Introduction
Childbirth is a unique experience for each and every woman — no two births are exactly alike. Each birth is a personal expression of who the woman is at that particular time of her life. Unknowable to her or anyone else beforehand, it unfolds and reveals itself during the hours in which she labors.
The fact that childbirth is unpredictable in every sense is the very thing that makes a woman feel anxious and fearful about it: not knowing how she will cope, how long it will take, and what the outcome will be. But in truth, this is the very nature of our lives in this world — trying to take control of and determine how to conduct our lives, while knowing that ultimately everything is in Hashem’s hands.
Many designs are in man’s heart, but the counsel of Hashem — only it will prevail. (Mishlei 19:21)
In childbirth, just as in so many other events of one’s life, learning and understanding are essential in the process of actualizing our potential. But at the point where knowledge reaches its limit, emunah peshutah, simple faith, takes over, and we need to let Hashem do His part. A woman’s birth experience has the potential to be gratifying and joyful if she learns to have faith in Hashem, Who has created her a woman, and if she learns to trust her body to do the job it was created for. By understanding what is going on inside her, she draws on, and works with, her own inner strength. Although rarely easy, childbirth forms a natural bridge connecting pregnancy to motherhood, connecting one stage of her life to the next. She needs to cross it with hope and faith, knowing that she is moving forward, being transformed into a richer, stronger, and deeper person. The woman in her is being developed in this process.
For various reasons, women have become accustomed to totally relinquishing control of their labor to professionals. A deep sense of alienation from the birth process and their bodies, coupled with the nature of the medical system in our society, frequently leaves women feeling vulnerable and afraid. This book seeks to give birth back to the woman as her own experience. I want each woman to believe that she can take responsibility for this event and that she has much to gain from doing so.
Traditionally women were the caregivers to women in labor. The midwife was the expert, both in a spiritual sense and in her knowledge of herbs, massage, and delivery. Mothers, aunts, sisters, or female friends were also frequently in attendance, forming a close support network. Women worked with and learned from each other. A close relationship developed between the midwife and the laboring woman, a relationship of trust, empathy, and support. A variety of upright birth positions were frequently used, and freedom of expression was encouraged according to the social setting.
The understanding and deep communication between the laboring woman and her companions, the primacy of the individuality of the laboring woman, and the profoundness of the moment of birth — this is the heritage we have lost and must somehow find again if birth is to be more than just the medical physical event it has become in the West.
(Jacqueline Vincent-Priya, Birth Traditions, p. 82)
In modern Western society this “heritage” has been lost; midwives have been devalued with the advent of the professional obstetrician.
Modern obstetrics found its origins in seventeenth-century France in the court of Louis XIV. Whatever was the custom of the court became common practice in the land. At that time, according to his instructions, during labor and birth the king’s wives were made to lie on their backs, with a physician standing before them ready to control the birth, often with instruments in hand (the use of which had come into fashion). This soon became common practice, and women found themselves compelled to give birth in a passive, uniform position without freedom of movement. The birthing stool, which had been used all over Europe, was abandoned, and women were less and less able to determine the nature and quality of their births. In the nineteenth century, Queen Victoria was persuaded by her court physician to use chloroform as an anesthetic for childbirth, and this practice also spread rapidly, rendering the woman unconscious as well as immobile.
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