2011 - Talk Birth

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The mama hen and two of her chicks
kind of feet and the wrong kind of eggs, she did it! We didn’t trust her, or believe in her. Our
book and the experts didn’t either. However, her inherent mothering wisdom won out—it trumped us. At
the risk of excessive personification, it truly seemed that she had believed in herself and trusted her instincts
(or perhaps, that Nature believed in itself).
Perhaps we could have had the same result with an artificial incubator—a tray that rotates the
eggs, instead of “clumsy” feathered feet; a properly temperature controlled unit instead of the heat of her
own breast; a sterilized box instead of a wooden coop with an unscientific amount of possibly “germy”
feathers plucked from her own body.
My husband ran to get the rest of the family and as we watched that first small fuzzy baby with its
eyes bright with life, I was awash with the parallels—the book tells her that her pelvis will be too small,
labor will be too painful, her skin won’t stretch, she might have GD, there might be any manner of
complications, maybe she should elect to have the baby surgically. Why all the fuss about doing it
“naturally” anyway?
Then, as we continued to stare in amazement, the mama hen clucked to her baby softly and fluffed
her wings around it until it disappeared beneath her with the others. Isn’t this the birthright of every new
baby of any species? To be snuggled immediately after birth into the warm embrace and near the breast of
the female body that has given it life? The body that has cared for and nurtured it so lovingly so that its
head may finally peek out into the world?
If our chicken were to write a book about hatching babies—or about giving birth—perhaps her section
about natural incubation would read:
Maybe she knows what she’s doing.
Maybe you should trust her.
Maybe she can do a better job with her own body and her own babies than you can.
Maybe she can do this all by herself.
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