My Joyous Birth Story: Excerpt + Interview with Rebecca Dettman from A Modern Woman’s Guide to a Natural Empowering Birth
Rebecca writes….. Last year I was lucky enough to connect with Melbournian Katrina Zaslavsky, who is the driving force behind the most positive, joyful, self-empowering, modern amaaaaazing book on natural birth I’ve come across. The book I wish I’d had when pregnant for the first time. It should seriously be mandatory reading for every pregnant (and non-pregnant!) woman in Australia (worldwide?!), and I don’t say that lightly… or because my own birth story is printed in it!
A Modern Women’s Guide to a Natural Empowering Birth ($34.95) has just launched, is endorsed by Dr Sarah Buckley, MD, and carries incredible testimonials from readers whose lives it has already touched, such as “I couldn’t put it down” and “the most inspiring and wonderful book I have ever read”. This book makes the perfect gift for any baby shower or pregnant mum whose health and wellbeing you care about. Happy mummies, happy babies. Check it out!
In this video interview, Rebecca Dettman, an empowered mother, intuitive and journalist, shares her conscious approach to pregnancy and birthing and discusses how we have become completely out of touch with nature and our bodies in our modern world and are routinely handing over our personal power as women.
Rebecca believes we need a whole paradigm shift when it comes to birthing and explains why. She also shares the importance of honouring our gut feelings or intuition and trusting in the natural process to experience a positive joyous birth without the need for medical intervention. She had two natural beautiful home births on her own terms with her children and shares her inspiring birth story in the book A Modern Woman’s Guide to a Natural Empowering Birth.
Excerpt from the book: My joyous birth story By Rebecca Dettman
I’ve always had a robust, down-to-earth philosophy about health. I haven’t taken so much as a cough lolly since I was about 15, and I don’t have a doctor. I believe if you eat green vegies, exercise, sleep properly, get some sunshine, play in the dirt and think happy thoughts, you’ll rarely encounter illness… and when you occasionally do, not only is it excellent for your immune system, but it’s usually masking an emotional upset that needs to be addressed.
I first fell pregnant in May 2008 and I remember walking through the house on a sunny day and saying out of nowhere to my husband, “I don’t think I want to go to hospital. I just want to have the baby at home.” No fears or worries ever entered my head – the idea just felt right, relaxed and natural. We put “home birth Adelaide” into Google and immediately found Lisa Barrett, a phenomenal midwife who has birthed thousands of babies in hospitals and homes (everything from breech births to twins and cords wrapped around necks), and has an awesome holistic philosophy.
Throughout my easy pregnancy, Lisa, my husband and I met monthly for cups of tea. I had no ultrasounds, because I didn’t want to blast my fetus with radiation, and I never saw a doctor or obstetrician; Lisa performed all my check-ups and gave me positive, empowering books to read, such as Ina May Gaskin’s Spiritual Midwifery. I ate properly, consumed no caffeinated, carbonated or alcoholic drinks, and used nothing on my skin and hair but organic herbal oils.
We had a plastic pool all ready to fill for a water birth, but when my waters finally broke – nine days early, at 1am! – I realised I didn’t desire it. I filled the house with candles, played some soft music, and let my body guide me. I did lots of wriggling and stretching on hands and knees, and as my cervix slowly opened, so did my throat – I made louder and louder noises, which greatly assisted the pains.
The contractions went throughout the night, while the midwife sat and knitted, and my husband sipped cups of tea in the corner. It was very quiet and beautiful, and rain pattered on the roof. I kept my eyes closed and focused within. My body was releasing so many natural chemicals, endorphins, oxytocins and adrenalin, I was sailing high as a kite! It was an awesome natural high. I honestly don’t remember the ouchy bits!
Having had two such fun, happy, easy, fear-free birth experiences, I now wholeheartedly cringe whenever I hear hospital horror stories.
In my opinion, most girls do not have the confidence or health philosophy to feel strong enough to say “NO” to doctors, obs, gynos and bossy hospital midwives who seem to make every personal decision for them, and teach them from the get-go that birth should be unbearable, frightening and dangerous.
The body really is perfectly architecturally designed to give birth, and the less it’s interfered with, the happier and calmer the baby (and mummy) feel. Doctors are so jumpy and quick to introduce drugs, needles, vacuums, surgery and other forms of butchery when often, the body and/or baby still needs a little time to turn, descend and birth naturally.
We do not run out into the field every time a goat or a sheep gives birth with white coats, stethoscopes and machinery, and nor do we expect blossoms, trees or vegetables to perform “on time!” in our gardens, forcing them to follow our own tightly controlled, impatient human timelines.
Another thing that worries me is that often women feel, deep down, they’d quite like a home birth, but their husbands get scared and talk them out of it. We need to honour and support pregnant mums’ intuition. I would love to live in a society that is less medicalised and more trusting of life’s natural flow; a society where women who choose to homebirth and not vaccinate their children are not publicly vilified or threatened with fines and gaol.
At the very least, I’d love to hear more joyous words used to describe pregnancy and birth, and for women to share more heart-warming birth stories.
An edited extract from Rebecca Dettman’s birth story in the 6th insight of A Modern Woman’s Guide to a Natural Empowering Birth: Consciously Prepare Mind and Body
