Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth as well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.
Ina May GaskinWhy should nutrition matter less in the creation of young humans than it does in young plants? I'm sure that it doesn't.
Ina May GaskinWhenever and however you give birth, your experience will impact your emotions, your mind, your body, and your spirit for the rest of your life.
Ina May GaskinI had to learn not to let anyone push me around, to be brave and to say things I knew might make people mad.
Ina May GaskinWhen we as a society begin to value mothers as the givers and supporters of life, then we will see social change in ways that matter.
Ina May GaskinGardeners know that you must nourish the soil if you want healthy plants. You must water the plants adequately, especially when seeds are germinating and sprouting, and they should be planted in a nutrient-rich soil. Why should nutrition matter less in the creation of young humans than it does in young plants? I'm sure that it doesn't.
Ina May GaskinIt is important to keep in mind that our bodies must work pretty well, or their wouldn't be so many humans on the planet.
Ina May GaskinWhen a child is born, the entire Universe has to shift and make room. Another entity capable of free will, and therefore capable of becoming God, has been born.
Ina May GaskinThe suckling relationship is one of the sources of real sweetness that we have in human existence...The suckling baby can teach adults about the expression of sweet love and gratitude in a way no words can.
Ina May GaskinI think midwifery was developed by people with common sense, people who were close to nature, and people who observed other species of mammals and saw that there were lessons there to be learned.
Ina May GaskinIf birth matters, midwives matter. In Europe, there are hospitals where the cesarean rate is less than 10%, and you'll find midwives in these hospitals, you'll see a lot less re-admissions with infections and complications, and you'll see a lot less injury to mothers.
Ina May GaskinWhy do we, then, continue to treat women as if their emotions and comfort, and the postures they might want to assume while in labor, are against the rules?
Ina May GaskinThere is no other organ quite like the uterus. If men had such an organ they would brag about it. So should we
Ina May GaskinThe best a health care system can do is to equip itself to meet the needs of each individual woman and birth. Those needs run the gamut from undisturbed home birth to planned cesarean section.
Ina May GaskinIf a woman doesn't look like a Goddess during labor, then someone isn't treating her right.
Ina May GaskinWhy should insurance companies continue to get away with limiting the skills that a health profession has always previously required of its members if they were to be considered fully trained?
Ina May GaskinWhen you cast doubt on some bodily function- you don't know how sensitive the body is to that kind of idea.
Ina May GaskinIt's easy to scare women. It's even profitable to scare women... But it's not nice, so let's stop it.
Ina May GaskinIt would be a mistake, though, to consider care by family doctors or midwives inferior to that offered by obstetricians simply on the grounds that obstetricians need not refer care to a family physician or midwife if no complications develop during a course of labor.
Ina May GaskinWhen you destroy midwives, you also destroy a body of knowledge that is shared by women, that can’t be put together by a bunch of surgeons or a bunch of male obstetricians, because physiologically, birth doesn’t happen the same way around surgeons, medically trained doctors, as it does around sympathetic women.
Ina May GaskinIt does a man good to see his lady being brave while she has their baby... it inspires him.
Ina May GaskinIt will take your breastfed baby an average of five to six months to double her birth weight.
Ina May GaskinEven if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.
Ina May GaskinThe way a culture treats women in birth is a good indicator of how well women and their contributions to society are valued and honored.
Ina May GaskinA society that places a low value on its mothers and the process of birth will suffer an array of negative repercussions for doing so. Good beginnings make a positive difference in the world, so it is worth our while to provide the best possible care for mothers and babies throughout this extraordinarily influential part of life.
Ina May GaskinI think that women can be just completely surprised by the change in them from giving birth-you have something powerful in you-that fierce thing comes up-and I think babies need moms to have that fierceness-you feel like you can do anything and that’s the feeling we want moms to have.
Ina May GaskinBreast stimulation is especially effective in starting labor at term when it is combined with sexual intercourse. Unless your partner is an abysmally poor lover, this combination is by far the most enjoyable method of induction.
Ina May GaskinWhy in the world do the insurance companies get to be the boss of birth? That's what I want to know.
Ina May GaskinBirth Matters... It matters because it is the way we all begin our lives outside of our source, our mother's bodies. It's the means from which we enter and feel our first impression of the wider world. For each mother, it is an event that shakes and shapes her to her innermost core. Women's perceptions about their bodies and their babies' capabilities will be deeply influenced by the care they receive around the time of birth.
Ina May GaskinI have never observed even the slightest laceration in a woman who used clitoral stimulation as a relaxation method during birth. Clitoral stimulation seems to increase vaginal engorgement as the baby emerges.
Ina May GaskinSimply put, when there is no home birth in a society, or when home birth is driven completely underground, essential knowledge of women’s capacities in birth is lost to the people of that society—to professional caregivers, as well as to the women of childbearing age themselves.
Ina May GaskinNothing in medical literature today communicates the idea that women's bodies are well-designed for birth. Ignorance of the capacities of women's bodies can flourish and quickly spread into the popular culture when the medical profession is unable to distinguish between ancient wisdom and superstitious belief.
Ina May GaskinMany of our problems in US maternity care stem from the fact that we leave no room for recognizing when nature is smarter than we are.
Ina May GaskinThe human species is no more unsuited to give birth than any other of the 5,000 or so species of mammals on the planet. We are merely the most confused.
Ina May GaskinWe are the only species of mammal that doubts our ability to give birth. It's profitable to scare women about birth. But let's stop it. I tell women: Your body is not a lemon.
Ina May Gaskin