“One option for empowering birth is a book by Katrina Zaslavsky called A Modern Woman’s Guide to a Natural Empowering Birth. It pulls together a plethora of positive birth stories and expert advice that focus on what’s positive and possible in birth. Commonly pregnant women are burdened by the horror stories that experienced mothers like to share about their birth experiences, which has a negative effect on their perceptions of what birth will be like.
It reminds me of the adage “it takes a village to raise a child.” It takes a village to help women give birth, which used to be the case when girls came of age in a village where women giving birth was shared and witnessed as ordinary life events. This shared wisdom was lost when birth was relocated into hospitals and became invisible.
As I read Zaslavsky’s book, the birth stories are like a village of birthing women coming alive for prospective mothers. It’s not about someone telling you how to give birth; it’s a volume of insights that are demonstrated by the stories that real mothers share about their powerful experiences. These are the kinds of stories that empower women to create births like the one I started this blog with. It advocates for good independent birth preparation, the knowledge that eliminates fear.”
~ Diane Speier, Director at Birth, Growth and Healing Ltd and Director at Digital Doula (United Kingdom)
