Top 11 Quotes by Sheila Kitzinger

In all cultures, the midwife's place is on the threshold of life, where intense human emotions, fear, hope, longing, triumph, and incredible physical power-enable a new human being to emerge. Her vocation is unique.

In all cultures, the midwife's place is on the threshold of life, where intense human emotions, fear, hope, longing, triumph, and incredible physical power-enable a new human being to emerge. Her vocation is unique.

Sheila Kitzinger

Life, Hope, Fear

In any society, the way a woman gives birth and the kind of care given to her and the baby points as sharply as an arrowhead to the key values of the culture.

Sheila Kitzinger

Baby, Keys, Giving

Sheila Kitzinger (1978). “Women as mothers”

All that is needed for the majority of labors to go well is a healthy, pregnant woman who has loving support in labor, self-confidence , and attendants with infinite patience.

Sheila Kitzinger

Self Confidence, Support, Healthy

Sheila Kitzinger (1991). “Homebirth: The Essential Guide to Giving Birth Outside of the Hospital”, Dk Pub

For far too many, pregnancy and birth is still something that happens to them rather than something they set out consciously and joyfully to do themselves

Sheila Kitzinger

Pregnancy, Birth, Joyful

Sheila Kitzinger (1990). “The Experience of Childbirth”, Viking Press

Birth isn't something we suffer but something we actively do and exult in!

Sheila Kitzinger

Suffering, Birth, Giving Birth

Childbirth takes place at the intersection of time; in all cultures it links past, present and future. In traditional cultures birth unites the world of 'now' with the world of the ancestors, and is part of the great tree of life extending in time and eternity.

Sheila Kitzinger

Past, Tree, Culture

Fathers' sharing in the birth experience can be a stimulus for men's freedom to nurture, and a sign of changing relationships between men and women. In the same way, women's freedom to give birth at home is a political decision, an assertion of determination to reclaim the experience of birth. Birth at home is about changing society.

Sheila Kitzinger

Determination, Father, Home

Sheila Kitzinger (2011). “Birth Your Way: Choosing Birth at Home Or in a Birth Center”, p.179, Fresh Heart Publishing

In achieving the depersonalization of childbirth and at the same time solving the problem of pain, our society may have lost more than it has gained. We are left with the physical husk; the transcending significance has been drained away.

Sheila Kitzinger

Pain, Parenting, May

Sheila Kitzinger (1978). “Women as mothers”

In most societies birth has been an experience in whichwomen draw together to help each other and reinforce bonds in the community. Now that eradication of pain with effective anesthesia is often the only issue in any discussion of birththe sacramental and social elements which used to be central to women's experience of birthseem, for an increasing proportion of women, to be completely irrelevant.

Sheila Kitzinger

Pain, Issues, Community

In acknowledging woman-to-woman help it is important to recognize that power, within the family and elsewhere, can be used vindictively, and that it is not only powerful men who abuse women; women with power may also abuse other women.

Sheila Kitzinger

Powerful, Men, Abuse