Issue 68

Instinctive Birth: Finding The Pulse

When I began my family back in 1969, I was studying psychology at the university. I had my ear to the ground, listening to what the Earth wanted of mothers at a pivotal time in our history. Feminism had sounded the drum and this mother’s heart was pounding. At last, women had the freedom to be all we could be and, oh, how we danced!

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Preparing The Nest

At the end of her first pregnancy, Liliana was living in a hostel. One day she decided that the bathrooms and the corridors were dirty. She felt an urgent need to clean them. Then she left the building. She had to sweep the sidewalk. The next day her labor started.

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Listening To Eve

I think instinctive birth is the knowledge of birth that all women have encoded in their DNA. We don’t need a class to understand it. The eons of birthing women who came before have brought us to this place today. But in this generation, we wonder where it is, how to reach it and how to use it. To connect to our instincts, we need to be quiet. Instincts do not shout; they whisper. How do we help the new “Eve” hear this voice? When the mom tries to hear the baby’s heart with a fetascope, we tell her to “feel” the beat against her ear.

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Salt of the Earth: Homeopathic Natrum Muriaticum

Salt, sodium chloride or common rock salt is dissolved in the same proportion to water in the Earth’s oceans as it is in our blood, amniotic fluid and tears. Salt plays a vital part in every cell of the human body, and the ideal amount of salt for human babies is perfectly found in human breast milk. Read more…. Salt of the Earth: Homeopathic Natrum Muriaticum

Healing in Mexico

We began the Oaxaca, Mexico, conference with an exercise in global healing. Marina Alzugaray and Yeshi Sherover Neumann created the idea of splitting our group of about 275 people into "conquered" and “conquerors.” Read more…. Healing in Mexico

Two Important Keys: Autonomy and Working Together

Is our profession a barrier to instinctive birth? Are we, whose calling it is to protect and care for motherbaby in the birth year, actually forming a barrier? If so, how do we change our profession to meet the real needs of women in pregnancy and birth? Read more…. Two Important Keys: Autonomy and Working Together

A Vision of Birth

A vision of Birth came to me in the months after I gave birth to Zoe, my second baby. As I meditated on the challenges that I had encountered during my labor, I began to see my experience—and Birth herself—as a huge multi-faceted crystal. I saw that the different aspects of Zoe’s birth, like facets of a crystal, would not add up to one clear picture but would reflect at many different angles.

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Marion’s Message: From Mexico

“Honoring the Traditional Midwife” was the theme of a midwifery conference presented jointly by the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) of Mexico and Midwifery Today, in Oaxaca, Mexico, from September 24-28, 2003. [See Jan Tritten’s International Midwife editorial on page 46 for more on the conference.] This was a unique and vibrant opportunity to interact and network with practitioners and supporters from many different cultures and social classes. There were large numbers of traditional, indigenous midwives and healers, mostly from Mexico and Guatemala, as well as participants from Canada, the United States, Europe, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and other locations.

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The Art Of Leaving Alone

The concepts of instinct and intuition have been challenging my mind recently. Two eminent midwives at a conference I attended this year have said that they don’t believe in instinct; instead, they believe that there is a form of inner knowledge that has developed through experience, but is not innate.

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Being A Midwife

Being a midwife starts with the ego. Our “ego selves” see the status, admiration and responsibility of the job as an attraction. What the ego cannot see is that the aspiring midwife has placed her foot on a road by taking up the work. This road will take her on a journey, which she will only finish when they chisel the word “midwife” on her gravestone. Read more…. Being A Midwife

The Ties that Bind – How Belief Creates Birth Realities

Women believe that birth is a dangerous medical event. The fact is that normal birth is safer than many things we do each day without a thought. Read more…. The Ties that Bind – How Belief Creates Birth Realities

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