Natural Childbirth
Our western culture has made natural childbirth something mysterious. It really isn’t talked about, and most women have never been exposed to it by the time they themselves are ready to birth their own babies. Doctors, with all of their knowledge, truly don’t understand the art of birthing a baby and push women to birth in a hospital, with their births actively managed from start to finish with drugs and technology, all in the name of ‘safety.’ Thus we have, for the overwhelming majority, women who fear and are unprepared for true physiological childbirth, and who are forever lost to the experience.
In traditional cultures, girls are immersed in everything from pregnancy, to childbirth, breastfeeding, and childcare and thus view each stage of motherhood as a normal and natural process. Birth is not something to be feared. Women give birth either alone, or surrounded by close caring female relatives.
Childbirth has become commercialized and is no longer held in the sacred regard that it should be. A woman should be free to bring her infant into this world in a close, comfortable, intimate setting, with as gentle means as possible. But today most babies are born in the hospital, in the company of strangers, with their mothers laboring in undignified surroundings, forced to stay into bed, pumped full of drugs, and goaded into accepting all sorts of interventions. Obviously there are times and circumstances that warrant a mother to birth her child in a hospital, but for no-to low risk pregnancies, it is best for the mother to remain in the comfort of her home to birth her infant.
Natural childbirth in its most physiological form, that is, no drugs, no interventions, in a comfortable setting, in which the mother is free to move and adapt to her labor as she needs to is in the best interest not only to her health, but to that of her child’s health. Childbirth should be embraced as a wonderful, beautiful, and creative process that is best left to itself. Women need to trust their instincts that their bodies know how to handle labor and birth, and that in all but the rarest circumstances it will occur safely.
