This Birth is Sacred

I started reading Cynthia Gabriel’s Natural Hospital Birth and didn’t even make it through the introduction before I was highlighting whole paragraphs.

Gabriel is a doula and anthropologist, and I am looking forward to her perspective. I certainly recognize the challenges that women face who are delivering in a hospital and would prefer a natural birth. Many hospitals and care providers are coming to recognize key ways to support these moms, but as a whole our birth culture has a long way to go. I’m planning to write a book review after I read the whole thing, but I just had to share this quote from the introduction:

I love birth because when my body is bringing forth new life I feel vibrant, important, and certain that the work I am doing is worthwhile. I learn the value of giving up control and accepting life as it is. Once this has even meant accepting that my baby’s birth was not going to happen the way I wanted.

The best Russian births and the best American births, the best homebirths and the best hospital births, have one thing in common: a sense among all persons present that this birth is sacred. This attitude, I have come to believe, is far more important than the room in which a woman will give birth.

What do you think?