2011 - Talk Birth

Today editorial by Jan Tritten
”Change, when it comes, cracks everything open.” Dorothy Allison
”I invite people to examine their lives, knowing that it’s scary, but that not doing it is even scarier.”
- Barbara De Angelis
‎”There isn’t a lot you actually *need* to do to birth, but there is a lot you can do to get in the
*way* of birth...” –Elizabeth McKeown
‎”Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.” –Marion C. Garretty
‎”In western society, the baby gets attention while the mother is given lectures. Pregnancy is considered
an illness; once the ’illness’ is over, interest in her wanes. Mothers in ’civilized’ countries often have no
or very little help with a new baby. Women tend to be home alone to fend for themselves and the children.
They are typically isolated socially & expected to complete their usual chores...while being the sole person
to care for the infant...” –Milk, Money, & Madness
“I have discovered nothing more stunning, nothing more emotionally stirring, nothing more intriguing
than a woman as she creates life.” –Patrick Stull
‎”My first delivery was a traumatic experience, physically and psychologically almost destroying me.
My second, with a midwife, allowed me to regain my womanhood and experience my biological imperative.
And yet, I would do them both over again to have what I created.” –mother quoted in the book Evolve, by
Patrick Stull
‎”Too often in modern busy obstetric practice, we doctors forget this meaningfulness of childbirth. In
our anxiety and impatience, or in our sincere, but misguided efforts to relieve suffering (and childbirth is
not without it), we relieve a woman not only of this suffering, but also of her ‘birth right.’” John Miller,
MD, Childbirth via [1]Citizens for Midwifery
‎”Too often in modern busy obstetric practice, we doctors forget this meaningfulness of childbirth. In
our anxiety and impatience, or in our sincere, but misguided efforts to relieve suffering (and childbirth is
not without it), we relieve a woman not only of this suffering, but also of her ‘birth right.’” John Miller,
MD, Childbirth
“A woman’s confidence and ability to give birth and to care for her baby are enhanced or diminished
by every person who gives her care, and by the environment in which she gives birth…Every women
should have the opportunity to give birth as she wishes in an environment in which she feels nurtured
and secure, and her emotional well-being, privacy, and personal preferences are respected.” –Coalition for
Improving Maternity Services (CIMS)
‎”Aside from new babies, new mothers must be the most beautiful creatures on earth.” Terri Guillemets
‎”It’s a good day not to judge anything - not myself, not others, not the world. Let us just be.”
Sonia Choquette
‎”We’re volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps
change. New mountains form” - Ursula Le Guin
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