Shelby

“In the countries with the best maternal and infant outcomes—the Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark—women and babies benefit from lifelong universal healthcare, but that care is markedly different: obstetricians attend only high-risk pregnancies. The vast majority of laboring women get individual support from a midwife, are free to move about and birth in whatever position feels best, and are rarely induced, anesthetized, or cut.”
― Jennifer Block, Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care

“Pregnancy, and especially birth, is often treated as if they are an illness or a dangerously abnormal process. This approach only fosters the thinking that, without medical intervention in a hospital setting, it would be impossible to have a healthy baby.”
― Lauren Feder, Natural Pregnancy: Practical Medical Advice and Holistic Wisdom for a Healthy Pregnancy and Childbirth

“In reality, pregnancy medical care seemed to be one long list of rules. In fact, being pregnant was a lot like being a child again. There was always someone telling you what to do. It started right away.”
― Emily Oster, Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong-and What You Really Need to Know

“Believe me: if you are told that some experience is going to hurt, it will hurt. Much of pain is in the mind, and when a woman absorbs the idea that the act of giving birth is excruciatingly painful—when she gets this information from her mother, her sisters, her married friends, and her physician—that woman has been mentally prepared to feel great agony.”
― Ina May Gaskin, Ina May's Guide to Childbirth: Updated With New Material