“ Only rarely do doctors in training have the opportunity to sit continuously with laboring women for hours. Most are taught to intervene in the normal process so often and so early that they have never… Ina May Gaskin
“ Mother's milk is soul food for babies. The babies of the world need a lot more soul food. Ina May Gaskin
“ Remember this, for it is as true and true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well… Ina May Gaskin
“ Stories teach us in ways we can remember. They teach us that each woman responds to birth in her unique way and how very wide-ranging that way can be. Sometimes they teach us about silly practices onc… Ina May Gaskin
“ Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body. Ina May Gaskin
“ Where the techno-medical model of birth reigns, women who give birth vaginally generally labor in bed hooked up to electronic fetal monitors, intravenous tubes, and pressure-reading devices. Eating an… Ina May Gaskin
“ 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. Ina May Gaskin
“ 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 physici… Ina May Gaskin
“ It is important to keep in mind that our bodies must work pretty well, or their wouldn't be so many humans on the planet. Ina May Gaskin
“ Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Ina May Gaskin
“ … in the ordinary course of a healthy labour, the mouth of the uterus opens by some secret agency; or at least without any apparent force. Ina May Gaskin
“ Can I drink and eat in labor? • If I go into labor, check in to the hospital, and my labor slows down before I get very far, can I go home? • What is your induction rate? What methods do you use? • Ca… Ina May Gaskin
“ The way a culture treats women in birth is a good indicator of how well women and their contributions to society are valued and honored. Ina May Gaskin
“ We are, indeed, fully prepared to believe that the bearing of children may and ought to become as free from danger and long debility to the civilized woman as it is to the savage. —Thomas Huxley Ina May Gaskin
“ When avoidance of pain becomes the major emphasis of childbirth care, the paradoxical effect is that more women have to deal with pain after their babies are born. Ina May Gaskin
“ The state of relaxation of the mouth and jaw is directly correlated to the ability of the cervix, the vagina, and the anus to open to full capacity. Ina May Gaskin
“ This means that most of the births they have seen were to women on epidurals lying still during labor, waiting for it all to be over. Seeing this kind of birth over and over again causes a subconsciou… Ina May Gaskin
“ Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well a… Ina May Gaskin
“ In her insightful Of Woman Born (1976), Adrienne Rich said it very eloquently: My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the… Ina May Gaskin
