It's been said before and it will be said many many more times, birth is a right of passage. This is from the time we enter the world in our birth to when we decided to birth ourselves. Our entrance into the world can be rough, rude and rushed or it can be how it was intended to be; calm, peaceful and full of instinct.
Birth is physiological in nature, as it is one of life's many wonders that our bodies can create, carry and nurture then, inevitably birth our baby. Sometimes we need support to conceive our baby through means such as IVF but after that the journey stays with our instinctual body to nurture your baby to allow them to grow healthily in time for birth. Birth is then guided by your pregnant body and in utero baby. The body will know when it is the right time to birth whether that be at a date you have been given by a medical provider or not. Your body does not run to a schedule the same as millions of other birthing peoples, you (and each of them) will chose to birth when it is the right time for your baby.
*B I R T H F A C T* Only 5% of birthing women and people give birth on their due date.
This goes to show that everyone is an individual in birth and every baby is an individual when they enter our world. Our baby's deserve to be listened to when they are making their journeys earth side. They have spent their time in the womb in comfort and safety and they deserve this in their birth journeys. They do not need to be rushed into our modern world of on time, they deserve the instinctual power of our ancestral knowledge that patience is the key to a healthy and meaningful life.
As we birth as women and birthing people into the system around us that tells us how to act in these instincts we have a choice, do we listen to the system or ourselves. Do we trust what are body has given us. Most of us have been raised in a society that 'honours the rational mind' (Einstein), it certainly has it's place but what about our senses, what about our gut. If our instincts tell us to roar our baby out do we listen to it or do we listen to the voice in the room telling us to 'quiet down'. If our body tells us that our baby is not ready to be born do we listen to it or do we listen to a Consultant telling us that we are overdue and it would be dangerous not to have an induction. Birth is our passage to this earth, it is one of our first experiences of how we can be treated by the human race. Too often in our current system this experience is forceful, not heard and neglectful. If this is one of our first experiences on this earth then this can set the president for how we except other energy into our life's. Remember birth is a right of passage, you have that right to whatever it is that suits you. #gloucestershiredoula #gloucestershirecounsellor #strouddoula #birthgiref #birthtrauma #postnataltrauma #breastfeedingtrauma #physiologicalbirth #birthrights #birthisarightofpassage #birth
Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash