Heart and Hands (Elizabeth Davis)

This is my current read. I am loving it. (Yes, I am reading my copy, bought from and autographed to me by Liz herself! Yes I am a serious GEEK) I cannot seem to stay in one place. I am so interested to read what she has to say that I keep skipping around. I am trying as of today to start at the beginning.

The more I read, I was reading the chapter on assisting during birth the other day, the more excited I get. The more I want to learn. And learn every bit. I don't even dread cleaning up the messes made. That may change after a couple hundred puddles of blood and amniotic fluid, but right no I'd be happy to follow behind the scene with a bucket of water and towels! Her approach is so real, so caring, and so aware. The balance of clinical-if you call it that- with being absent from the scene. The importance of giving a mother comfort and space. As well as paying attention from that distance and monitoring in a way to be sure all is continuing well. Patience.

Mothers must learn patience too. The medical world has all these women preparing for birth thinking about this clock. The evil clock. Nature has its own damn clock. The healthy baby, and healthy woman will begin labor when it is time. Not when they are told to, or when the woman and her caregivers decide it should be time, but when it is time.

Labor cannot proceed as it should when the mother is not comfortable. The sphincter law makes so much sense. The cervix is a sphincter just as the anus is. A woman is going to open and relax allowing baby to descend, best in a private, familiar, relaxed, intimate setting. The same type of setting she will require to poop. We don't expect women to poop on demand.

How many times have you seen or heard about a laboring woman going into the hospital in early labor, just to have it slow or completely stall out. That labor pattern she was trying to establish has just been completely interfered with. She has been interrupted, poked at, asked questions, and often threatened in one way or another, by total strangers for the first 30 minutes after arriving. Yeah. I don't think this is good for mom or baby. No wonder that baby doesn't want to come into the world surround by such ridiculous chaos.

Ok, I'll stop rambling for now.