In our increasingly fragmented world, few pregnant women have ever seen (let alone attended) a birth when the time comes for their own child to be born.
We are far removed from instinctual womanhood, developed and nurtured by having close women friends and family-members attend to one another in labour and birth.
Accordingly, we are removed from much that is natural, powerful and sacred to women; and so it becomes far easier for birth to be relegated to a medical event and to the hope that modern technology will keep us safe from our fears.
Finding Her Voice
Birth is a profoundly intimate experience for a woman, whether it happens gradually at home in a birthing-pool or in quickly in a hospital theatre. Ideally, each woman would make her choices of how and where to have her baby, based on what feels right and true for her.
In truth however, what is right and true for her may be the very last consideration – first may be her doctor’s opinion; second, her partner’s comfort or convenience; third, her friends’ and family’s opinions and judgement; and somewhere, down at the bottom of the list may be her own voice … if she is still able to hear it.
Giving Birth
There are two distinct ways of thinking about birth and sociologist Barbara Katz Rothman points out that only the age-old humanistic model of care is woman-centred: “Within it, birth is something that women do – not something that happens to them. The birth-giving woman is the central agent in the ancient drama of life bringing forth new life.
“Pregnancy and birth are seen as inherently healthy processes, and each mother and baby is seen as a dynamic, powerfully inter-active unit. This model recognises …that medical intervention is sometimes necessary and that it must be applied in these particular cases.
“At the same time, it maintains that medical intervention is likely to be harmful when it is used purely for convenience or profit,” says Katz Rothman.
The second view, the techno-medical model, has existed for barely two centuries. Writes anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd: “Underlying the technocratic mode of care is an assumption that …the female body is … full of shortcomings and defects.
“Pregnancy and labour are seen as illnesses, which, in order not to be harmful to mother or baby, must be treated with drugs and medical equipment.
“Within the techno-medical model of birth, some medical intervention is considered necessary for every birth, and birth is safe only in retrospect,” concludes Davis-Floyd.
New Life
The assumptions which endorse many interventions at birth are that newborn babies can’t feel or communicate, and don’t think or remember. These have been challenged radically in recent years, thanks to massive growth in the field of Perinatal Psychology.
We now know that babies’ experiences at birth contribute to their sense of trust in the world around them, and that their senses are actually more acute at this time than they will be again for weeks to come.
Knowing that the choices we make at birth may be lived out physically and emotionally by our children for many years; perhaps we will more easily be able to see the wonder of a soul’s first day on earth, and to make that day as gentle and welcoming as possible.
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