Fear in Childbirth
Why does birth instill such fear into women and the families who love them? I have a theory that partly it is due to the fact that birth is in part, violent. There is blood, there is pain, there is angst, but there is also passion, excitement, hormones, release. This is the height of human experience. We do not remember our own birth.. at least not on a conscious level. Subconsciously, perhaps, we remember the excitement and possibly, the adrenaline rushes, the tinge of danger, the "feel good" hormones coursing through our blood -- yes, even as infants.
Why is that? Because WE KNOW HOW TO GIVE BIRTH. Not only do women's bodies know how to give birth, but our babies within us KNOW HOW TO BE BORN. How do they know? They follow the path of thousands of years, hormones and chemical reactions, instinct, nature, call it what you will -- things we do not even yet understand! Why have we let one of the strongest (if not THE strongest) experiences in life turn into a medical event? When did we decide to not work with our own instincts and sway with our hips and moan with the contractions, lean on our birth partners, GIVE IN to that transition to motherhood, BEAR DOWN as our bodies told us and ONLY us to produce our newborn infant wet with our childbirth efforts?
This is the birth you can have, it is the one you can choose, it is the one you can manifest. Use this exhilaration as you would any heart pounding adrenaline rushing experience... do not hand off this experience to a machine beeping, feed on the fears of a medical establishment poised to make thousands of dollars for every non-proven intervention, watch your child that grew inside of you suddenly whisked away to a "sanitary" nursery!
Empower yourself and face your fears! If you find yourself afraid, let's explore the question:
What am I afraid of?
Copyright: Kimberly Sebeck
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