Ina May Gaskin Quotes - Page 2

If birth matters, midwives matter. In Europe, there are hospitals where the cesarean rate is less than 10%, and you'll find midwives in these hospitals, you'll see a lot less re-admissions with infections and complications, and you'll see a lot less injury to mothers.

Many of our problems in US maternity care stem from the fact that we leave no room for recognizing when nature is smarter than we are.

I had to learn not to let anyone push me around, to be brave and to say things I knew might make people mad.

The suckling relationship is one of the sources of real sweetness that we have in human existence...The suckling baby can teach adults about the expression of sweet love and gratitude in a way no words can.

Why do we, then, continue to treat women as if their emotions and comfort, and the postures they might want to assume while in labor, are against the rules?

Gardeners know that you must nourish the soil if you want healthy plants. You must water the plants adequately, especially when seeds are germinating and sprouting, and they should be planted in a nutrient-rich soil. Why should nutrition matter less in the creation of young humans than it does in young plants? I'm sure that it doesn't.

Simply put, when there is no home birth in a society, or when home birth is driven completely underground, essential knowledge of women’s capacities in birth is lost to the people of that society—to professional caregivers, as well as to the women of childbearing age themselves.

Why in the world do the insurance companies get to be the boss of birth? That's what I want to know.

Squat 300 times a day, you’re going to give birth quickly.

Breast stimulation is especially effective in starting labor at term when it is combined with sexual intercourse. Unless your partner is an abysmally poor lover, this combination is by far the most enjoyable method of induction.

When you cast doubt on some bodily function- you don't know how sensitive the body is to that kind of idea.

I think midwifery was developed by people with common sense, people who were close to nature, and people who observed other species of mammals and saw that there were lessons there to be learned.

The best a health care system can do is to equip itself to meet the needs of each individual woman and birth. Those needs run the gamut from undisturbed home birth to planned cesarean section.

Nothing in medical literature today communicates the idea that women's bodies are well-designed for birth. Ignorance of the capacities of women's bodies can flourish and quickly spread into the popular culture when the medical profession is unable to distinguish between ancient wisdom and superstitious belief.

If you can't be a hero, you can at least be funny while being a chicken.

Why should nutrition matter less in the creation of young humans than it does in young plants? I'm sure that it doesn't.

It would be a mistake, though, to consider care by family doctors or midwives inferior to that offered by obstetricians simply on the grounds that obstetricians need not refer care to a family physician or midwife if no complications develop during a course of labor.

It's good to laugh at times that feel inappropriate.

I dreaded having a boring life when I grew up. And I certainly can't complain about being bored.

Let your monkey do it.

Why should insurance companies continue to get away with limiting the skills that a health profession has always previously required of its members if they were to be considered fully trained?