Who Does Birth Belong To?

Women? Doctors? Midwives? Fathers? the Baby?

We all own birth. We must, as adults, come to resolution regarding our own birth as a baby and the birthing of our babies as women. Men also need to come to self-resolution about his own experience as a birthing baby and as as father when his baby is born.  Birth is the baby's experience of coming into being. It is the baby's birth and the mother's experience of giving birth. It is a profound experience for both of them, and for the father.

Birth is the baby's transition into this world and into physiological independence. The baby is powerless to make choices and depends upon the mother, father, and caregiver to know that she or is a sentient, real, feeling, experiencing being. Therefore, the baby must be treated with respect when we know that everything happening to the baby is being recorded in his or her body, mind, and soul.  Is it a coincidence that this body-mind-soul perspective is growing in the US with people who seek to be who they are meant to be on this planet? 

The baby -- you and me, our children, and everyone we know -- experienced his or her birth. Most were violent and painful, and involved separation, and boy's genitals were mutilated.  The baby deserves to be the focus of birth. As a vulnerable human being who is powerless, voiceless and totally dependent upon the parents and the caregivers (via social and cultural standards of care) deserves to be treated as the one who is most impacted, the one who will live with the impact of their birth throughout life. That baby, every one of us, throughout our life has to live with the choices of the adults. We have to own our birth and our life. That's the deal.  But modern psychology and medicine are either really dumb or they lie to us, have deceived and brainwashed culture in a very nasty game. We don't play with a full deck in this game if we ignore what happened to us at birth as baby being born. When we embrace our birth - the violation, the love, the fear, the bliss - the choices that others made for us, then we realize the need to protect the baby's experience during birth.

When birth focuses only on the woman, it leaves out the baby whose birth it is, and the man who is being a father.  I believe it is the men who need to rise up to create this change. This is a plan I did in 2004 for a collective perspective for people to come together to organize change. 

© May, 2004  Janel Martin-Miranda, MA, LPC

MOMS    
for America’s

B A B I E S

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MOMS for America’s Babies
is a partnership of citizens who purpose is  legislating improvement of  the
maternal safety, care and treatment of women and their babes
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Creating partnerships for change at all levels:  
The healthy, safe birth of every baby in American depends upon consumers of maternity care, maternal health care providers, policy makers, legislators, and concerned citizens coming together.

Supporting prenatal development through infancy:
Healthy, functional, non-violent, drug-free American children and citizenry depends upon healthy, gentle conception, gestation, labor, birth, and infancy.

Moms are Organizing Maternity Safety for America’s Babies
      Moms Owning Maternal Safety
        Men Ordering Maternal Safety
Medicine Optimizing Maternal Safety
Midwifes Offering Maternal Safety

Moms for America’s Babies Partners:

Moms Owning Maternal Safety
Women claim their right, their choice, and their responsibility for their body and their
baby’s birth from pre-conception through infancy.

Men Ordering Maternal Safety
Men are the rightful protectors of their partner and child, and they demand to be
supporter and protector of their partner’s decisions in birthing their baby.

Medicine Optimizing Maternal Safety
Doctors are no longer held disproportionately responsible for the outcomes of birth,
Doctors are able to focus on providing maternity care that is evidenced-based, and
do not control women’s choice over her body and her baby’s birth.

Midwifes Offering Maternal Safety
Midwives are the bridge between natural, physiological ways and new technology,
and between women and medicine; and they are the protector of women’s bodies
and the physiological process of natural birth, and attend birth of healthy women
and babies.