Tree of Life Midwifery

Ina May Gaskin is sometimes called the Grandmother of modern midwifery. Her book, Spiritual Midwifery, was the authority for aspiring midwives in the 70s, 80s and 90s. The book is divided into two sections; birth stories and information for practitioners.

Thirty years later, her new guide is set up the same way but now includes experience and statistics to back up her words.

This is one of my all time favorite books. Highly Recommended.

Pregnancy and childbirth are normal life events, not medical conditions.

A woman’s body is perfectly designed to give birth. This process works best when interference is kept to a minimum. It is our cultural conditioning, fear, poor health habits and intervention in normal birth that make birth difficult often requiring more intervention, including surgery.

Perfect health is our natural state of being. When we work to align ourselves with natural laws, we regain our health and ALL functions of our bodies begin to work normally. This is a holistic, preventative approach to healing. This is the midwifery approach to childbirth.

There are many wonderful authors who have done exhaustive research to explain the differences between the midwifery model of care and the medical model. Suzanne Arms, Henci Goer, Ina May Gaskin, Sheila Kitzinger are a few of my favorites. I strongly urge you to read their books.

For a list of these and other great books, see Tree of Life Midwifery: Recommended Books.

In 1976, Juliana van Olphen-Fehr had her first child in a hospital. Influenced by Frederick Leboyer’s Birth Without Violence, she and her husband tried to have as natural a childbirth as possible under the circumstances. However, the attending physician performed an episiotomy, not because of any medical necessity, but just because it was hospital routine. Before Julianna was wheeled out of the delivery room, her infant daughter had already been whisked off to the “well-baby” nursery. Although, she was to be the hospital’s first “rooming-in” patient, Julianna was allowed to be with her daughter only when she was brought in to nurse. Her husband was not allowed to stay with her except during visiting hours, and he had to wear a mask and scrubs, whenever the baby was in the room.

Juliana’s feelings of isolation and separation lead her to challenge the medical model of pregnancy and childbirth that is prevalent in the United States. Because she was born in Holland, where home birth and midwifery are the norm, she began researching midwifery alternatives and decided to become a midwife herself.

“My own experience as a mother as well as a nurse attending hospital births taught me that there is a need for change in our birthing system…And that is why I have written my story.” –p. 7

The resulting Diary of a Midwife follows Juliana’s training, apprenticeship, and midwifery practice in West Virginia. If you are considering having your child in a hospital, it is a very sobering read.

Ultimately what is revealed through this personal account is the dehumanization that results when a healthy woman is treated as a patient and a healthy baby is treated as a product.