If a group of women are asked about their birthing experiences, the majority of them will groan in unison and will swap labor stories like war veterans. Through their stories they seem to form a sisterhood, from which they gather comfort and empathy. They also receive reassurance that their birthing experience was at it should have been—traumatic, painful, and uncomfortable. Surprisingly, most of them never question why it is this way or what can be done to enhance their next birthing experience. The majority of them accept what has happened to them and assume that their doctor did what was best for them. Essentially, they believe that their experience was of the norm.

However, according to Penny Armstrong and Sheryl Feldman, authors of Wise Birth, "[a] minority . . . can’t deny, accept, or forget. The feeling of having been assaulted opens wide wounds in them" (57). These are women who are looking for answers to their questions. They do not accept the attitude "that the way one gives birth is a trifling matter anyway; what counts is the lifetime of parenting" (Armstrong and Feldman 57). These are women who seek rewarding birthing experiences through the help of midwives. Midwives are showing this small minority of women how to give birth naturally and freely—without intervention and fear, which doctors often provoke.

THE CAMPAIGN AGAINST MIDWIVES

For years midwives have been discredited by the medical community. "[T]he campaign against midwives was marked by zealotry, ugliness, and too often, gross insensitivity. . . . Ruthlessly, midwives’ reputations were smeared by racist and elitist remarks" (Armstrong and Feldman 80). Bear in mind that these were women who had been well trained by other midwives and who were willing to care for the poor.

Of course, much of the real reason that doctors were and still are opposed to midwives is because of economic factors. Consider that

DOCTOR-ASSISTED BIRTHS

When a woman tells her doctor she wants to deliver her child naturally, he or she will probably nod his or her head and tell them that there shouldn’t be any problem. Unfortunately, most doctors are not familiar with a true natural childbirth, which involves no intervention. Doctors are generally trained to administer harmful drugs and will frequently perform unnecessary interventions, which may lead to a cesarean. And the woman, feeling like a victim, will submit to these interventions because she may have been told that each intervention was necessary and was made to feel guilty for not wanting what was best for her child.

From the moment a pregnant woman enters the hospital environment, she gives up her identity. Because of fear, she is forced to act against her best wishes, and is often placed in the unnatural position of lying down. According to Nancy Wainer Cohen and Lois J. Estner, authors of Silent Knife,

Once in the labor room the woman is immediately hooked up to an I.V. Not only are I.V.s unnecessary but they make the woman "a sitting duck for various chemicals or drugs that most doctors will not hesitate to use. Many women don’t even know a drug has been administered until after it has been infiltrated into the I.V. solution" (Cohen and Estner 164). And while the intention is for the drugs to be helpful, they more often than not make the labor more difficult. For example, "epidurals, which depress the pushing reflex" (Armstrong and Feldman 43), make the labor more difficult and delivery sometimes impossible.

By this time the pregnant woman has endured many injustices. She is forced to wear a gown that does not cover her adequately. She is placed in a hospital bed, flat on her back, and more than likely a fetal monitor will be attached to her, which will restrict nearly all movement. She is then shaved and given an enema, which is routine and serves no useful purpose, and an I.V. is inserted. She is now on a timetable "called the Friedman labor curve" (Armstrong and Feldman 41) to deliver her child. The Friedman labor curve is "[d]esigned to describe the average length of labor, many practitioners . . . [use] it the other way around—to prescribe how long a labor might be. One either began pushing after twelve hours of active labor or one was a candidate for intervention" (Armstrong and Feldman 41). It is not surprising that rarely does one hear a woman talk positively about her birthing experience after all she has had to endure. In fact, it almost seems medieval and contradictory to science and nature the way some doctors require women to give birth.

MIDWIFE-ASSISTED BIRTHS

When most people think of home births, they probably imagine uneducated, poor country people or dirty hippies giving birth this way. The fact is, according to Diana Korte and Roberta Scaer, authors of A Good Birth, A Safe Birth, the "[p]eople who choose a home birth vary widely in their life styles and economic levels. Their reasons for having a home birth almost always have to do with a strong desire to have a self-directed rather than doctor-directed experience, to enhance family unity, and an inability to get what they want at a hospital" (51).

It is important to acknowledge that birth is a normal function. Often when a woman is giving birth in a hospital environment, the doctor will view her as a patient or an object that must be dealt with swiftly. The midwife, however, sees the pregnant woman as a human being who is bringing a new life force into the world, which cannot be rushed. She is able to put her hands in her pockets and to trust the baby to decide when it is the right time to be born.

Contrary to popular myths, the midwife is educated and well-groomed and "has more experience in normal childbirth than the average family practitioner . . ." (Korte and Scaer 55). The midwife knows that "[b]irth goes best if it is not intruded upon by strange people and strange events. It goes best when a woman feels safe enough and free enough to abandon herself to the process, to surrender, to go to . . . ‘another planet.’ It goes best when it is ‘undisturbed’ " (Armstrong and Feldman 44). Where else can a woman feel this way but in her own home—with the people she loves and trusts?

While in labor, the midwife speaks encouragingly, massages aching muscles, and basically does whatever she can to make the pregnant woman comfortable. Unlike doctors they avoid intervention and "[i]n most cases, they need only use stethoscope, gloves, some gauze, all their senses, and two hands to see a baby out. They do not manage birth so much as they nourish it. They feed it" (Armstrong and Feldman 54). They are aware that "[w]omen giving birth must be free to stand, sit, squat, kneel, and walk" (Cohen and Estner 158). They do not force a pregnant woman to lie in a position that defies gravity or that is uncomfortable for her. In addition, midwives do not subject the pregnant woman to unnecessary "vaginal exams during labor. . . . [They believe that the] whole process of birth is to let out, not to put something in. Most attendants can tell how far dilated a woman is by watching her during labor. By placing their hands on the woman’s abdomen, they can gauge the intensity of the contractions" (Cohen and Estner 174). Sadly, these are concepts that are very foreign to most doctors.

Margot Edwards and Mary Waldorf, authors of Reclaiming Birth: History and Heroines of American Childbirth Reform, best summarize what the midwife means to the pregnant woman and to society.