Comments on: Good News for Women Everywhere

By: Mallory

Mallory — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:50:09 +0000

Also, natural births have a nasty habit of killing lots of women. For privileged Westerners, where emergency medical help is almost always close at hand, it’s possible to plan for a successful non-hospital birth, and that’s great. For the millions of women whose birth plan involves squatting and praying and hopefully not bleeding to death, a hospital would be a real step up.

By: Sara Ost

Sara Ost — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 20:42:22 +0000

Sarah, great point on the photo, we could have used a more natural looking image. But, I have to disagree, birth isn’t always beautiful. Sometimes it is agonizing and deadly and involves needless suffering. My mom would have literally died having me without surgery and drugs, so “normal” and “healthy” is really subjective. For the healthy, “perfect case” women who are lucky to have no complications and a successful delivery without drugs or a hospital, well, that’s fantastic. But not all women can or do, and it doesn’t make the miracle of their baby’s birth or what they wanted their body to do any less special or somehow not beautiful and “normal”. Just my two cents.

By: Sarah Supernova

Sarah Supernova — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 20:29:31 +0000

Hmmmm….if I could make a quick comment on the photo you chose to accompany this post: it’s a completely surgical hospital birth. Not a normal birth. It would have been nice if you’d included a photo of a healthy, normal, natural birth…with mama and baby making skin-to-skin contact. Drug-filled, surgical, hospital birth might be the Western standard, but is NOT the normal and healthy way to go about a pretty normal and healthy thing!

Ok, thanks for listening. Birth is beautiful. Glad women the world over are being helped with sanitation, education, and most of all, strong and healthy bodies to do what women have been doing since the beginning of time: giving birth!