[originally posted at my old blog on 24 February 2009] In a post entitled “What Does Coping Well Mean?,” Molly Remer of Talk Birth asks a really interesting question–the title’s question, with regard to childbirth, of course. For her, the answer is not being quiet or uniformly “relaxed” (I might say ‘appearing well-behaved’) but: listening [...]
[originally posted on my old blog on 23 July 2008] I am a natural childbirth advocate, in the sense that I believe that laboring and giving birth without interference (including but not limited to pain medication) can be an ecstatic and deeply empowering experience. I strongly believe that women who want to have their babies [...]
Again, some noteworthy excerpts from my friend the OED Online: “midwife” as a noun: 1. A woman (or, rarely, a man) who assists women in childbirth; (spec. in recent times) a nurse trained and qualified to do this and to give antenatal and post-natal care. [...] 1475 St. Mary Magdalene (Durh.) in Archiv f. das Studium [...]
Welcome to First the Egg, a collection of practical information, links, and cultural criticism. This site is a feminist intervention in our rigidly-gendered culture of childbirth and parenting. It aims to provide a nonsexist space for people who want to learn, reflect, commiserate, or laugh about being pregnant, giving birth, and helping children grow up whole and happy.
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What makes a ‘good’ birth experience? Or, dude, if you were in labor for 50+ hours, where do you get off saying it was wonderful?
I think of my birthing experience as a really, really good one. So it always sort of throws me when someone reads Noah’s and my birth story or hears me talking about it and reacts as though it were something along the lines of a nightmare. A very long nightmare. A nightmare the reader/listener does not [...]