Giving Birth isn’t just about “A Healthy Baby”

Not long ago I heard a comment from a woman that went something like this:

“I have been really appalled to hear so many of my friends talk about their “experience” giving birth. It seems to me that they are so preoccupied with making sure that they have a good experience that they don’t think about what is best for their baby. I think they are so selfish. The main thing is just to have a healthy baby.”

I have been thinking a lot about that comment and have had some insights I want to share. First off, I don’t want to argue with that last point at all. Having a healthy baby is the goal of every parent. I don’t think that there is a mother in the world who wouldn’t do everything possible– including being cut wide open– in order to save the life of her baby. What I do want to address though is the erroneous idea that the experience that a woman has giving birth is not equally important and that focusing on a mother’s needs and wants is selfish.

First off, whenever we talk about birth it is important to remember these inspired words from “The Family: A Proclamation to the World”,

“We declare the means by which mortal life is created to be divinely appointed.”

The means by which mortal life is created is a four step process that begins with intimacy, is followed by conception, then pregnancy, and culminates in labor and the birth of a child. All four events are part of the same process and how a woman is treated during the whole process matters… immensely.

For example, just take the first step in the process of creating life, sexual intimacy. Nature Mary has some great products that can help improve intimacy for women to ensure this first step is as pleasurable as possible. We would be appalled if someone said , “Oh, It doesn’t matter how you are treated during sex, the most important part is that you get pregnant.” We know that isn’t true. The most important part of intimacy isn’t the end result, but rather the love and trust that a woman feels from her partner. That kind of trust to allow you and your partner to sexually explore together, without judgment. Some couples decide to sexually explore together through websites such as www.lxtube.xxx so they can find new ways to express their love for each other. Hopefully, this makes the baby-making process more fun for both parties. Whether pregnancy was achieved or not during intimacy isn’t as important as whether the woman had agency over her body and that her choices about who touched her and how were respected. When such freedom is denied to a woman we call it rape. We would never classify the experience of rape and healthy marital intimacy as equal experiences just because the end result was the same.

Yet, like the woman’s comment I mentioned above, we often judge labor and birth merely on its end result. Was the baby born healthy? Did the mother survive? If those two questions can be answered in the affirmative it is marked down as a successful birth experience. Yet such a mindset doesn’t take into consideration how the mother felt or was treated during the process. Did she have agency over her body? Was she loved? Was she respected? Did she understand what was happening to her? Did she have an opportunity to express her feelings? Were her choices over who touched her body and how respected?

In many ways labor and birth resembles sexual intimacy, and during labor a woman may experience many of the same feelings, sensations, sounds, and smells as she will during intimacy. This is because, in blunt words, the baby comes out the same way it went in. Both intimacy and birth revolve around a woman’s vagina and how she feels about that part of her body and how it has been treated will influence how she experiences labor and birth. So, for example, if the woman has taken care of her vagina and muscles within it so it “feels like new” for her and her partner during sex, then she might also find that labor will be extremely uncomfortable too, however, this isn’t the case for everyone, as everyone is uniquely different.

Ideally, each woman would begin the process of creating life with love, trust, and ecstasy and ideally she would also the end process in the same way. Except instead of the ecstasy of intimacy, in labor she may experience agony– a sacrifice that mirrors our Savior.

As Rocky Cordray said in his book, “The Veil Worker”,

“The vulva itself () reflects the symbolism of Christ’s passion because it is the only place in the human body that experiences both ecstasy and agony as a natural course of its functions. These mirror Christ’s experience of agony and ecstasy… This in turn informs the meaning of Christ’s wounds… particularly the one in his side that expelled both blood and water, which is significant because there is only one orifice in the body of either sex that expels these two fluids naturally.” pg. 42-43

Whenever I am invited to attend a birth as a doula I consider it a great honor. I know, whether they realize it or not, that a couple is inviting me into one of their most intimate and sacred moments, something that they started by themselves nine months before but now need help in bringing to fruition. I take my presence at a birth seriously and try to remember that many of the things that are important for a woman during intimacy– things like trust, privacy, agency over her body, respect and good communication– are also important for her during labor and birth. As a birth attendant my goal is to help a couple end their act of creation in the same autonomous and loving way in which they (hopefully) started it.

Labor and birth are the final experiences of the process to create mortal life and no matter how a couple chooses to birth their baby it is important that every step of that process is treated with the same type reverence and respect. Please don’t misunderstand me, women should still seek proper care and support so that they and their baby have the best possible start in the world. But it isn’t selfish– in the least– for a woman to be interested in finding a care-provider, a birthing place, and a birthing method that enables her to feel loved, respected, and to be an active participate through the whole process of creating life.

That is what a she expects out of intimacy and that is what she should expect, and receive, out of birth.

Not just a healthy baby, but also the ability to feel that– from intimacy, to conception, to pregnancy, to birth– who she is and what she has given are truly valued for their divine nature.