Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering The wisdom and science of gentle choices in pregnancy, birth, and parenting Dr Sarah J Buckley “… provides women with the essential tools they need to make conscious choices throughout pregnancy and birth” Deepak Chopra FOREWORD BY INA MAY GASKIN Praise for Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering I have not seen a more penetrating analysis with thorough documentation from the scientifi c literature. I wish every obstetrician, family physician, midwife, and obstetric nurse would read this book. In addition, this book would be a wonderful primer for women and families searching for a better childbirth. Marsden Wagner MD (perinatologist; former WHO regional director, Maryland) Sarah Buckley is one of the few people in this world telling the truth about pregnancy and birth. Now in this book you will read her well-researched work. Sarah’s words are truly a gift to the midwifery and birthing community. Jan Tritten (midwife; editor Midwifery Today, Oregon) A fascinating, deeply moving and wide-ranging exploration of different aspects of birth and mothering, drawing on research evidence and vivid personal experience. Sheila Kitzinger (author; social anthropologist, Oxford) I love your book. It is delightfully easy to read, inspiring and incredibly informative. You speak to women from a gentle yet empowering voice. The book brilliantly combines mind/body wisdom with medical information, which cultivates awareness and provides us with a path to awakening. Your own personal stories create a soft loving touch. Thank you Sarah – you have provided a gentle yet powerful framework for change and I am grateful. Vicki Abrams (co-author, with Deepak Chopra, of Magical Beginnings, Enchanted Lives; director prenatal programmes, Chopra Centre, San Diego) Sarah Buckley marries the medical mind and the birthing woman’s body wisdom. Her writing comes from the unique perspective of a holistic integration of these often-poles-apart realities. Her writing opens up new possibilities for those lucky enough to imbibe. Gloria Lemay (midwifery educator; contributing editor Midwifery Today, Vancouver) Sarah Buckley’s work is unique: as a health professional AND a hands-on mother, Sarah exquisitely demonstrates how science affi rms the intuitive wisdom of mother love, as well as how gentle parenting works in practice – not just in theory. Pinky McKay (author of Parenting By Heart; 100 Ways to Calm the Crying, Melbourne) Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering is the book Hygieia College can fully endorse. Sarah Buckley is a true birthkeeper. As a mother, she knows what having two hearts feels like. Yet as a birthkeeper, she has soul. I am honored to be Sarah’s colleague. Moreover I am blessed that Sarah is my dear friend, indeed she is a spiritual sister. Jeannine Parvati Baker (midwife; author; birthkeeper, Utah) Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering is compelling reading for all midwives, medical and midwifery students and anyone interested in the innate ability of women during pregnancy, labour, and birth, providing essential information and presented in a way that gives wisdom back to women and knowledge to those who provide care. Robyn Thompson (midwife, Melbourne) All of the gentle mothering articles (and the whole collection, in fact) affi rms the feminine, affi rms our ability to mother well, affi rms our choice to invest ourselves in our children and imbues a general sense of confi dence in ourselves as mothers. Lea Mason (childbirth educator; mother, Sydney) Dr Buckley has a beautiful way of weaving the primal and meaningful emotion of birth with the scientifi c facts that support instinctual normal birth. Hilary Shirven (natural childbirth educator/doula; mother, Illinois) Your information has had a key role in many of the decisions we have made for our family, and we are so grateful to have you as a source of knowledge. Melissa Bruijn (Birthtalk convenor; mother, Brisbane) I aim to set your book as compulsory reading for my students. Sandy Kirkman (midwifery tutor, Glamorgan, UK) Dr Sarah J Buckley Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering The wisdom and science of gentle choices in pregnancy, birth, and parenting ONE MOON PRESS BRISBANE AUSTRALIA One Moon Press 245 Sugars Road, Anstead, QLD 4070 Australia www.sarahjbuckley.com © Sarah J Buckley 2005 First published 2005. Reprinted 2006. Cover illustration © 2005 Durga Bernhard durgabernhard.com The author has made every effort to provide accurate information, but there may be errors, omissions, and information that is, or becomes, out of date. This book is not intended as a sole source of information, or as a substitute for medical or midwifery care. Readers are encouraged to read widely and to consult a health care professional who can provide individualised information and advice. The author and One Moon Press shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, or alleged to have been caused, directly or indirectly, by the information contained in this book. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication shall be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior permission of the publisher of this book. However, permission is given to purchasers of the book to copy and circulate articles to friends (to a maximum of 10 percent of the book, as copyright law allows) and permission for birth professionals to use these articles, exactly as printed, for clients, or for childbirth education class participants. Note, however, that no article may be published in a magazine, stored in an electronic medium, or posted on a formal or informal Internet site without express permission. Produced by Literal Ink Edited by Soni Stecker Text design by Mark Myszka Cover design by Peter Buchholz Typeset in 11pt Berkeley Oldstyle Book by SilverLining Design Pty Ltd (www.silverlining.com.au) Printed by Finsbury Green Printing, Melbourne, Australia www.fi nsbury.com.au Printed with non-toxic vegetable-based inks on Cyclus 100% recycled, total chlorine-free paper made from 100% post-consumer waste (ISO 14001). National Library of Australia cataloguing-in-publication data: Buckley, Sarah J, 1960 Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering: the wisdom and science of gentle choices in pregnancy, birth, and parenting Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 0-9758077-0-6 1. Childbirth. 2. Pregnancy. 3. Motherhood. 4. Parenting. I. Title 618.24 Foreword Hooray for Sarah Buckley! Her broadly informed, authoritative voice is sorely needed in these trying times when there is so much fear, ignorance, and confusion surrounding childbirth and the decision-making and organisation of maternity care. Never has there been a time when there was so much at stake for women giving birth, in terms of age-old knowledge and wisdom that may be lost for decades or longer, if current trends continue unabated. In many countries, it is only the middle-aged and the elderly who remember the time when only four or fi ve women out of every hundred had their babies by caesarean. How will people of the future even know that uninterfered-with birth is safer than surgical birth? Will women of the future believe today’s birth activists, or will they believe the obstetricians who are far more comfortable with surgery than with physiological processes that have their own timing? Fear can make for irrational decision-making, and here we have a good example of this phenomenon at work. In many areas of the world, women have become suffi ciently afraid of Nature’s plan for labour and birth that they are literally clamouring for sur- gical birth when there is no medical reason to justify the added risk to them and their babies posed by such surgery. There is no historical precedent for a phenomenon such as this. We have mass hysteria spreading over the planet – a rather strange development, considering it comes after the second wave of the women’s move- ment, since it involves women being afraid of their own wombs. iii GENTLE BIRTH, GENTLE MOTHERING Ironically, this widespread fear leads countless women to agree to deliberate injury of their uteri by caesarean section, although we don’t commonly speak of these acts in such stark language as I have just used. Women, like most of the rest of our society, are not given the amount of information necessary to fully understand the risks of many of the decisions they are called upon to make around the time of birth. While all this is going on, the confusion grows even deeper, and it becomes ever more diffi cult for young women to learn about the gifts and capacities of their bodies. Horrible birth stories can now be sent around the world at lightning speed via satellite television and movies, with the result that uninformed attitudes (many of which arose originally in the United States) that promote ever more routine medical interven- tion in birth for healthy women are threatening to make the ancient way of birth viewed as a selfi sh or irresponsible act on the part of the woman who wishes to make this choice. Most women have little awareness of how important an autonomous midwifery pro- fession is when it comes to retaining age-old wisdom of women’s true capacities in labour and birth. When midwives no longer have the ability to honour women’s right to labour as long as they are willing to continue, and when their and their babies’ vital signs are good, in the birth site of their choice; when hospital-based mid- wives are forced to divide their attention among several labouring women in a busy maternity unit; when student midwives and phy- sicians are no longer assured the opportunity of witnessing the normal physiological process of labour during their training – we lose the meaning of birth, step by step, and myths take further precedence over physiological realities.