Birth Like a Hippie! - Class Transcript
Holistic Birth Alternatives in Theory and Practice, for mothers + doulas (2016)
NOTE: This is a workshop I developed and taught locally to birth pros and home birth moms alike, in 2015-2017. I’ve had it archived for some time, but have received multiple requests for the PDF from folks who had taken the workshop before, and still referred to the material in it. I’m re-releasing it now as a paid subscriber perk - so please enjoy, and leave a comment if it resonates!
Welcome! I’m so glad you’re joining us for what’s sure to be an eye-opening and fun class.
First, we’ll be talking about the general assumptions, beliefs, and standards of modern pregnancy and birth - and how we can begin shifting the paradigm of wellness both during pregnancy and beyond. Then, we’ll explore many alternative practices to support our body’s natural state - which is vitality! Finally, we’ll talk about where alternative practices fit into an ethical, compassionate model of care for birth professionals, and how the hippie mentality *really* fits into the larger picture of birthwork.
A lot of the practices we’ll discuss are going to be broken down into simple, common-sense terms, so that we can talk about them to our clients - but also, so we can start applying them in our own lives. It’s very important to “walk our talk” and stay within our integrity! Many aspects of holistic living and self-care are things that can be eased into gradually, one step at a time. They don’t have to be intimidating, confusing, or complicated - unless you want them to be!
While you might be particularly fascinated with one or more aspects of holistic living, you don’t have to have a degree in herbal medicine to brew a cup of peppermint or chamomile tea. Just like you don’t need a medical degree to pop a couple of Advil. People tend to shy away from what they don’t understand - but the very reason that popping some over-the-counter pills for a headache seems more reasonable than drinking tea (made from a plant that’s been used therapeutically for longer than America’s existed) - that’s part of the problem.
We’ve been schooled to think of our bodies much like machines - and machines naturally break down over time… Have you noticed, in modern cars, when you open the hood, there’s a plastic cover over much of the working engine components? This is because they’re steadily moving toward having specialized technicians to do repairs, as well as basic maintenance tasks like changing the oil. It’s fast becoming a lost art to work on your own car - and it’s happening with our bodies as well.
100 years ago, we saw a doctor when we were very ill, and that was about it. Now, as a culture, we visit health professionals more regularly than ever, do more diagnostic screening (“just in case!”), and we spend more on healthcare too - but as a nation, statistically speaking, we’re not much healthier for it - in fact, we seem to be doing worse in many aspects.
Quality of life, quality of experiences
On average, Americans tend to live nearly 20 years longer now than they did 50 years ago, but are those valued years of vitality, or simply a prolonged existence, punctuated with prescription pills and medical screenings?
In maternal health statistics especially, our country stands out as being the only developed nation in which perinatal deaths are on the rise, rather than declining. Worse, we have an epidemic of women who report that they are unsatisfied with their birth experiences - and even though that’s a subjective measure, it may be the most important one of all.
“Disrespect and abuse are not the necessary price of safety.”
- Hermine Hayes-Klein
In certain cultures throughout time and over the world, health has been the natural state of being, and disease (dis-ease) simply indicated that something was out of alignment with the natural balance of things. They didn’t consider a symptom in isolation - they looked at the whole person - thoughts, feelings, lifestyle, relationships, etc. Because they knew what we have forgotten: ALL of those things and more relate to a person’s state of wellness.
Even in the most primitive cultures, the idea of disease being more than just a physical, tangible, bodily issue is deeply rooted. Many modern folks are turning back to the more esoteric systems of health and wellness, especially if they find that modern medicine and “sick care” doesn’t offer them much beyond band-aid “solutions”.
Integrated wellness for the modern age
The current approach toward “health care” is to look at the body as a conglomerate of disjointed, disconnected systems and parts – i.e. predictable, repeatable, and operating under a simple, input-output model.
You probably already recognize that this is the opposite of holistic, integrated wellness.
So how did we get here, and more to the point, how can we shift our thinking about the natural states of pregnancy and labor? They are simply states of the female being - not a dangerous cascade of accidents waiting to happen!
From a holistic perspective, laboring and giving birth are NOT just physical events. As birth professionals, our underlying beliefs, feelings, and fears can sometimes complicate our role in supporting our clients. Likewise, a mom’s own underlying (sometimes unconscious) beliefs, feelings, and fears play a huge role in how their labor and birth ultimately unfolds. From stress levels to nutrition to the subtext of a tense conversation with your mother-in-law last week, there are hundreds if not thousands of minute forces affecting the mother as she nears her birthing time.
