Many 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.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that many issues in maternity care arise from a disregard for natural processes in childbirth.
Ina May Gaskin emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the wisdom of nature and how natural processes may be more effective than artificial interventions in maternity care. She suggests that by ignoring the innate knowledge present in childbirth, healthcare systems create unnecessary complications and challenges for mothers.
In practice
During a seminar on maternity care, one could quote this to stress the importance of natural childbirth practices.
A 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.
The way a culture treats women in birth is a good indicator of how well women and their contributions to society are valued and honored.
When 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.
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?
Pregnant _x000D_ and birthing mothers are elemental forces, in the same sense that _x000D_ gravity, thunderstorms, earthquakes, and hurricanes are elemental _x000D_ forces. In order to understand the laws of their energy flow, you have _x000D_ to love and respect them for their magnificence at the same time that _x000D_ you study them with the accuracy of a true scientist.
Simply 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.
Prevention is better than cure.
Truly affordable but high-quality health care tools and services are the only means by which quality health care can be provided to all.
Seventy per cent of all patients who come to physicians could cure themselves if they got rid of their fears and worries.
'Healing,' Papa would tell me, 'is not a science, but the intuitive art of wooing nature.'
Until you've looked a parent in the eye and told them their perfect child has a preexisting condition no insurance company will cover, you can't tell me the Affordable Care Act isn't worth fighting for.
People who are always taking care of their health are like misers, who are hoarding a treasure which they have never spirit enough to enjoy.
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