The Power Belongs to Motherbaby

by Jan Tritten

© 2008 Midwifery Today, Inc. All rights reserved.

[Editor's Note: This editorial originally appeared in Midwifery Today, Issue 87, Autumn 2008.]

One of our goals at Midwifery Today is to bring you as many ideas as possible from around the world to help you with your birth practices. Our focus is ideas that help but don't harm. In this issue we focus on natural remedies, such as herbs, massage, chiropractic and even humor. But we don't want to lose sight of the fact that the power needs to go to the mother. She must be ready to care for her baby and herself, though family and friends help.

The word remedy indicates that something is wrong and needs to be fixed. Pregnancy, labor, birth and postpartum are not states of being that indicate that something is wrong and needs to be fixed or remedied. A danger in the concept of natural remedies (or any “remedy”) in pregnancy is that we may begin to interfere in what is a foundationally a normal, healthy state and a normal, healthy process.

I'm referring to moms crediting one technique or method or another for their birth and parenting. As we know, many small ailments can be solved safely with natural remedies.

Some huge problems can be helped by them, as well. But, essentially everything most women need to birth is within them. They can do it. We just provide help in this amazing area we have studied and love.

Pregnancy is a beautiful, healthy spiritual state of being. Birth is a healthy, normal and spiritual process. Women have within them the grace and power not only to conceive, but to carry and birth their babies. Hypnobirthing, herbs, acupuncture or chiropractic don't get the baby born. The woman and her baby are responsible for this special and powerful yet everyday miracle. These extremely helpful modalities can ease our time as pregnant or birthing women, but shouldn't be given the credit that mother deserves for this passage.

Natural remedies can help make pregnancy and birth more comfortable, but mustn't be allowed to steal the essential power and credit that go to the momma. She will birth without any of these. Her body was designed by God to work. There is real danger in taking this power from her. She can do it. “Birth is safe, interference is risky,” as Carla Hartley says, but natural interference is still interference. We need to use even natural remedies only when necessary and recognize what we are doing and why.

As midwives and doulas, we not only are protectors of normal birth, we're protectors from all that would take mother's power and essence. The grace and the joy are hers. This is a huge change in the world of the child and a huge change in mother's world. We need to use remedies and interventions—whether natural or human-made—only when needed. Otherwise, we need to recognize and affirm motherhood by standing back in quiet awe of the miracle that we are privileged to be part of.

As midwives and birth practitioners we have the precarious but rewarding dance of helping without taking the power from the mother. Complications may change the process, but ultimately they shouldn't change the power that mom can do it/did it. Natural remedies can make the birth year easier and more joyful and can even heal our ailments in this time, but they can never replace the motherbaby. So let's always give the credit where it's due and make sure mom does, too.

If all is well, and it usually is, let's welcome the baby by being quiet and letting the motherbaby use the highest degree of oxytocin they'll have in their lives for what it was designed for —to greet and bond with each other. What an honor it is to be a midwife or doula or a sweet loving doctor. We get to be there in the first moments of birth. How awesome is that?

Toward Better Birth,
 jan

Jan Tritten Jan Tritten is the founder and editor-in-chief of Midwifery Today magazine and a midwife who was in active practice from 1977–1989. She became a midwife in 1977 after the powerful homebirth of one of her daughters. Her mission is to make loving midwifery care the norm for birthing women and their babies throughout the world. Meet Jan at our conferences around the world! [ PHOTO BY ANDREA NOLL ]   >  Editorials  Click here to read some of Jan’s Midwifery Today editorials.   >  Curriculum Vitae  1947 Born in Los Angeles, California. 1965 Graduated from Placer High School in Auburn, California. 1966 Trained for one year as a psychiatric technician. Courses included basic nursing, pharmacology, microbiology, anatomy and physiology, psychology. 1966–1971 Worked at DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn, California as a psychiatric technician. 1968 Graduated from Sierra College with an Associate of Arts degree. 1970 Graduated with honors from Sacramento State College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Social Science. 1971 Earned Lifetime California teaching credential with fifth-year program from Sacramento State College. 1972 First daughter born in a hospital. It changed my life forever. It was an unsatisfactory birth experience, but I had a wonderful postpartum experience with 2-1/2 years of breastfeeding. 1976 Second daughter born. She was born at home with a doctor who talked me into a homebirth. The difference between the two births sent me on a path to do something to help women have positive birth experiences. 1976 Began training as a midwife. Because I was raising young children and running a business, and because there were no CNM schools in my area, becoming a CNM was not within my reach. 1977 Began attending births with the Birth Co-op in Eugene while organizing courses in our community taught by CNMs, physicians, nutritionists, etc. 1978 Began a midwifery practice, New Life Care, with a partner, Chris Howard, and apprentice Monika Dunsmore. 1979 Son born at home. 1980 Did a one-year program with Marion Toepke McLean, CNM. Four of us completed the program, which was modeled after CNM curriculum at that time. She took a year off from her practice to teach us and to go to our births with us. 1982 First group of midwives certified by the Oregon Midwives Council. Our board was composed of CNMs and physicians. 1986 Slowed down practice and started Midwifery Today magazine.

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