#midw

The fundamental problem is not about normal childbirth; it’s about making normal childbirth abnormal...When we treat high-risk women in high-risk settings, we lower their risk. When we treat low-risk women as if they were high risk, we increase their risk and create complications. That is what we are doing today.

Those of us who still live close to the land and to instinctual life know that birthing animals need privacy, quietness, dark, stillness, a sense of the familiar, their own nest and simple warmth, shelter, water and uninterrupted contact with their babies. We know that if we keep it simple, the mother will be relaxed and have a greater chance of bringing forth her young by her own natural instincts and will nurse and protect her baby with alertness and sacrificial constancy. Nothing is taught, yet she learns everything by trusting her instincts and being with her own kind.