How to Have the Birth of Your Dreams
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As a Mother You Have Choices
Created in response to the Time magazine article, Choosy Mothers Choose Caesareans, by Alice Park. This hub highlights resources to assist any woman in liberating herself from the fear surrounding birth so she can choose to have the birth of her dreams.
The Highlights
Women everywhere choose to become mothers through a process we have termed Birth. Of course it starts with sex, then conception, followed with pregnancy, but the actualization of all of the preceding is Birth.
Not only mother, but father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and anyone else privileged enough to witness the raw, unadulterated power of a woman through realizing her own personal potential, will be forever changed when that woman is allowed to be fully who she is. An Amazing Creator.
For those who have experienced a birth less than that of you dreams, fear not. It is within. For those who are growing a baby as we speak, may this hub direct you towards information to educate and inform you along your journey. Even if you are no longer having children, you can benefit from knowing that you are still the awesome being who has this strength and amazing ability of birth inside of you.
Face Your Fear: Inform Yourself
Fear can be paralyzing. Or it can be informing. Or both. In the situation of birth, and wanting to have the birth of your dreams, it will benefit you and your baby to become well informed. Gather information from your health care provider and if answers sought there do not suffice, take your asking a step further. Or a few steps.
The resources are endless. Search them out. We all know ~stuff~ can happen and emergencies arise, the point here is to become your own source of strength in this amazing experience, rather than seek it elsewhere. You can have the birth of your dreams in whatever circumstances you encounter.
Regardless of where you plan to birth, with a MD or midwife or unassisted, here are a few really awesome resources worth checking out to empower yourself to have the birth of your dreams.
Resources for Pregnancy and Birth
Take Care of You
If it hasn't already occured to the pregnant woman, it will definitely, at one point or another, hit home for the mother that it's time to take care of herself. We are multifaceted beings. We're talking about more than just eating right, getting rest, exercising, and drinking plenty of water. Those are all part of the picture, yet it is a lot broader. When we incorporate all aspects of ourselves, we feel more whole and balanced. Birth is certainly one experience that would ideally be entered into with a sense of balance.
One way to look at yourself is with Virginia Satir's Self Mandala. Virginia Satir was an author and psychotherapist who worked with people as a whole, on eight different levels. She categorized them this way: I am, Spiritual, Nutritional, Emotional, Sensual, Physical, Interactional, Contextual, and Intellectual. The point here is that we are more than just a body. And we have the ability to realize that when we take the time to do so.
Allow yourself to really focus on you and what you need to bring your whole self into balance. This in itself will assist you in having the birth of your dreams.
Know You Can Do It
As Hathor the Cow Goddess suggests in her cartoon above, women gave birth for a very long time in the existence of the human species, with no intervention. Is this to say that interventions are not necessary? In some cases, they do preserve life. At the same time, many measures used in modern medicine can and do lead to further interventions, and often c-section. No fault here, just the facts.
Bottom line, a woman's body is created to birth. That's what we do.
A study of the human sexual response cycle gives insight towards the magnificence of the whole reproductive beauty, from beginning to end. We ovulate, our cervix opens, our vaginas lubricate, the sperm has a swimmingly good time in the slippery mucous produced, and wa-la... the creation of a little human.
Birth is the same. We nurture our babies inside, when birth begins, our cervix begins to stretch, dilate, and release the plug that has so kindly kept bacteria from endangering our little one all of the months of gestation. What happens next is an increase in the intensity of the opening until the mother finally surrenders and her body expels the being from within.
Believe it or not, the whole process can absolutely be the most liberating, joyful experience a woman ever has. To feel that way, she must reclaim her personal power. The power innate within her at her own birth as a little baby. The power she has now, only waiting to be discovered.
Peace 4 Parents
Amy Phoenix (aka Rainbow Recognizer) is a gentle, yet direct parenting guide and healing facilitator dedicated to sharing insights and practices to transform frustration and anger, heal the past, nurture conscious relationships, and experience the peace of the present. Visit her at www.Peace4Parents.com.
Post Natal Yoga with Gurmukh Kaur Kalsa
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Rainbow, great topic and hub! I know many women choose c-sections and it is mind boggling! Sometimes it is entirely unavoidable, but to choose it? I had an emergency c with my third (and cried through the entire process). I would choose all natural / no pain meds / water birth any day. Like you said, it is empowering, better for your body and the recovery is a walk in the park compared to a c-section.
Love the cartoons too :)
I work at a Women's Hospital that delivers 260+ babies a month and luckily there are policies there that deny an "elective" c-section. However, we all know there are ways to bend the rules--I'm sure some Dr's try to accomodate their patients a little too much sometimes. Thankfully, most of our scheduled c-section patients are usually post-dates, breech, twins, or other special circumstances.
That being said, I have heard many pregnant women say that they would prefer to have a c-section and just "get it over with." I think that's ridiculous! Why deny yourself the process (physically, emotionally, mentally, etc) AND have longer/more painful healing time?
Great hub! :)
Well put.
It should be a woman's choice. Great article - thanks.
I love your hub. My fiance is wanting to have a water birth when we decide to have kids and from what I have heard about it, it seems to be a very nice option. Keep up the good work. I love the cartoons.
When people today think about birth, they picture doctors, machines, and screaming mothers. Most consider drugs, cesarean sections, and other interventions as normal. Women have been giving birth forever, before all of this was even an option. Why has so much changed over the years?
Hospitals are businesses. Many care more about filling beds than about what is right for the patient. That is why doctors are so quick to induce labor. They want to get you in and out so they can fill your bed with someone new. Many doctors make decisions about the patient according to what is most convenient for them and most lucrative for the hospital. The more drugs and procedures they convince the patient is necessary, the more money the hospital makes. It is also interesting to note that the peak time for C-sections is four to ten pm. The doctors are tired and hungry and just want to go home. A lot of women do not realize that obstetricians are surgical specialists. They view labor as a medical emergency because that is how they were trained to think. It is important to realize that they were not trained in normal, natural childbirth. Therefore, having a natural childbirth experience in a hospital is near impossible.
Despite what most obstetricians believe, giving birth at home or in a free standing birth center is extremely safe. In most cases, it is better for both mother and baby. As women, we need to realize that we have many options. We should not just assume that we will be most safe in the hands of a doctor. All women are capable of making a well thought out, informed decision about the birth of their child.
Awesome hub Rainbow =)
Thanks! I'll check it out.



















MoralsEthics1960 4 years ago
wow
Rock on