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Pregnancy

Giving birth is not a matter of pushing, expelling the baby, but of yielding, surrendering to birth energy. – Marie Reid

Natural childbirth has evolved to suit the species, and if mankind chooses to ignore her advice and interfere with her workings we must not complain about the consequences. We have only ourselves to blame. – Margaret Jowitt

Many Western doctors hold the belief that we can improve everything, even natural childbirth in a healthy woman. This philosophy is the philosophy of people who think it deplorable that they were not consulted at the creation of Eve, because they would have done a better job. – Gerrit-Jan Kloosterman

If we are to heal the planet, we must begin by healing birthing. – Agnes Sallet Von Tannenberg

Labor is the closest a woman may ever be to the threshold between life and death while she is still very much alive. – Anne Frye

A strong intention, a relaxed body and an open mind are the main ingredients for an active birth. – Janet Balaskas

Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers… strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength. – Barbara Katz Rothman

The experience of birth is vast. It is a diverse tapestry woven by cultural customs, shaped in personal choices, affected by biological factors, marked by political circumstances. Yet the nature of birth itself prevails in elegant design of simple complexity. – Harriette Hartigan

Pregnancy and birth knit womankind together. Help weave a gorgeous thread to add to the fabric. Be supportive. Be kind. Be wise. Be open. – Desirre Andrews

We need nothing less than a revolution in our attitudes towards conception, pregnancy, birth and parenting. – Sophie Style

For far too many, pregnancy and birth is still something that happens to them rather than something they set out consciously and joyfully to do themselves. – Sheila Kitzinger, The Experience of Childbirth

The effort to separate the physical experience of childbirth from the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of this event has served to disempower and violate women. – Mary Rucklos Hampton

We must understand that childbirth is fundamentally a spiritual, as well as a physical, achievement. The birth of a child is the ultimate perfection of human love. – Grantly Dick-Read

Women today not only possess genetic memory of birth from a thousand generations of women, but they are also assailed from every direction by information and misinformation about birth. – Valerie El Halta

$13 to $20 billion a year could be saved in health care costs by demedicalizing childbirth, developing midwifery, and encouraging breastfeeding. – Frank A. Oski

Childbirth was probably easier for most women in early cultures, especially in hunter-gatherer societies, where everyone was accustomed to physical labor and supple and fit from daily activity. – Suzanne Arms

Amnesia: The condition that enables a woman who has gone through labor to have sex again. – Joyce Armor

If you want to know the feeling, just take your bottom lip and pull it over your head. – Carol Burnett, about labor pain, quoted in Fatherhood by Bill Cosby

The childbirth class neglected to teach you a critical skill. How to swear, breathe and count all at the same time. – Linda Fiterman, From Colic to College: Chuckling Your Way Through Parenthood

They say men can never experience the pain of childbirth. They can… if you hit them in the goolies with a cricket bat for fourteen hours. – Jo Brand