Thursday
17Aug
Honoring Natural Variables
Thursday, August 17, 2006 at 12:40AM by Demetria Clark, www.BirthArts.com
“Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.” - Henry David Thoreau
Inevitably when you and your friends go shopping, go out to eat or even order coffee you encounter and accept variables. Some will take their coffee black, with cream, honey, sugar or order tea instead. If you do not like the other’s choice you may say, “I could never drink black coffee….” but you do not storm out of the cafe’ saying, “I am the professional coffee drinker here and if you drink it like that I cannot work with you”. We all make daily choices about our lives based on our bodies and our needs. These choices are acceptable variables in our culture of women.
Why is it then we and our health care professionals cannot accept these types of variables in our birth. No two women have a menstrual cycle alike; no two women have the same birth story. Women cannot fit into Friedman’s curve (I call it Friedman’s curse); women must be able to labor in freedom. Without the pressures of, “my labor”…. “or my last baby was…” “my/ your sister gave birth…” “if you don’t pop this baby out by 5:00 your gonna have a section…” these are not catering to the mother’s reality. A woman can only labor as she is meant to labor.
Labor is supposed to be a personal journey, on this journey you become a women, a mother. What happens to a women when her bridge to personal transformation and growth is removed? We do not know yet, but I am guessing in 20 years we will have enough data to support my beliefs of lessened breastfeeding, more postpartum depression, more suicide, less sexual activity after the cesarean section, higher divorce rate within 2 years of the child being born and an increase in mother having body image problems. Why am I guessing all of these horrible things? Because along the line someone made this women feel she was not enough of a women to give birth. This in itself is a strong message. Is this the case for all women who have had a c-section, no, but the World Health Organization recommends less than twelve % and some areas of the country are anticipating a 60% c-section rate. Why?
Birth in this country has become a goal orientated progression. Get the Baby out. I am so confused by the inability of the US birth culture to accept natural variables. Birth in the United States is becoming made to order, people are becoming made to order.The realities of birth are this: The baby will come out. The cases of true instances when a woman could not deliver a baby are extremely rare. Vaginas have two biological functions; to accept a penis delivering sperm and to act as a sacred passage for birth.
As an herbalist and a doula I am constantly in awe of the biology, physiology and the reality of my combined professions. I am so in awe of the varieties of one type of flower, the smell differences in the earth, the colors of leaves, the differences in women’s skin, hair, eyes as they labor, their labor songs, all of the variables make the world colorful, meaningful and succulent. Birth in freedom is something to behold.
Reader Comments (3)
I can’t wait to see how the project unfolds.
Thanks for visiting. Kara is doing excellent work here:)