http://www.birthactivist.com/2009/05/happy-mothers-day/
Mother’s Day is a day to celebrate all we do as mothers. Rarely do we receive the credit we deserve for our work. Thank you for what you do as a birth activist. Helping women find their way joyfully into motherhood is a lost art in our world. Whether your role is doula, childbirth educator, midwife, friend or mom of a future mother or father, what you do is important.
“Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers – strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength.” —-Barbara Katz-Rothman
Margaret Jones thought her days of being a midwife were over, until her granddaughter Kathy Shah, 32, went into labour and called for help last Friday.
Despite having two artificial hips and not having delivered a baby since the 1950s, Mrs Jones, from Malmesbury, Wiltshire, went to her granddaughter’s aid, and successfully helped bring 7lb 7oz Carys into the world.
“You really wanted a natural birth didn’t you?” I whispered into Julia’s ear, as she lifted her full weight off the bed into a semi-backbend, eyes blazing, doing all she could to get away from the back pain and maintain internal control. She nodded. With compassion I affirmed the obvious, “But you didn’t think you would have to work this hard….” My voice trailed into the subconscious and she re-determined with her blazing focus to enter the river of mystery. With one contraction she was carried away into her phase of pushing.
I had only met Julia a few hours before. Alison Bastien, my friend and colleague, had greeted me warmly but briefly upon my arrival in Mexico. “Love you. Welcome! Hey, there’s this great gal in labor at the famous midwife hospital, C.A.S.A. She’s a determined VBAC and the sun is close to setting which means her labor is probably picking up. Please go see her.”
This is a letter that I got in an Email that is so beautiful and descriptive and it reflects the life of a Free Soul who has followed her Bliss, through the years, beginning in the wonderful ’60’s to present. She has become wise in the interim and has something to say.
She represents, I think, the individuals with the vision to help us keep our heads in these shocking times and may have more to say as we gain a new Positive Future. She gave me permission to publish her letter. I am going to edit it slightly and leave names out.
http://lovelight9112001.blogspot.com/2008/12/beautiful-letter-about-life-and-freedom.html
I don’t know how to swim and when I venture in any swimming pool, I always end up like a talaba: immersed in water but clinging on whatever stable matter I can hold on to, never letting go.
I fear heights. Whenever there are scenes on tv particularly showing a POV of someone on a building ledge, I feel an uncomfortable sensation in my groin!
I fear snakes. I fear poverty. I fear popular people.
And now that I’m no longer, ehem, young, I hear William Wallace’s famous Braveheart line: …and dying in your bed, many years from now, would you trade this day to that day…!
Birth is often seen as a physical event of necessity – the unfortunate process needed to have the baby. The spirituality can be forgotten in the sterility of a clinical birth setting, with TVs on, monitors attached, caregivers only remotely available but generally busy and unknown. These images are what many women come to expect for birth. They do not expect to be celebrated nor are they encouraged, generally, to create individual ritual symbols or ceremony.
http://midwifeintheclouds.blogspot.com/2009/03/symbols-of-childbirth.html
Right before Thanksgiving, Ricki and I got to fulfill a dream…visiting Ina May Gaskin at The Farm in Tennessee. We had always wanted to film Ina May at The Farm for BOBB but ran out of production funds and time. We decided that we MUST get there to film for our follow-up DVD, so Wednesday morning November 19th (mere hours after Ricki hosted a benefit at Babeland for The New Space for Women’s Health) we hopped a plane to Nashville.
http://www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com/blog/2008/12/09/down-on-the-farm/
Stanislawa was arrested in Lodz on February 18, 1943, with her daughter and two sons. The sons were sent to the labor camp at Mathausen and Gusen to work in the stone quarries. She and her daughter, Sylvia, were sent to Auschwitz where they arrived on April 17, 1943. They were given the numbers 41335 and 41336, tattooed on their forearms. They would remain as mementos of the camp.
They were deprived of all possessions, stripped, shaven, and given camp clothing – striped overalls and some underwear. Sylvia recalls that she received two left-foot slip. All of the clothing was infested with lice. Stanislawa spent two years in the women’s facility at Auschwitz, working as a midwife in three different blocks. The “sick-ward” in all of these was the same: 40-meter long bare wooden barracks heated by single brick stove.
When will we remember that pregnancy, childbirth, and lactation are normal healthy physiological processes that are a continuum and do not require medical intervention unless there is a medical problem? A woman’s body and the physiology of pregnancy, labor, birth, and lactation are designed to promote the well-being of the fetus and newborn. When will we establish optimal outcomes as the goal of health care during the childbearing cycle, rather than attempting to reduce by small increments the incidence of morbidity and mortality that is compounded by the very interventions we use to attempt to avoid such problems? We all know that in our current health care milieu for childbearing women, the protection of normal is not valued or supported, except in a very few locales.
http://icantwincitiesblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/acog-under-question-by-insider.html
Dr. Jung will soon be delivering babies at Soonchunhyang University Hospital. Dr. Jung is a huge advocate of natural childbirth in Korea.
http://cairomama.blogspot.com/2008/12/natural-childbirth-doctor-in-korea.html
Free Mother-Friendly Documents and Downloads
The following documents are available for free downloads as PDF files from the Coalition For Improving Maternity Services. Permission is granted to freely reproduce in whole or in part along with complete attribution as indicated on the PDF itself.