Today I am refreshed. I have recuperated from the sleepless night in which I witnessed my first home birth. Well… almost witnessed. I arrived a few minutes too late. Baby was still wet in ...
Women's bodies have near-perfect knowledge of childbirth; it's when their brains get involved that things can go wrong. PEGGY VINCENT, Baby Catcher
In achieving the depersonalization of childbirth and at the same time solving the problem of pain, our society may have lost more than it has gained. We are left with the physical husk; the transcending significance has been drained away. In doing so, we have reached the goal which is perhaps implicit in all highly developed technological cultures, mechanized control of the human body and the complete obliteration of all disturbing sensations. SHEILA KITZINGER, Women as Mothers