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Birth, She is dying.
This primal and unspeakably powerful initiation, the only road
to motherhood for our ancestors, has been stripped of Her dignity
and purpose in our times. Birth has become a dangerous medical
disease to be treated with escalating levels, and types, of technological
interventions.
What is worse, perhaps, is that the ecstasy of Birth- Her capacity
to take us outside (ec) our usual state (stasis)- has been forgotten,
and we are entering the sacred domain of motherhood post-operatively,
even post-traumatically, rather than transformationally.
These deviations from the natural order, whose lore is genetically
encoded in our bodies, have enormous repercussions.
We live in a society where new mothers have unprecedented levels
of distress and depression. Where our babies, with their colic,
reflux, and 'sleep problems', are also having their distress medically
treated. Where, depression and anxiety are among the largest burdens
of disease worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation,
and where children as young as 4 are being diagnosed with these
conditions. And where our young people, at the prime of their
lives, are choosing in large numbers to opt out, with mind-altering
drugs, or to opt out permanently through suicide.
More than this, we have set ourselves as a species on the road
to self-destruction through our despoiling of our collective mother,
the Earth. The havoc that we wreak through waste and greed has
many parallels with our treatment of mothers and babies, and our
primal environment, which is our mother's womb.
And just as we have pitted ourselves against the Earth, forgetting
that we are interdependent, so too have we begun to pit the 'rights
of the baby' against the 'rights of the mother', imagining a separation,
a competition, that does not and cannot exist.
The wounds of Birth and of the Earth are severe. But as the Goddess
Hygieia tells us, "The wound reveals the cure". My belief
is that we are suffering in birth from lack of passion, of love,
of surrender and of a misunderstanding of our own power, and that
these qualities can provide us with a way of healing birth, and,
at the same time, healing the earth.
PASSION
We all began our lives in a passionate act. Our human bodies crave
the intensity and pleasure that sex brings, and many cultures
have recognised the capacity for healing that is inherent in the
sexual act. Why is sex so powerful? As well as giving us the potential
to create new life- the ultimate power- sex involves peak experiences,
and peak hormone levels, of love, pleasure and excitement. These
hormones- the body's chemical messengers- and their actions are
exactly the same as those of birth.
In other words, giving birth is, inherently and hormonally, a
passionate and sexual act. From the perspective of hormone levels
in both mother and baby, we could say that it is the most passionate
experience that we will ever have.
Oxytocin, the hormone of love, builds up during labour, reaching
peak levels at the moment of birth, creating loving, altruistic
feelings between mother and baby. Endorphins, hormones of pleasure
and transcendence, also peak at birth, as do the fight-or-flight,
or excitement hormones adrenalin and nor-adrenaline, (epinephrine
and norepinephrine) which, as well as protecting the baby from
lack of oxygen in the final stages of birth, ensure that mother
and baby are both wide-eyed and alert at first contact. Prolactin,
the mothering hormone, helps us to surrender to our babies, giving
us the tenderest of maternal feelings as our reward.
But these passionate hormones are not just feel-good add-ons.
They actually orchestrate the processes of birth (and sex) and
enhance efficiency, safety and ease for both mother and baby,
and their crescendo at birth is, in other species (all mammals
share the same hormones) a necessary pre-requisite in switching
on instinctive mothering behaviours. Furthermore, this hormonal
cocktail rewards birthing mothers with the experience of ecstasy
and fulfilment, making us want to give birth again and again.
Not that birthing passionately means birthing painlessly. Giving
birth is a huge event, emotionally and physically, and will make
demands on the body equivalent to, for example, running a marathon.
But when a woman feels confident in her body, well supported,
and able to express herself without inhibition, the pain becomes
just one part of the process, and something that she can respond
to instinctively with resources such as breath, sound and movement.
The problem in our times is that the passion of birth is not recognised,
nor allowed for. Thus birth has become a dispassionate, medical
event, usually occurring in a setting that discourages emotional
expression. If we are to reclaim our birthing passion, we must
firstly give ourselves permission to birth passionately, and choose
a birth setting and birth attendants with this in mind. It is
likely that our birth in these circumstances will be easier, helping
us to step into new motherhood gently and gracefully.
Passion is, to my mind, an opposite, and an antidote, for despair
and depression. This is clear physiologically and hormonally.
If we give birth, and are born, in passion, how different would
our primal emotional imprint be? And what about our brain chemistry,
which is being set even as we are born? . Some studies have linked
exposure to drugs and procedures at birth with an increased risk
of drug addiction, suicide and anti-social behaviour in later
life, and other commentators have suggested that contemporary
problems such as learning disorders and ADHD may also be linked
to drugs and interventions at birth.
As a birthing mother, I have both seen and experienced the enormous
passion that can be unleashed at birth, and which can fuel both
passionate motherhood and a lifetime's work on behalf of mothers,
babies and the earth, and I ask:
Can we afford, as a species, to be born, and to give birth dispassionately?
LOVE
Passion and love are as powerful a combination at birth as they
are in sexual activity. And in birth, as in sex, we release oxytocin,
the hormone of love, in huge quantities. Here again, our hormones
are directing us toward optimal and ecstatic experiences, yet
this system is also vulnerable to interference.
For example, a labouring woman's production of oxytocin is drastically
reduced by the use of epidural pain relief- this is the reason
why epidurals prolong labour. And even when an epidural has 'worn
off', her oxytocin peak, which causes the powerful final contractions
that are designed to birth her baby quickly and easily, will be
still be significantly lessened- and she is more likely to have
her baby pulled out with forceps, as a result.
The drug syntocinon, which has been called the most abused drug
in obstetrics, is also implicated. It is a synthetic form of the
hormone oxytocin, and is used for induction and for augmentation
(or acceleration) of labour; almost half of women giving birth
in Australia at present receive large doses of this drug in labour
for one of these reasons.
When a labouring woman has syntocinon administered by drip, for
induction or augmentation, her body will detect high levels of
this drug in the bloodstream and her brain will respond by cutting
down the release of her own oxytocin. We know that women in this
situation are vulnerable to haemorrhage after birth because of
this, and even more syntocinon becomes necessary to counter that
risk. However, we do not know the psychological effects of giving
birth without the peak levels of oxytocin that nature prescribes
for all mammals.
French surgeon and natural birth pioneer Michel Odent believes
that when a baby initiates his own birth, he may be training himself
to secrete his own hormone of love. Odent also notes our society's
deficits in our capacity to love self and others, and he traces
these problems back to the time around birth, and especially to
interference with the oxytocin system.
I had a very powerful experience of oxytocin as the hormone of
love while labouring with my fourth baby, Maia Rose. As the waves
of labour strengthened, I found myself looking into the eyes of
my beloved, telling him "I love you, I love you, I love youş"
peaking and subsiding with each wave. This ecstatic experience
has created more love in my heart, in our relationship and in
our family, and has taught me, in a very physical way, that giving
birth is also making love.
SURRENDER
Surrender is not a popular virtue. In fact, surrender is seen
as a weakness in our culture, where we are universally encouraged
to be active and in control of our lives. This very yang, or masculine
attitude, may serve us in some circumstances, but we cannot birth
our babies through sheer force of will, and we need to learn the
more subtle- yet equally powerful- path of surrender.
I sense that, for modern women, difficulty with surrender can
reflect a lack of confidence in our bodies. This is not suprising,
when our society is distrustful of the natural order in general,
and women's bodies in particular. This view is further reinforced
by the obstetric model, with its long lists of all that can possibly
go wrong with our birthing bodies, and its myriad of technological
fixes to rescue us from even the remotest possibility of danger.
Along with this forgetting of the awesome but natural power of
our female bodies, we have also lost our birthing Goddesses and
Saints, who have, for millennia, guided women through this transition,
where the veil between life and death is at its thinnest. Today,
this guidance is available to us, when and if we need it, in the
living form of a midwife: a woman who has pledged to be with (mid)
women (wyfe) in birth. A good midwife can remind us by her presence
that we carry genetically the birthing successes of all our foremothers,
and that we know already how to give birth.
As midwife and author Jeannine Parvati Baker reminds us, giving
birth is women's spiritual practice, requiring "purity in strength,
flexibility, health, concentration, surrender and faith." (Prenatal
Yoga and Natural Childbirth- see below). It is also said that
to be consciously present at birth is equivalent to seven years
of meditation. When we birth consciously, putting our great rational
mind on hold, and allowing our instinctive nature to dominate,
we can access the wisdom that all spiritual traditions teach:
that the ego is our servant, not our mistress, and that our path
to ecstasy and enlightenment involves surrendering our egoic notions
of control. This level of surrender will also serve us well in
our many years of motherhood.
When we surrender conscious control, we also allow our deeper
innate rhythms to surface: this can be a profound experience for
a birthing woman. In allowing her labour to go at its own pace,
without hurry or interference, a woman learns to trust her own,
and her baby's, natural rhythms. Such trust is another gift, another
way in which nature ensures optimal mothering, and enhanced survival,
for our young.
In surrendering to birth, we also learn about our role on the
earth: we are not the rulers, nor the architects, of creation.
Life comes through us, simply and gracefully, when we allow it.
POWER
It is easy to say that our problems in birth stem from the excessive
power of the medical system and its agents, and a lack of power
by the birthing woman. However a deeper analysis is necessary,
I believe, because the time has come to dispel this idea of a
power imbalance and to assert our innate authority in birthing.
We live in a culture that prizes, and puts its faith in, technology.
We reward those, such as doctors, who are masters of technology,
and indeed, we are fortunate to have their skills available to
us when we need them. And even though we may want less technology
in 'normal birth', we are witnessing more and more litigation
against obstetricians, almost all of which blames them for not
using enough technology.
Along with technology, we also prize information. In pregnancy
and birth, becoming 'informed' is equated with being 'responsible',
both of which are strongly encouraged culturally, yet there is
also a price to pay. We can have all of the information in the
world, but we cannot predict our experiences in birth. And we
diminish our own authority in birthing and in mothering we disempower
ourselves- when we put more faith in information from the outside
(tests, scans, other's opinions) than our own internal knowing
of our bodies and our babies.
The truth is that our babies are constantly 'informing' us of
their needs and desires, and how we can best care for them. This
is a physiological reality- the placenta is continual communication
with our bodies, transferring blood and nutrients and organising,
via the placental hormones, our bodies and our psyches for the
optimal and specific mothering that this baby requires. In the
same way, our cravings, yearnings, dreams and inclinations in
pregnancy can be communications from our babies, and show us the
deeper ways of knowing that are richer and more true, even if
less numerical or detailed, than information from the outside
such as medical tests.
In fact, from the very beginning, when we first suspect that we
are creating new life in our womb, we can use this ancient 'system',
and allow our bodies, rather than a technological test, to inform
us. Often, the truth of our bodies will unfold gradually, allowing
us the space to learn and adapt at our own pace and giving us
opportunities for reflection and dreaming.
When we choose this traditional women's path, the path of all
our foremothers, we discover, and reinforce, an inalienable trust
and power in ourselves and our female bodies. This deep faith
is the best preparation possible for birth, and is also, to my
mind, is the basis of true responsibility- we are able to respond
with our own truth. We also become able to use the medical system,
if we choose, without giving away our power.
Beyond this, when we tap into women's ways of knowing, we open
channels of communication with our babies, enhancing the psychic
powers of communication that nature intends for mothers of all
species. Mothering can become a meditation, a deep mindfulness
that is satisfying spiritually as well as physically and emotionally:
again, I believe that this is nature's intent, and a possibility
for all of us.
How would it be to live in a society where we are all, through
giving birth or being birthed, in possession of our own power
and our deep knowing? Where science and technology are our tools,
rather than our masters? How differently would we treat our babies?
How differently would we treat each other? How differently would
we treat the earth ?
Birth is dying, but, like cells in Her body, we each have the
power to enliven Her and to resurrect Her in all Her glory. What
is needed, I believe, is the collective passion, love, surrender
and power that we pour into the ether as we birth our babies.
And in healing birth, we are healing our Selves, our babies and
the Earth.
With thanks to Jeannine Parvati Baker for many core ideas and
phrases; ecstasy in birth, 'healing the earth, healing birth':
'giving birth is women's spiritual practice' (from Prenatal Yoga
and Natural Childbirth, Silver Anniversary Edition, Freestone
Publishing/North Atlantic Books, 2000) and 'the wound reveals
the cure', which is the canon of her Mystery school, Hygieia College
.http://www.freestone.org
. Thanks also, for inspiration and ideas, to Leilah McCracken
(www.birthlove.com)
Michel Odent, and Shivam Rachana and the International College
of Spiritual Midwifery (www.vicnet.net.au/~icsm
)
Sarah is a GP (family physician), an internationally published
writer on pregnancy, birth, and parenting, and mother to four
home-born children. Click
here for more of Sarah's writing on gentle birth and gentle
parenting, and for information about her upcoming book, Gentle
Birth, Gentle Mothering: The wisdom and science of gentle choices
in pregnancy, birth, and parenting.
March 2002 This article was most recently published in Byron Child
Issue 3, Sept 2002 www.byronchild.com
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