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I have met many men who are excited to become fathers and yet have the idea that it
is their wife's business just precisely how this happens. In a world where babies were
welcomed as naturally as they were conceived, this would be a good idea. However
most babies born nowadays are delivered in ways that have lasting effects upon
everyone. You, father, have everything to do with this. Indeed, without courageous
men, we cannot make the Earth worthy of our future grandchildren. Hence the special
message below:
If your wife doesn't want to feel pain (plans an epidural) when she gives birth, what
does she plan to do for the rest of your child's life? Upon encountering painful feelings
as all humans do after your baby is born, will she take a pain pill or drug? Prozac®,
Motrin®, alcohol, or any of the legal drugs women consume in cultures where birth is
medicalized? The statistics show that this is a real possibility.
Postpartum depression has been linked to the previous use of drugs during childbirth.
More alarmingly, teenage suicide is also correlated with drugs and medical instruments
used at birth. Children, especially babies, learn what life is all about from their mothers
– if your wife is unconscious or anesthetized at birth, she sets an example of primal
proportion to your child.
The reason to go through the pain of birth is that the other side of labor is ecstasy and
a specific education is given for this baby's upbringing. If the mother is drugged at
birth, she misses the once in a lifetime initiation, not to mention genetic information
specifically given to take care of baby the way nature intended it.
The most important event in your marriage is the birth of your child. If the mother is
rendered unfeeling, that medical assault is a loss to your family. A hospital delivery may
even damage your sex life and can compromise the quality of care your child receives
thereafter by a traumatized mother. This in turn affects you, society, and our shared
Earth. And you thought all you had to do was "support your wife"!
If you are a woman reading this, rest assured that I am suggesting that your partner
educate both of you for the sake of the Possible Earth. It's not a matter of gender
submission. For example, if your partner insisted that you have a medically managed
childbirth, I would instead invite that you ask your baby how s/he wants to arrive
Earthside? It doesn't matter whether it is the mother or the father/partner who wants
the paid paranoid in charge of birth.
100% of babies want to be born gently and stay close to mother, by her heart, in her
arms, be adored by the original lovers who made life possible, and be free of the
normative obstetric and pediatric abuses tragically imposed upon newborns today.
As mothers, our joy is found in protecting, as well as nurturing, our children. By
meeting these sacred obligations, happiness begins before birth and yet it is never too
late to trust nature to guide us in caring for our children. If you think that natural birth
is too hard, scary, or even inconvenient, it is nothing compared to the probable
consequences of a traumatic medical birth.
Lest I attempt to prove what I declare above, I now add instead that proof is a lack of
imagination. As Albert Einstein stated, "Imagination is more important than
knowledge". I know that freebirth is ecstatic. I imagine that, if you have read this far,
eventually you may, too.
May you be the mother the Earth needs now.
Jeannine Parvati Baker
Midwife & Mother of Six,
Perinatal Psychologist,
Ashtanga Yoga Teacher
Author of "Prenatal Yoga & Natural Childbirth,"
"Hygieia: A Woman's Herbal,"
and co-author of "Conscious Conception"
Professional Member,
Assn. for Pre & Perinatal Psychology & Health
