If I say a woman giving birth, what is the first image that comes into your head? Give me details: is she upright or on her back, covered or naked, calm or in distress? What are her surroundings? Who attends her and are they touching her? Who is delivering her baby?
In western culture we have a certain set of presumptions about birth that are so tightly set out they would feel restrictive, if only we could notice them. Like a swaddled baby, we feel the comfort of the familiar, and often do not have a reference point for any other way of being. So birth is difficult, painful, to be feared. It is necessary to be on our backs so that our attendants, who understand the process better than we do, can see. It takes place in hospital. There is machinery, a sense of panic. The first hands to touch the baby are those of the expert attendants, for it is they who deliver it.
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from Pregnancy | The Guardian http://ift.tt/1tKrJWZ
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