When 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.

Why in the world do the insurance companies get to be the boss of birth? That's what I want to know.

I dreaded having a boring life when I grew up. And I certainly can't complain about being bored.

Why 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?

Nothing 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.

If a woman doesn't look like a Goddess during labor, then someone isn't treating her right.

It will take your breastfed baby an average of five to six months to double her birth weight.