I’m always amazed at societies ability to be shocked at the ease of birth. The story below is a great example of this. As a woman is out shopping, her water breaks and she almost immediately gives birth, right then and there. If you go to the link below, you’ll see images and read more about how the events unfolded.
I truly love stories like this as they point to a powerful truth that most woman don’t understand. Birth is actually easy, not hard, awful, horribly painful or any other harsh word we can label it. I’m not saying it might not be the most intense, overwhelming undertaking you participate in. I believe if you prepare your mind, body and spirit for the experience, it can be a deeply transformative, blissful, life altering one.
I know this because I have experienced it myself. And witnessed many woman create similar for themselves. It’s a very sacred, intimate thing to watch a woman fully take responsibility of her pregnancy and birth environment. Its no small feat. It takes lots of education and support. She has to be willing to ask for help and take the needed time to read books, seek online resources, take classes, find the proper care provider, pray and meditate on what her pregnancy and birth will call for.
The best part of the whole story above is that this woman turned down going to the hospital. Not only that, she proceeded to walk herself and her baby back home. It’s that simple folks. You know those stories you hear about the woman giving birth in the rice fields and then going back to picking rice, that is a reality. Woman are much stronger than they actually thin they are.
The coolest part about our world right now is that people can post stuff on You Tube. So we have TONS of videos of beautiful birth videos we can pull up and watch at any given moment. More importantly, we have woman birthing their babies in their cars on the drive to the hospital. I appreciate this is not the outcome they may have been hoping for or ideal in any way. What I do know, is it still shows how easy birthing our children can actually be. When we take away the stress and fear while creating the proper set and setting, you’ve provided yourself an opportunity like non other you’ll ever have. Birth is a deeply soulful, spiritual experience, and just like our weddings or any other grand event in our lives we spend hours, days, weeks and months planning for it. I’m convinced the more time and effort we put into this endeavor, the more likely it will encompass almost exactly what we want.
The video below is a wonderful example of another situation where a mother, completely on her own as Dad is driving, was somehow able to birth and catch her own baby. Of course, we don’t have the ideal set and setting but what we do see is her doing AMAZING right before the birth of her baby. She’s relatively calm and taking control of her contractions in an effective way. Then she pushes. (which is obviously intense) and a 10 lb. baby is born. Many woman end up in unnecessary c sections with 10 lb babies but this woman was able to do such a glorious job of getting baby here and all went well.
I know that complications can happen at birth. I recognize there are those times and places when we definitely need to be cautious and careful and make sure we have the proper care for our birth. This is where OBGYN’s do a fantastic job of caring for our high risk mamas and babies. Statistically only about 6-8% of woman are considered high risk according to UCSF Medical Center. That’s a small number when we consider how many woman seek OBGYN’s as their care providers. Low risk, healthy woman are in need of a care provider who does understand normal, natural childbirth and can provide the proper set and setting to create an easy, uncomplicated birth.
I show these videos with the hopes that woman will have faith in themselves, their bodies and their babies. That caring for themselves through proper nutrition, lowering their stress levels while striving to stay in a peaceable place and removing fears and phobias you have surrounding birth can give you the best bet to creating the ideal birth for you.
I have faith in mamas and babies and families. I have faith they can educate themselves as needed to find the needed answers to love their pregnancies and births and postpartum experiences. I pray all our families can carry this faith as well.
In peace,
Rachel
