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98a24c7
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Remember this, for it is as true and true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.
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midwifery
childbirth
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Ina May Gaskin |
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3a1d66a
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It is important to keep in mind that our bodies must work pretty well, or their wouldn't be so many humans on the planet.
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labor
health
normal
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Ina May Gaskin |
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c48acc0
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Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.
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pregnancy
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Ina May Gaskin |
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83d8298
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Many of our problems in US maternity care stem from the fact that we leave no room for recognizing when nature is smarter than we are.
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nature
maternity-care
technology
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Ina May Gaskin |
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9e4f419
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Gardeners know that you must nourish the soil if you want healthy plants. You must water the plants adequately, especially when seeds are germinating and sprouting, and they should be planted in a nutrient-rich soil. Why should nutrition matter less in the creation of young humans than it does in young plants? I'm sure that it doesn't.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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27b42b0
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Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.
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feminism
sex-positive
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Ina May Gaskin |
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da97423
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The way a culture treats women in birth is a good indicator of how well women and their contributions to society are valued and honored.
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women
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Ina May Gaskin |
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d7b8f92
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The techno-medical model of maternity care, unlike the midwifery model, is comparatively new on the world scene, having existed for barely two centuries. This male-derived framework for care is a product of the industrial revolution. As anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd has described in detail, underlying the technocratic mode of care of our own time is an assumption that the human body is a machine and that the female body in particular is..
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Ina May Gaskin |
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6771c8d
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It would be a mistake, though, to consider care by family doctors or midwives inferior to that offered by obstetricians simply on the grounds that obstetricians need not refer care to a family physician or midwife if no complications develop during a course of labor.
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wisdom
doctor
labor
health
normal
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Ina May Gaskin |
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39c2728
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Your body is not a lemon!
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Ina May Gaskin |
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ac8f689
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The state of relaxation of the mouth and jaw is directly correlated to the ability of the cervix, the vagina, and the anus to open to full capacity.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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a65d0cd
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When a child is born, the entire Universe has to shift and make room. Another entity capable of free will, and therefore capable of becoming God, has been born.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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0750876
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When avoidance of pain becomes the major emphasis of childbirth care, the paradoxical effect is that more women have to deal with pain after their babies are born.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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5a91d83
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The Creator is not a careless mechanic.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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71bfead
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Breast stimulation is especially effective in starting labor at term when it is combined with sexual intercourse. Unless your partner is an abysmally poor lover, this combination is by far the most enjoyable method of induction.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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d1dbbec
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There is no other organ quite like the uterus. If men had such an organ, they would brag about it. So should we.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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6b4b9f0
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Stories teach us in ways we can remember. They teach us that each woman responds to birth in her unique way and how very wide-ranging that way can be. Sometimes they teach us about silly practices once widely held that were finally discarded. They teach us the occasional difference between accepted medical knowledge and the real bodily experiences that women have - including those that are never reported in medical textbooks nor admitted as..
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midwifery
childbirth
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Ina May Gaskin |
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8784850
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Why should insurance companies continue to get away with limiting the skills that a health profession has always previously required of its members if they were to be considered fully trained?
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money
politics
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Ina May Gaskin |
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1bc9a6e
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I have felt incredible energy and life force through my body, and I have really been reborn a happier, healthier, and more confident person. I have learned I can choose to focus on the darker side or the lighter side of all that is around me. I choose the lighter side and have the discipline to keep it up.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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34cf8e8
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I have also known of weight estimates by ultrasound to be off by as much as five pounds.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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dffabfd
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Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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2324655
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The strangest request I have encountered was that of a first-time mother who--just before pushing--asked her husband for a jar of peanut butter and proceeded to eat two heaping table-spoonfuls. She then washed the peanut butter down with nearly a quart of raspberry leaf tea and pushed her baby out. I was impressed.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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4e4f0e3
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Step one to preventing PPD is to find time to sleep after giving birth, no matter how euphoric you feel.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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062e96c
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Touch is the most basic, the most nonconceptual form of communication that we have. In touch there are no language barriers; anything that can walk, fly, creep, crawl, or swim already speaks it.
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touch
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Ina May Gaskin |
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0f166fc
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Contrary to myth, for instance, intrinsic physical characteristics only rarely interfere with the capacity to give birth. In other words, your pelvis is probably big enough for vaginal birth. Nearly every woman's is. Mental attitudes and emotions, on the other hand, interfere with the ability to give birth far more than is generally understood.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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c6757a1
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Stand or kneel with one hand on your pubic bone in front and the other on your tailbone. Notice how far apart your hands are. Now lean backward as far as possible (taking care not to hurt yourself) and continue to notice how far apart your hands are. Next, lean forward until your torso is parallel to the ground.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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ec8966d
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Many midwives work as employees in large hospital practices, where the techno-medical model of care is still the rule. In practices like these, midwives are used to attract women who desire midwifery care, but they may in fact be under constant pressure to practice within the techno-medical mode.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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57c8d34
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An Rh negative mother's blood is said to be "sensitized" when this process has taken place. Procedures such as amniocentesis, aggressive external version, and episiotomy increase the chances of sensitization."
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Ina May Gaskin |
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a639d65
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Dear Lord, make us truly grateful for what it is that we are about to receive.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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ce8aa5a
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It will take your breastfed baby an average of five to six months to double her birth weight.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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9e41612
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We are, indeed, fully prepared to believe that the bearing of children may and ought to become as free from danger and long debility to the civilized woman as it is to the savage. --Thomas Huxley
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Ina May Gaskin |
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870aecf
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In the Netherlands, the government health plan provides for a specially trained nurse/lactation expert to help each new baby's parents in their home for a full ten days following each birth (with a small co-payment). Hired for three, five, or eight hours according to individual families' needs, this maternity nurse serves the new parents breakfast in bed, feeds any older children their breakfast, walks the dog, helps the new mother with bre..
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Ina May Gaskin |
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54e3a94
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I kept thinking while I was pushing, I'm going to get huge. I'm going to get huge!" she said." --
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Ina May Gaskin |
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e54381d
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How likely is it that you'll be present when I give birth? * If not, who will be there instead? * Can I meet all of your partners? * What is your policy on ultrasound? * What forms of pain relief do you recommend? * How many women in your practice give birth without pharmacological pain relief? * What do you think about doulas? * How often am I likely to see you while I'm in labor? * What prenatal tests do you do routinely? * What labor pro..
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Ina May Gaskin |
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8c1d16f
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Can I drink and eat in labor? * If I go into labor, check in to the hospital, and my labor slows down before I get very far, can I go home? * What is your induction rate? What methods do you use? * Can I walk around in labor? * Is there a time limit for labor? How long can I push? * Can I choose the position for giving birth? Can I give birth on my hands and knees if I like that position? * What is your cesarean rate? * This may seem a pers..
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Ina May Gaskin |
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d24a89e
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In her insightful Of Woman Born (1976), Adrienne Rich said it very eloquently: "My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness."
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Ina May Gaskin |
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d2d3b83
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Midwives provide all the prenatal care healthy women need. The midwifery ideal is to work with each woman and her family to identify her unique physical, social, and emotional needs. In general, midwifery care is associated with fewer episiotomies, fewer instrumental deliveries, fewer epidurals, and fewer cesarean sections. Midwives are trained to identify the relatively small percentage of births in which complications develop and to refer..
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Ina May Gaskin |
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c337c85
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our bodies must work pretty well, or there wouldn't be so many humans on the planet.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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804b66d
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in the ordinary course of a healthy labour, the mouth of the uterus opens by some secret agency; or at least without any apparent force.
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Ina May Gaskin |
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b3a2eda
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This means that most of the births they have seen were to women on epidurals lying still during labor, waiting for it all to be over. Seeing this kind of birth over and over again causes a subconscious imprint on the mind, and many women develop enough fear of the pains of childbirth that they block the messages their bodies give them about other positions they might take in labor. Others may simply fear diverging from the norm. A woman in ..
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Ina May Gaskin |
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c9e4e0b
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Marie Striekwold-Ebben, passed along this piece of wisdom: "Even if you don't have much money, keep in mind that the bedroom is the most important room in the house. Love and sadness are shared under the sheets, and you hope that your children will come into the world in your bedroom and that you will leave the world there."
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Ina May Gaskin |
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65f8775
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Where the techno-medical model of birth reigns, women who give birth vaginally generally labor in bed hooked up to electronic fetal monitors, intravenous tubes, and pressure-reading devices. Eating and drinking in labor are usually not permitted. Labor pain within this model is seen as unacceptable, so analgesia, and anesthesia are encouraged. Episiotomies (the surgical cut to enlarge the vaginal opening) are routinely performed, out of a b..
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women
childbearing
episiotomies
labor-and-deliver
techno-medical-model-of-birth
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Ina May Gaskin |
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27dcd9d
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emphatically, that I was. After that I decided not to feel sorry for myself or
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Ina May Gaskin |
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b6eed85
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Mother's milk is soul food for babies. The babies of the world need a lot more soul food.
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life
breastfeeding
birth
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Ina May Gaskin |