Birth isn’t something we suffer, but something we actively do and exult in.
-Sheila Kitzinger
Whenever and however you intend to give birth your experience will impact your emotions, your mind, your body and your spirit for the rest of your life.
-Ina May Gaskin
“If I had my life to live over, instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I’d have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.” -Irma Bombeck
“She believed she could, so she did!” -R. S. Grey
“The knowledge about how to give birth is born within every woman: women do not need to be taught how to give birth but rather to have more trust and faith in their own body knowledge.” -BirthWorks
“Birth matters. It brings us into being, on many levels.” -Amanda Lowe
“There is no harm in being afraid. The only harm is in doing what Fear tells you. Fear is not your master! Laugh in his face and he will run away.” -George MacDonald
“I think one of the best things we could do would be to help women/parents/families discover their own birth power, from within themselves. And to let them know it’s always been there, they just needed to tap into it.” -John H. Kennell
“Women’s strongest feelings, positive and negative, focus on the way they were treated by their caregivers.” -Annie Kennedy & Penny Simpkin
“The minute you think of giving up, think of the reason why you held on so long.” – Unknown
“The instant of birth is exquisite. Pain and joy are one at this moment. Ever after, the dim recollection is so sweet that we speak to our children with a gratitude they never understand.” -Madeline Tiger
You are stronger than you think!
“Birth is an experience that demonstrates that life is not merely function and utility, but form and beauty.” -Christopher Largen
“The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”
—Bob Parsons
Just breathe!
“Wherever you are, be all there.” -Jim Elliot
I am not afraid!
“The pain that you’ve been feeling, cannot compare to the JOY that is coming.” -Romans 8:18
“When you were born, I was born.” -Unknown
My baby and I are working together.
Birth is joyous
“If I don’t know my options, I don’t have any.” -Diana Korte
Trust the process.
Embrace! Breathe! Surrender!
“I have always thirsted for knowledge, I have always been full of questions.” -Hermann Hesse
I trust my body.
“She knew that she was here…for such as time as this.” -Unknown
“Birth is an opportunity to transcend. To rise above what we are accustomed to, reach deeper inside ourselves than we are familiar with, and to see not only what we are truly made of, but the strength we can access in and through birth.” -Marcie Macari
I have everything it takes to birth this baby.
My baby and I are working together.
“Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers- strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength.” -Barbara Katz Rothman
Birth is the ultimate act of love.
“Birth is not an emergency. It is simply an emergence.” – Jeanine Baker
“We must attempt to tell the whole truth about birth, the truth that includes the transformation, mastery, satisfaction, personal power and the difference between pain and suffering.” -Cheri van Hoover
I choose to be relaxed and calm.
My body knows how to give birth.
“Mothers need to know that their care and their choices won’t be compromised by birth politics.” -Jennifer Rosenberg
Breathe your baby down.
“I am not afraid. I was BORN for this.”
-Joan of Arc
“Treating normal labors as though they were complicated can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.” -Judith Rooks
Nevertheless she persisted.
“Childbirth is an experience in a woman’s life that holds the power to transform her forever. Passing through these powerful gates – in her own way – remembering all the generations of women who walk with her… She is never alone.” -Suzanne Arms
“Birth is as safe as life gets.” -Harriette Hartigan
“One is constantly having to balance the high expectations of modern health care with the need to respect the human soul. This is especially so with birth.” -Benig Mauger
“Midwives see birth as a miracle and only mess with it if there’s a problem; doctors see birth as a problem and if they don’t mess with it, it’s a miracle!” -Barbara Harper
My courage is stronger than my fear.
Each breath gives life to my baby.
“It is not only that we want to bring about an easy labor, without risking injury to the mother or the child; we must go further. We must understand that childbirth is fundamentally a spiritual, as well as a physical, achievement. . . The birth of a child is the ultimate perfection of human love.” -Grantly Dick-Read
Breathe in peace. Exhale tension.
“Deep within each woman, lies the knowledge of how to give birth without outside interventions.” -Unknown
This will not last forever.
Release and relax. Let your body work.
“My baby is healthy and innately knows when to begin labor. My body knows how to birth by instinct. My mind has released all fears and trusts birth. I am enjoying this process and growing through it all.” -Unknown
You are strong enough.
“All natural birth has a purpose and a plan; who would think of tearing open the chrysalis as the butterfly is emerging? Who would break the shell to pull the chick out?” -Marie Mongan
“A newborn baby has only three demands. They are warmth in the arms of its mother, food from her breasts, and security in the knowledge of her presence. Breastfeeding satisfies all three.” -Grantly Dick-Read
“My dream is that every woman, everywhere, will know the joy of a truly safe, comfortable, and satisfying birthing for herself and her baby.” -Marie Mongan
Believe you can and you will.
“A woman can only enter a hospital while not in labor for a non-medical induction by her own two feet.” -Desirre Andrews
One breath at a time.
“Unfortunately, the role of obstetrics has never been to help women give birth. There is a big difference between the medical discipline we call ‘obstetrics’ and something completely different, the art of midwifery. If we want to find safe alternatives to obstetrics, we must rediscover midwifery. To rediscover midwifery is the same as giving back childbirth to women. And imagine the future if surgical teams were at the service of the midwives and the women instead of controlling them.” -Michel Odent
My body is capable and strong.
“When you change the way you view birth, the way you birth will change.” -Marie Mongan
I accept this pain to welcome my baby.
All good things take time.
“Reluctant doctors like to believe that they haven’t much influence over their patients, but that is clearly not the case. Several studies have found that when doctors genuinely encouraged women to have VBACs, most of them did, and when they said nothing or acted neutral, most women didn’t. Finally, when obstetricians discouraged VBAC in women who wanted to try it, none of them did.” -Henci Goer
There is nothing to fear.
I can breathe through this contraction.
“In achieving the depersonalization of childbirth and at the same time solving the problem of pain, our society may have lost more than it has gained. We are left with the physical husk; the transcending significance has been drained away. In doing so, we have reached the goal which is perhaps implicit in all highly developed technological cultures, mechanized control of the human body and the complete obliteration of all disturbing sensations.” -Sheila Kitzinger
I was made to birth this baby.
Don’t be afraid, just believe.
“It is a matter of the woman being comfortable, not stressed, in a place where she feels safe, without people fussing, without other people stressing, without anyone else trying to have her baby for her, no clocks, no timing, no telling her what her body already knows.” -Libby Williams
“Birth is the sudden opening of a window, through which you look out upon a stupendous prospect. For what has happened? A miracle. You have exchanged nothing for the possibility of everything.” -William MacNeile Dixon
There is no need to hurry.
I am surrounded by love.
“Women’s bodies have near-perfect knowledge of childbirth; it’s when their brains get involved that things can go wrong.” -Peggy Vincent
Don’t stop until you are proud.
Babies are bits of star-dust blown from the hand of God. Lucky the woman who knows the pangs of birth for she has held a star.
-Larry Barretto
“The knowledge of how to give birth without outside interventions lies deep within each woman. Successful childbirth depends on an acceptance of the process.” -Anonymous
“Let your faith be bigger than your fear.”
-Unknown
“Having a highly trained obstetrical surgeon attend a normal birth is analogous to having a pediatric surgeon babysit a healthy 2-year-old.” -Marsden Wagner
“There is power that comes to women when they give birth. They don’t ask for it, it simply invades them. Accumulates like clouds on the horizon and passes through, carrying the child with it.” -Sheryl Feldman
“Trust the process.” -Unknown
“The question isn’t who’s going to let me; but who is going to stop me.”
-Ayn Rand
“There’s three things to learn about labor: It works, it hurts and you can do it.” -Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew
“Giving birth should be your greatest achievement not your greatest fear.” -Jane Weideman
“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”
-Unknown
“She could never go back and make some of the details pretty. All she could do was move forward and make the whole beautiful.” -Terri St. Cloud
“Don’t let your birth experience be stolen because you were afraid.” -Dr. Fred Cummings
“Your body can stand almost anything, it’s your mind you have to convince.” -Unknown
“It always seems impossible until it is done.”
-Nelson Mandela
“I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born.”