some old words have died. Some old words carry new meaning today. I propose that we rethink the words we associate with birth. As part of the work we are doing to improve birth I believe language around birth must be considered. Childbirth is about opening! It is eye opening for sure! Discovering how you got here, how your mom opened for you to be born is eye opening. Discovering how 300,000 women are opening every day to birth their precious baby is eye opening especially when you are one of those women on the day you give birth. The day you OPEN.

Your doula will encourage you to go for it! Be courageous, allow yourself to OPEN.

Your doula will not judge you if you want to take it nice and slow. You are going to OPEN in your time. Not your husbands time. Not your doctors time. Not even the worlds time. Actually I often think THERE IS NO time in birth. Only opening. Lots of opening.

You should know this too. That when you are opening and your mouth opens, and your instinct may be to bite something or someone, your doula will be watching closely so that you won't bite your partner or your doula. In the photo above it is possible that the working woman is at that place where biting may be her instinct. This is just one of the little things that people don't talk much about. We may have a good laugh about this moment at our postpartum meeting. But it's not really dinner party talk (except for in doula groups). This biting story is one that slips into the footnotes of your birth story and is soon forgotten....except by your doula. ♥

Something else.

When looking at the photo above what do you see?  I see a woman pushing her baby out. She is working hard. Please look again at this image and imagine with me that this woman just crossed the finish line after running a full marathon. Imagine her partner is just giving her a towel and helping her dry her wet, sweaty, cramping body as she's bent over catching her breath. Image she is SO relieved to have crossed the finish line that she is crying. Pause. How does the marathon story make you feel (feel in your gut)? Inspired? Marathon runners invoke admiration and positive emotions from most of us.  Why is it that very different feelings, like sympathy and fear, surface for many people when they realize this is a photo of childbirth?

What else do you see in this photo?  As I notice the woman who is bent over, working hard, I also notice that she has 'another woman' by her side and that woman is CLOSE to her. The other woman is leaning in to assist the working woman with something. This helper looks confident to me.  She probably loves the working woman. The helping woman looks like she has done this before.  To me the dude appears to have a furrowed brow. He may have never been in this position before. He is loving and willing (he's there isn't he?) but he may be baffled and a little disturbed by this emotional, raw, display by his loved one. Another thing I notice is that the working woman is encircled by support and love. This is the thing she will remember. Even more than her gold medal. In twenty years as she is driving down the street she will be daydreaming of that finish line and remember her power and she will remember these two people. Or she will be overcoming another life hurdle and remember her successful work on this day. She will draw from the power of this day. She will remember to call on a support circle and she will face this new hurdle with confidence. ♥

Rally on Labor Day to Improve Birth - Monday, September 2, 2013

Join us! Come Rally with me on Labor Day! Find a Improving Birth Rally near you at the Improving Birth link below and help improve birth outcomes for your future children, for your grandchildren, your neighbors, your sister, your best friend. If you don't think you can change the world, think again. I have! We are! You can! I believe we can change earth by changing birth.

I have a lot of burning questions today. How can we have a peaceful world when drama is happening in birth, specifically in hospital birth? How can we give up on nature, our natural ability to birth, and still believe in saving the forest and the whales? Can we save birth? How can we be passionate about our garden, our sustainable life style and not practice sustainable birthing and not plant the seeds of conception, conscious conception, with intention? How can we give birth to a new generation in ignorance, fear, pretending to be helpless victims of natures power, when in our heads we know our ancestors brought our species this far by being good birthers, our grandmothers gave birth to our parents and we have been given all the necessary tools to be good birthing examples to the generations going forward? Are some afraid to find out the depths of their own power? What power to discover a wild birthing warrior resides in her! Is it undignified to birth free and wild? Are we above doing something that all animals do? Is modern man above birthing like man has birthed throughout time, is it too primitive a task? Isn't love making primitive? Have you heard the phrase, "To posh to push"? It refers to women who prefer to give birth via Cesarean Section because they think it's undignified to push (out a baby). Do they think it's undignified when their eyes are rolling back in their head when they orgasm? Will they also prefer not to have wild, wet, and sometimes loud sex and opt for a tidy clean conception in a test tube? Sans the touchy feely stuff? Do we really want to evolve that much? Okay for some I suppose, but why does the medical world respect her wishes and not mine? I'm rallying for the unfairness of that.

My heart hears our unborn children rallying to be represented, respected, to have their birth day honored.  Maybe they don't want to wait for that once a year birthday party (like having a party will heal all the damage done to them in utero and during the birth process), and want to celebrate birth on their actual birth day! I only want for us to help women find their way through today's maze of options and give birth in a way that will not leave her, or her and baby, depressed, injured, defeated, confused, and  questioning. Don't we want the prenatal time, the birthing time and the babymoon time to be all it can be, all God intended it to be? Some describe their birthing time as ecstatic. If mom is ecstatic how do you think baby feels? Today we have come to understand that science and medicine is not the end all be all that it was once thought to be.  We also know that new studies are proving that nature is better (think breast milk). 

“When you know better you do better.” 

― Maya Angelou

Improving Birth Rally Information

Improving Birth Main Web Page for evidence, facts, rights related to pregnancy and birth

Sometimes we cannot choose. Nature sends storms, the earth quakes, our bodies fail. But when we can choose, while we have choices and voices, let us not be silent, let us celebrate our bodies with our bodies. One thing we can do with our body is rally, carry a sign and speak about issues that will improve birth. We rally to celebrate the beginnings of life, the freshness of babies, the fresh hope they bring, the huge love, enormous love, that sweet new baby's bring! I've noticed that this tiny baby changes not only our family but also our neighborhood, our workplace, our world! Let's rally for our freedom to choose our baby's birthplace (where this new person will be most welcome), our birth attendants (who will be present to witness this woman's power, this man and woman be transformed into a mommy and daddy, this baby breath under her own power and the sacred bonding that follows), our birthing time (Let God and baby decide). I rally to make this earth(heart) moving(expanding) event all it can be. It's our Human Right to make choices for our bodies and to make choices for the bodies that we grow in our bellies and give birth to! I rally for the woman I doula for, for these women's rights. I rally for human rights. I rally for babies rights. For baby's right to be born without being hurried, poked, prodded, suctioned out, yelled out, questioned, tortured.

Nuchal Cord

Gasp! The Cord Was Around His Neck!  How often have you been in ear shot and over heard those words?  I've decided to collect stories where cord issues happen but are inconsequential, irrelevant, and unimportant in hopes of alleviating fears. About one-third of all babies are born with the umbilical cord around their neck/body and it does not mean the baby is in harms way. For my Birth Doula Clients, the many pregnant women that hear "scare stories", for the fathers-to-be, the nervous grandparents, here are some great links to read and photos to impress us! Birth is a glorious design. Our babies are brilliant, Our bodies are amazing!

Blissful Hospital Birth With Cord Wrapped Around the Neck FOUR Times

The Unassisted Hospital Birth of Clay (graphic)
Umbilical cord is wrapped around baby's neck FIVE times

Above is what midwife or doctor usually does before baby's body is born. As the baby's head crowns she gently feels for a cord with one finger. Mom may never know since it is such a quick maneuver most of the time.  Most midwife's will tell mom, "Oh he has a cord", as baby slips out...and that's all there is to it.

O' the birthing woman herself may unwrap the nuchal cord like Rixa Freeze did at the recent birth of Ivy. Here is her short video titled appropriately Q: What if the cord is around the baby's neck?

Rachel Reed is a midwife in Australia. Read what she says about nuchal cords in her Midwife Thinking Blog

Here's another, FOUR times around the neck, nuchal cord story at Birth Without Fear.
Cord Around Baby's Neck Is Not an Automatic Emergency

I wish for you a happy baby like this one

Where's My Midwife and Other Activist I Love

You will go out with joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. --Isaiah 55:12

Some of you may think that I'm a little crazy when I put on my Activist Hat.

I am aware more and more of when to not wear that hat and when to wear it. It's not that hard. You know, like when you are out for drinks with the girls and you aren't wearing your Mommy Hat, or you are in the Corporate Board Room and you are not wearing your Party Girl Hat. Same thing.

How many hats do you wear?

Activist is defined as an especially active, vigorous advocate of a cause. When I attend a birthing woman I am rather quiet, not very active, never vigorous, unless we go on a vigorous walk but mostly our walks are not vigorous. Vigorous is not a word I would use around birth. Birth is powerful, but it is smart for all to stay CALM. The name of the game is saving energy, exert as little adrenaline as possible because birth can be a marathon, it is rarely a 50 yard dash and you never know which way things will go. When I am doing Doula work I am NOT wearing my birth activist hat. I am serving a birthing family and I am totally in my doula gear, doula mindset, doula hat. That may surprise some but there is no room in a birthing room for an activist (doctor or doula). In the birth space there should be simple feeding, and simple words of love and endearments (like the time of conception). Feed the birthing woman food to energize her body, feed her kind acts for her soaring heart and feed her encouraging words for her strong soul. I am there to support the birthing woman's wishes, listen as her wishes evolve, act in love and be in the moment, as we await God's perfect gift, this baby! Even when I interview or join a family prenatally, I am 'with woman', I am a servant not an activist.  My servant hat is very different looking than my activist hat.  If questions are asked I will tell the truth and as with most things there are two sides to that truth, one may be heartbreaking, and not be very pretty, one side of the truth may be discouraging. But the other side of the answer may open doors, bring hope, may be down right amazing! Brilliant! When the truth is realized the family may wrestle with old values, belief systems, intuition and hearsay. Hopefully this angst has happened prenatally or preconception.  Again, this is a time of only sharing truths, backed up by evidence, in the servant, not an activist, spirit.  An activist may open wounds to bring healing, and will march and will post until wee hours. A Doula will watch and wait in the wee hours.

As a birth activist it may surprise you that I am also a pacifist. A spiritual person. A Christian. I've always been fighting for babies. Many years ago I fought for the babies Right to Life. My Pro Life belief has not changed. But today I fight for the right for babies to come in a gentle safe way. And for women to have choices in childbirth. I believe that one belief supports the other and the other way around.  If women were supported, loved and valued, when they were born (preconception even), and when they became women (menses), and when they conceived, I believe they'd be more likely to love and value the life within them. I hate abortion, NOT the woman who is in this difficult situation. I know, love and respect many women who have been there.  Giving birth can be a healing time for many who suffer with  PTSD and other physical and psychological issues.  Most of us know that giving birth is a big day, an exciting, happy day.  When women find a safe, supportive PLACE to give birth it can be a transforming and empowering  event.  This can happen when we give birth surrounded by people that honor and believe in us. This knowledge can and is transforming our society - for the better.  Big business (Insurance, AMA, legal systems, etc.) is not on the woman's side...not for the family. They are for big money and big power. Okay, now for the good news! There are now lawyers, scientist, and numbers on the side of truth.  Birth as a Human Rights Issue is getting some press and not going away!!!!

I thank God for the many organizations that are supporting the Improving Birth, National Rally on Labor Day, 2012. These other organizations are already also wearing many hats. They are  working in their neighborhoods, towns, and countries, to improve birth; to bring awareness to the fact that the USA is not setting a good standard for maternity care world wide; that our hospitals are NOT practicing evidence based medicine as it applies to obstetrics. These organizations, these people, are concerned, like me, that in the United States of America's maternal and neonatal mortality rate ranks way WAY below other developed countries.

It's the coolest thing that these other organizations came together and decided to make the Improving Birth National Rally the launching pad for change!

Here are a couple of videos from Where's My Midwife, one of the supporting organizations.


"Where's My Midwife?" from Kirsti Kreutzer on Vimeo.


 


I read all about this "coming together" down on The Farm in News from ImprovingBirth.org

MUST SEE!  Below is a common sense daddy telling it like it is. This guy is from the same state that formed Where's My Midwife, affiliated with the NCFOM (North Carolina Friends of Midwives).




 Do you know the midwifery laws in your state? Did you have options when you gave birth? Do you know your rights as a women giving birth? Birth is a Human Rights Issue.

Til next time. I am off to put on my grandma hat! See you at the Rally!

Peace out, Rosie

Watch and Pray

Please watch the two videos below. Please prayerfully consider a donation/contribution/partnership.

I am standing with Doula Dawn, Founder of Improving Birth. I invite you to stand with us.We are one woman standing with one woman standing with one woman.  Shoulder to shoulder. Sometimes with babes in arms. Sometimes with hidden scars. Most have overcome great disappointment and physical hardship just because a medical system is floundering in a status-quo mire. Women who are pregnant should not have to fight this fight. New mom's in their baby-moon time should not have to fight this fight. You and me with our limited time and resources will fight for them. Some will join the Improve Birth movement with their physical support, others with their financial support. Some of us with both. We will stand together on Labor Day, for all the babies, mommies, daddies, families, neighborhoods, societies in our future. As midwife Lonnie Morris says in Debra Pascali-Bonaro's film, Orgasmic Birth, "Women of Earth Take Back Your Birth!"

Why am I giving my small portion to fight for future generations? First, I believe it's because I had the delightful experience of undisturbed birth. Our smart, amazing bodies worked to create new life for nine months and then birthed this work perfectly (by the way there is no 'perfect'). Dawn had this experience after three cesarean births.

Second, because as birth workers, as Doula's, we witness beautiful, happy birth days as we stand beside a women that is respected, given time, given emotional support and no matter how her baby is born, she is given the benefit of being informed, making her own choices and being listened to. She is birthing a Mommy and she is 100% responsible for (responsive to) her baby. So she should be the decision maker, one would think. And we all too often see the opposite, the disrespected, the rushed, the unsupported and the aftermath. Most of the time the more positive experience happens at homebirth, seldom in a hospital. But women who for whatever reason need to be in a hospital should have the same, if not endearing, at least dignified care. 

I'm reminded of the movie, Dances With Wolves, and the name of the Indian woman, Stands With A Fist. We are fighting to improve birth. Please stand with us. On Labor Day 2012 we will stand with fist.

Improving Birth statement reads:

We are an organization that believes that birth should be "principle over profit" and where secrecy is trumped by honesty, putting mothers front & center and squarely in the driver’s seat of their birth choices. Our purpose and cause is Educating and Empowering mothers so they are able to make informed choices about their births. We believe in you and your body. We also believe that induction and c-sections can be life saving interventions when necessary. 

Susan Dorothea White - Drawing of Baby Paul 1965

P.S.  Today I started reading Optimal Care in Childbirth by Henci Goer and Amy Romano. This book looks hard at the studies that are the foundation of maternal medical care today and it's honesty is refreshing! The truth is that most studies are not well done, are convoluted. Sometimes the truth is so disheartening but it is from a place of truth where we need to start our work. Improving Birth.org believes that secrecy is trumped by honesty. This book is honest. Below just one golden nugget from the book. I can't wait to settle in for this read.  It might take me all summer. These women are brilliant!

"We are now well into the second generation of excessively high cesarean rates. Over time, high rates have come to seem normal for women and clinicians alike and have taken on the force of "what is must be right," as evidenced by the most bizarre rationale for elective surgery so far:

More than one in four women who do not have a cesarean section by choice will end up having one anyway, and their morbidity and mortality will exceed that sustained by women whose surgeries are scheduled.  It is against this backdrop that physicians must consider the role of patient choice in determining the proper mode of delivery in the circumstance of an uncomplicated pregnancy.

In other words, because obstetricians mismanage labor so badly, women, like Brutus in Julius Caesar, should leap into the pit themselves rather than tarry till they are pushed.  But as Childbirth Connection (2006) so eloquently put it, "All mothers should have access to safest vaginal birth practices.  We should not expect them to choose between vaginal birth with avoidable harms and cesarean section."

Transformation

What does that word mean to you? Today the word transformation reminds me of my birth. Do you have a minute? Curl up in the foetal position with me. Yes travel backwards with me, way back, back, back…back to when I was floating in warm water, muffled voices and muffled light all around me…My reality is love and peace…I know those words only from what my heart tells me. My ticking, beating, singing heart! It speaks the truth. Swoosh swoosh, swoosh swoosh, love peace, love peace… my existence came only out of pure love and peace. Oh there were hard days back then, growing limbs, hair follicles, etc., but I enjoyed it like play. Fascination was a big word for me but I knew it intimately. Even making the physical transitions to breathing with my lungs instead of my umbilical cord and nourishing myself by suckling on my mother’s breast was doable, the physical work was natural. It was the emotional work that took its toll. I was not listened to or respected for my human form. It has taken years of relearning to trust myself, trust in love and trust the God that designed and invented love and trust… and all these words that I am writing here – every single word here I love and trust. Now I have peace.

The respect and gentle kindness that we show babies is important! It is understated. It is vital. I cannot find the perfect word. Well in one sense, the word I am looking for is vital to the completion of this essay and the message that I am trying to communicate. But ‘vital’ still seems too weak a word. The respect and gentle kindness that we show to babies, before they are born, during their birth time, and after they are earth side, is relative to the health of the planet. The harm we, either unknowingly or knowingly, inflict on babies during this early transformation, their birth, can cause more harm than we imagine. Volumes of medical text would go away if we valued our bodies and our babies more. I do not mean we should throw more money at it or overindulge ourselves, becoming narcissist or fearful about birth. I mean to honor birth, its power, its pain, its time, its vessel. In my old crone years, this much I know. I like what Suzanne Arms poem says, “If we hope to create a non-violent world where respect and kindness replace fear and hatred we must begin with how we treat each other at the beginning of life. For that is where our deepest patterns are set. From these roots grow fear and alienation ~ or love and trust”.

The way we are born has creation power of its own, not unlike the miracle of conception. It is not just a physical event. It is more. It is a spiritual event. Birth should not become something of an unpleasant experience like the “generation gap” has become. Oh yes, we celebrate our children’s 16th birthday with a drivers license and their 18th with voter privileges, just like we celebrate baby’s with baby showers and cute things. Celebrate these life transitions with time. Love takes time. There, my words found the way to the truth, it was simple, and birth is simple, unless you do not have time. Hurried love? Who really feels loved when it’s hurried? Simply take time with yourself. Take time with your baby in utero. And take the time your baby needs during labor and in your early postpartum days. These are transformation tips from my heart.

I birthed three babies. I didn’t do it with a doula or any of the knowledge that has come to me since then (attending 250 plus births as a doula). I did my best when I gave birth. I learned along the way and I walked my path. I birthed my first baby in wonder, my second baby euphorically and my third baby at home (almost heaven), instead of a hospital. Each time I was transformed. With time I realized that this was my moment in time. My time to heal. During these birthing times, unlike my own birth, I was the protector of the unnamed, the unborn. I was able to choose to listen to and respect myself and my baby. I selected people that did the same. I was transformed.

If you are still in your birthing years please consider what some loving folks shared with me thirty plus years ago when I opened my heart to heal myself through the birthing of my babies. In 1976 I read Suzanne Arms, Immaculate Deception, Ina May Gaskin’s Spiritual Midwifery, and Childbirth without fear by Grantly Dick-Read. Today’s guiding lights are named differently, but are still many. Ina May Gaskin’s message is still the same today but her book, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, is in today’s language, it is current and it is very good. Can you imagine having a baby and not having a cell phone, television or microwave? Back in 1979-84 I didn’t even have one ultrasound! Birth hasn’t changed. Birth is just the same today. Advancement in technology has not changed the tides, the sunrise, the sunset or the birth process. Technology has not improved the infant mortality rate in our country (The US is ranked 46 in the world). Sorting through the information age, finding the information that will assist you in your transformation into motherhood and finding a community that will provide a loving and gentle transition for your baby is your truest challenge today. How will I do it you ask yourself? The same way I did…we do the best we can.

I believe the world was formed by my Father God. I believe My Father God has lead me along my path. His lovingkindness has been the true source of my healing. He has called me to be with women during birth and He has used birth to show me more about Himself and His truely loving nature. He is an awesome God. If you don't yet know this, you can. Ask him for guidance and He will lead you into exciting transformation!

For you oh God created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
Psalm 139:13-16

As a birth doula I do the best I can. I continue to be transformed by every birth I attend. This year, in the late summer, I will become a new born grandmother. I know that my grandbaby is swimming a perfect swim stroke today. His swim stroke is going swoosh-swoosh, swoosh-swoosh, love-peace, love-peace.

– Rosie, woman, mother and doula…but first I was a baby girl.

(Musing that I wrote and filed away in the Spring of 2010)

The Lie of the EDD: Why Your Due Date Isn't when You Think

The Lie of the EDD: Why Your Due Date Isn't when You Think
How the 40 week pregnancy myth came about and why it's totally wrong.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1047180/the_lie_of_the_edd_why_your_due_date.html

The method for calulating Estimated Due Date or EDD originated in 1744! Read this good article to find out why women should not induce at 40 weeks, why the birthing community, OBGYN's, Docs, Midwife's and You should rethink your due date. Print the linked article out and give it to your medical care person if you feel pressured to induce. Every day that your baby is in your womb he is doing something important. Shhh Do Not Disturb!

Cervical Checks - are they necessary?

Thanks again to Enjoy Birth, who lead me to these musings of a very interesting midwife, or more accruately, Midwifery Ramblings who thinks just like me :). I dare you to read the link above, Cervical Checks - are they necessary. What? Double dare ya ; ) Yup. Okay, the bottom line is this, It is not really anybody's business what your cervix is doing. It has become so common place for people to ask a full term (or near full term) woman, friend/sister/co-worker/neighbor..., "how dilated are you?" I love it when the answer is, "I have not had a pelvic check". I love it more when in labor, someone asks and the answer is the same or, "I do not care to know". It's great that women today know more about their bodies, the birth process, and their choices! But that does not mean that we have to poke, probe and prod (as in cattle prod)! As with anything, there are risks and benefits. But do your homework. Most of the time the benefit is that the institution (hospital) can plan their customers comings and going. Like a restaurant, with surgical birth hospitals take reservations, but with those mom's that just 'drop in' there may or may not be enough nurses (waiters or waitresses). So they rush you in the restaurant (hospital). And if they check your plate (or your cervix), they can better judge when you'll be done. If you linger the waiter sometimes will take things off the table or bring the check. Don't you just hate that! Well, at the hospital sometimes staff will say something about how slow your eating, oops I mean dilating. Same difference.

I personally like to go to a restaurant where I can dawdle and enjoy the meal, the ambiance and my campanion/s. I like to have a luxurious meal, where I can digest my food and enjoy my wine. Don't you?

I laughed out loud

such truth!

like a cool breeze

what about you?

what turns you on

takes your breath away

I wish that for you today.

For me today it was reading the comment that Mama K made on Jan Trittan's blog.

Birth Quotes

You are constructing your own reality with the choices you make...or don't make. If you really want a healthy pregnancy and joyful birth, and you truly understand that you are the one in control, then you must examine what you have or haven't done so far to create the outcome you want.

Kim Wildner-Author of Mother's Intention: How Belief Shapes Birth

If I had my life to live over, instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished ever moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

Irma Bombeck

If we are to heal the planet, we must begin by healing birthing.

Agnes Sallet Von Tannenberg

People never sing...except in the bathroom. Birthing women also make their natural sounds next to running bath water. There is something about the power of water. People are drawn to water, spas, and sacred streams. Women in labor are drawn to water, too.

Michel Odent, MD

We are made to do this work and its 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

Well behaved women rarely make history.

Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Anything I’ve ever done that ultimately was worthwhile…initially scared me to death.

Betty Bender

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. Courage allows the successful woman to fail - and to learn powerful lessons from the failure - so that in the end, she didn't fail at all.

Maya Angelou

If a doula were a drug, it would be unethical not to use it.

John H. Kennell, MD

I think one of the best things we could do would be to help women/parents/families discover their own birth power, from within themselves. And to let them know it's always been there, they just needed to tap into it.
John H. Kennell, MD

What's done to children, they will do to society.

Karl Menninger

We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong. Laura Stavoe Harm

The whole point of woman-centered birth is the knowledge that a woman is the birth power source. She may need, and deserve, help, but in essence, she always had, currently has, and will have the power.

Heather McCue

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

Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of our greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don't only give your care, but give your heart as well.

Mother Teresa

Mothers need to know that their care and their choices won't be compromised by birth politics.

Jennifer Rosenberg

Only with trust, faith, and support can the woman allow the birth experience to enlighten and empower her. Women's strongest feelings [in terms of their birthings], positive and negative, focus on the way they were treated by their caregivers.

Annie Kennedy & Penny Simkin

The wisdom and compassion a woman can intuitively experience in childbirth can make her a source of healing and understanding for other women.

Stephen Gaskin

300,000 women will be giving birth with you today. Relax and breathe and do nothing else. Labor is hard work, it hurts and you can do it.

Unknown

If in doubt, breathe out

Cathy Doberska - Reading, UK NCT teacher

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

Rain, after all is only rain; it is not bad weather. So also, pain is only pain; unless we resist it, then it becomes torment.
I Ching

There is no way out of the experience except through it, because it is not really your experience at all but the baby's. Your body is the child's instrument of birth.
Penelope Leach

I discovered I always have choices and sometimes it's only a choice of attitude.

Judith M. Knowlton

If I don't know my options, I don't have any.
Diana Korte

We've all been waiting for you.

For you.

Your arrival has been marked, has been recorded on earth,

in the universe, in the galaxies, in all of space,

in all of time.

You come with a birthright,

written in love and sung through all Creation

in words which promise that no matter

where you're at, you're home

that no matter who you're with,

you're welcome that no matter who you are, you're loved.

Welcome.

Rita Ramsey

Childbirth Connection Report Reveals Serious Problems in Maternity Care Quality and Value

from MarketWatch - USA (The Wall Street Journal)

"...Overused Maternity Practices

The report shows maternity care is one more example of what's wrong with American health care. We're paying too much and getting the worst results in the developed world because of unneeded care," said Reforming States Group Vice Chair, State Senator Charles Scott of Wyoming. "The main causes are that providers earn more from unneeded care while fear of malpractice litigation encourages the same unneeded care. If we can implement the recommendations of this report, we can both reduce costs and improve the care our mothers and babies get...

Underused Maternity Practices
The analysis also found underuse of many effective practices with few or no known adverse effects. These practices include continuous support throughout labor (such as that provided by a doula), numerous measures that increase comfort and facilitate labor progress, upright and side-lying positions for giving birth, delayed cord clamping, and early skin-to-skin contact between mother and baby. More frequent use of these beneficial forms of care would lead to improved outcomes for many mothers and babies. Best available evidence also supports providing access to vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC) for most women with a previous cesarean, but such access has fallen off sharply in recent years, despite demand from women, and more than nine out of ten women with previous cesareans now have repeat cesareans."

-Rosie

The 7 Secrets of Being a Homebirth Dad

Hurray, I've found another great blog! LOVE IT! Above is the link to a lovely midwife from Australia, her blog, her knowledge, her bravery, her humor. You don't want to scroll past this one! Thanks again to Robin Elise Weiss at About.com Guide to Pregnancy/Birth, who pointed me this way - Wow, I've been reading Robin since 1989! Enjoy. -R

Hmmm on a different note, I sure know a lot of women named Robin. I've had a few doula clients named Robin. One has moved to Australia and now lives in Africa (congratulations on your new baby girl!). Some of the coincidences that happen as a doula are funny. One time I had like three Stephanie's at the same time. Once I had clients that were due close together and lived close together. I had to really think about which house I was driving to! Can you imagine me showing up at the wrong home in the middle of the night (when labor always happens)! My boyfriend calls me his personal Thomas Bros (map) or his GPS (global positioning system) because I know my way around so many neighborhoods in San Diego!

Speaking of far off places, I have a doula friend who moved to Israel. I miss my doula friends who move. Another one is in Northern CA and one is in Arizona. I learned so much from my doula clients who were from Newfoundland, Thanks Kevin! I've learned about different music, religions and cultures in my birth travels. I love to hear about the care that women in other cultures receive. I think that American women should receive longer maternity leave and more prenatal rituals.

Here are some of the things I learned about the rituals of India.
The Indian baby shower is called the “godh bharai” in Hindi (“srimanth” in Gujarat, “dohale jewan” in Maharashtra). It is held in the seventh month of the pregnancy. It consists of a dinner party for all relatives and a ceremonious part which in most cases only women attend. Everyone is dressed up almost as for a wedding.The mother-to-be is given a small red dot on her forehead for good luck. Her mother and mother-in-law fill her lap (hence “godh bharai”: “godh” for her lap and “bharna” “to fill”) with gifts that are considered good omens: jewelry, gifts, and one rupee and a quarter rupee coins. Her sister-in-law ties a yellow thread around her right wrist: this “nada chhadi” will protect her and her child from evil spirits.
One couple told me that the women are covered with sweet fragrant flowers and taken into her mothers home where she is fed special foods and cared for diligently. The women goes back to her husband and her home only after her baby can raise his head! Another couple I met was lucky enough to have both grandmas’ take turns coming from India to San Diego to provide the special foods and care for mom postpartum. No postpartum doula could beat that!

What are your family customs around birth, death, marriage? Any daily customs? Mine is to pray. My grandmothers were praying women. I hope to pass this custom on to my children and grandchildren.

Birth brings the world together on many levels. It helped me during my labors and has helped many laboring women to remember all the women giving birth around the world at that moment and to call on the love and support of her ancestors that have given birth before her. Mothers have a special connection. No matter where in the world I travel I am at home around birth. -Rosie