The spirituality of birth

Hey fellow birth nerds,

I thought today we could discuss the spirituality of birth. This is a well covered topic online, but here's my point of view. I've had over 12 years experience around birth in the hospital setting, and just a few life-changing experiences with home birth (including my own). There are some really important differences. I would also like to acknowledge that these writings are my own opinion, and not everything is true for everyone.

I read something online recently to the effect of 'the discomfort of pregnancy prepares you for the discomfort of labour and birth, which prepares you for the discomfort of parenting'. This resonates HARD with me! Making a human is uncomfortable. In our modern age, we are very acclimatised to comfort. In fact, we work hard to rid our lives of any discomfort and inconvenience. We like to control. We like convenience. We control our immediate climate with the use of heaters and air conditioning. We use more and more technology every year to make our lives easier. Some of us control our hormones every month to avoid our bleed. In my humble experience, I would say that pregnancy, labour and birth is often the first time we are truly faced with unavoidable discomfort- however you choose to birth. Elder midwife Jane Hardwicke Collings teaches us that we ought to be more in tune with our menstrual cycles as the start of this journey into empowered women. She quotes an Indigenous American saying "At menarche, a girl meets her power. Through menstruation, she practices her power. At menopause, she becomes her power." Menstruation is the start of our 'controlling' our womanhood. We disconnect and tell our bodies to carry on as if nothing is happening. But we are in an altered state- hormonally, physically and spiritually. You may experience this as fatigue, bloating, pain, 'irrationality'. There are some beautiful rituals circling the internet about how to honour our cycles, such as connecting with the moon, wearing a red thread bracelet or lighting a candle to remind ourselves and our family that we are bleeding. Reconnecting with our cycles would go a long way towards stepping into our birthing power. Anyone who has ever birthed a baby will tell you, you cannot walk out the other side of birth the same woman who walked in. Birth is a threshold experience, crossing from one state of being to another. Dr Rachel Reed talks about birth as an 'undoing', and 'a dissolution of self'. We are so disconnected from this rite of passage that we have misunderstood the purpose. You must change in order to mother. To expect that your life will remain unchanged and that a baby will fit into your current 'comfortable' ways is in some ways, naïve. I digress.

The spirituality of birth is something that has been lost in our modern world. I am not necessarily talking about 'woo woo', sage sticks and candles. I am also not talking about the perfect, Instagram-worthy videos. Sometimes the most spiritual birth moments are deeply ordinary: a partner’s hand, the sound of breath, the pause between contractions. It is leaning into yourself, finding your rhythm and dancing through the most profoundly life-changing experience you may ever have. I speak not only about women, but also of those supporting her. Her partner and family will also experience the birth portal. Birth demands presence - from the birthing mumma and those she chooses to surround her; steady attention, quiet encouragement, shared breath. If birth is respected with the reverence it requires then it will transform.

The writings of Dr Rachel Reed, Jane Hardwicke Collings and many other great midwives are pertinent to understanding the spirituality of birth (I would highly recommend reading Rachel's book Reclaiming Childbirth as a Rite of Passage). If allowed to, labour can strip away the non-essential and bring you into deep instinct, also known as your limbic system (or reptilian brain); your body knows what the mind doesn't - how to labour efficiently. In fact, Dr Sarah Buckley discusses birth as a highly efficient system, and that it would make no evolutionary sense for it not to be (I would also highly recommend reading Sarah's book Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering). Birth is one of the few times in life that control becomes less useful than trust. A common theme for labour is 'surrender', disconnecting from your neo-cortex (thinking brain) and letting go of expectation - leaning into the waves of labour. Many women, myself included, have described feeling connected to their lineage and to the birthing women around the world while in the birth portal. Connecting with generations of sisters before us, remembering an ancient rhythm, feeling empowered and held by something larger than ourselves.

And of course, the thing that so many women are worried about is the dreaded pain of labour. Goodness, does it have a bad wrap. It has been viewed as a punishment for eons, kindly handed down to us by the teachings of old, perpetuated by pop-culture. Alas, we can reframe what we know of pain, not as a punishment but as a powerful, transformative force. Call it a spiritual initiation - one that opens the door for courage, resilience and inner strength. These attributes you must take with you into parenthood, where you will inevitably reach new levels of discomfort. But remember, where there is discomfort, there is growth.

Amazingly, the spirituality and depth of experience is not at all dependent on where or how you birth - home, hospital, caesarean, induction, water or epidural. I have witnessed some incredible women have a hugely profound experience in what I would consider a very clinical environment. Spirituality is an inner experience, not a scenario. The odds, however, are more in your favour when you choose a birth worker and environment that most aligns with you. Ask yourself honestly - "where do I feel safe?" and connect with that. Why do you feel safe there? If you uncover some uncomfortable feelings, it's worth exploring this with your partner and your care providers. Ask them to make space for you to discuss your preferences and feelings here. Or, find yourself a doula whose main aim it to support women spiritually through childbearing. You can also contact me and we can set up a meeting to discuss these very things.

Until next time xx