Homebirth Quotes

“If women lose the right to say where and how they birth their children, then they will have lost something that's as dear to life as breathing.”
― Ami McKay, The Birth House

“$13 to $20 billion a year could be saved in health care costs by demedicalizing childbirth, developing midwifery, and encouraging breastfeeding.”
― Frank Oski

“Today, the lay midwife is a response to a growing home-birth movement. In my own community most physicians have decided to withhold prenatal care from the home-birther. This is judgmental and vindictive. These doctors have decided that home birth is not safe, and by withholding prenatal care they are doing their best to make sure it is unsafe. Often it is lay midwives who step forward to fill the void and help eliminate the unnecessary dangers of home birth. They are essential for screening out women who really should not have a home birth. For considerably less money than a physician charges, they spend many more hours with a pregnant woman before, during, and after the birth. and in most places they courageously face the opposition of the established medical community.”
― Susan McCutcheon, Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way

“It seems that in our twenty-first century modern world, many women have become estranged from their primal brain and the knowledge that lies within it. Women too often hand their power over to the medical world long before they enter labour and have the idea someone else will do it for them.”
― Maha Al Musa, Dance of the Womb - The Essential Guide to Belly Dance for Pregnancy and Birth

“Birth is, without a doubt, one of the greatest self -expressive and creative processes we can embark upon in womanhood. I believe that a part of a woman's birthing heart centre resides within the pelvis and hip area.”
― Maha Al Musa, Dance of the Womb - The Essential Guide to Belly Dance for Pregnancy and Birth

“The main goal of Bellydance for birth within the framework of actual labour is to fully allow the labouring woman to help nature by moving with and not against the contractions she welcomes. Instead of tensing her muscles and mind with fear and apprehension toward pain, she accepts and surrenders actively, consciously and as best she can to each contractile wave she experiences.”
― Maha Al Musa, Dance of the Womb - The Essential Guide to Belly Dance for Pregnancy and Birth

“The smooth undulating movements of Bellydance for birth aid a woman's ability to deal with her labour in an opening rather than restrictive fashion. The soothing rocking motions of the circular, figure 8 and spiral movements set the scene for a birthing woman to flow with the natural rhythms of her labouring body - to become connected not only to nature and the universe but deeply bonded to her baby within.”
― Maha Al Musa, Dance of the Womb - The Essential Guide to Belly Dance for Pregnancy and Birth

“Birth is experiential. You have to experience it to fully know it. An exercise such as Bellydance for birth embraced during pregnancy can act as a purposeful tool to help a woman before she steps in through the gateway of birth. One of the key elements of the birth dance is that it can help bridge the gap between the primal brain (which knows how to give birth) and the modern woman (who may need to be reminded of her instinctual capacity), assisting her to claim back her most basic and inherent right as the Deliverer of Life.”
― Maha Al Musa, Dance of the Womb - The Essential Guide to Belly Dance for Pregnancy and Birth

“The birthing journey requires us as women to get back to a sense of life basics where our connection to intuition and instinct are normal, rather than a forgotten means of expression, when implemented in pregnancy and labour, the birth dance enables a woman to connect to her feminine source without fear or shame.”
― Maha Al Musa, Dance of the Womb - The Essential Guide to Belly Dance for Pregnancy and Birth

“Pain has a purpose. Especially in childbirth. It’s the pain that tells you how close you are to pushing, and when it’s time, you’ll know because you can’t stop until the baby is out.”
― Jessica Marie Baumgartner