Did you know your great grandma probably gave birth at home?...
Many of us have been conditioned to believe some of the following statements:
- Birth is dangerous
- Birth goes wrong more than it goes right
- Birth is scary, painful, and traumatic
- We need lots of technology and medical expertise to have a safe birth
I know that before becoming a mom and later a doula, I believed a lot of these statements about birth (whether consciously or not). But the more I learned about and witnessed, the more I realized just how much of this stuff we have been taught to believe.
Now I’m not dismissing the fact that pregnancy can become more challenging or life threatening for some. Birth trauma is very real. Violence in birth is very real. Yes, things can change during birth and we might need more medical intervention should that happen. And yes we are so lucky to have access to that technology because it has saved countless lives!!
But let’s reprogram our thoughts, because majority of the time, when left alone, birth DOES go right. Our bodies are capable and smart and designed to give birth. We are the only mammals that doubt our ability to birth.
And many times the cause of the most common problems and/or complications we see during labor is when we try to mess with the normal physiology of things. When we try to micromanage and control a process that ultimately is not meant to be controlled.
It’s for this reason that studies show that for low risk, healthy pregnancies, out-of-hospital birth is actually a statistically safer option than in the hospital. (DM me for source info if interested).
Birth being viewed in such a negative light didn't happen overnight. And our body's natural abilities are not the root cause of this ideology. Let’s embrace our instinctive and intuitive abilities to birth and reject some of this fear around a process that is normal, powerful, and sacred.