Childbirth Quotes - Page 2

• ...Respecting the woman as an important and valuable human being and making certain that the woman's experience while giving birth is fulfilling and empowering is not just a nice extra, it is absolutely essential as it makes the woman strong and therefore makes society strong.

  Marsden Wagner

  Strength, Inspiring, Strong Women

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• Natural childbirth allows the hormones that have been working for women for thousands of years to fulfill their functions. This is more important than just helping a woman through labor and delivery. Birth-related hormones also affect well-being much later in life.

  Janet Schwegel

  Pregnancy, Later In Life, Years

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• The suburban housewife - she was the dream image of the young American women and the envy, it was said, of women all over the world. The American housewife - freed by science and labor-saving appliances from the drudgery, the dangers of childbirth, and the illnesses of her grandmother had found true feminine fulfillment.

  Betty Friedan

  Dream, Grandmother, Envy

  BETTY FRIEDAN (1963). “The Feminine Mystique”

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• Because they've either conveniently forgotten with time or they're trying to be supportive, most mothers won't tell you how hard pregnancy (and then childbirth) can be. Let me tell you, it is. It's brutal sometimes! But, if I did it, ANYONE can do it. I mean, I always knew I was meant to do something really BIG in life, and now I know that this was it. Screw winning an Academy Award someday ... I GAVE BIRTH

  Jenny McCarthy

  Mother, Pregnancy, Mean

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• I know we can’t always know what medical surprises may happen during childbirth. But my hope is to go fully natural – no epidural, no interventions.

  Danica McKellar

  May, Medical, Surprise

  "Danica McKellar: 'My Hope Is To Go Fully Natural – No Epidural, No Interventions'". Interview with Jenny Schafer, celebritybabyscoop.com. July 8, 2010.

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• 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.

  Sheila Kitzinger

  Pain, Parenting, May

  Sheila Kitzinger (1978). “Women as mothers”

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• Back in the days when men were hunters and chest beaters and women spent their whole lives worrying about pregnancy or dying in childbirth, they often had to be taken against their will. Men complained that women were cold, unresponsive, frigid... They wanted their women wanton. They wanted their women wild. Now women were finally learning to be wanton and wild - and what happened? The men wilted.

  Erica Jong

  Women, Pregnancy, Taken

  "Fear of Flying". Book by Erica Jong, 1973.

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• Remember this, for it is as true as true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth as well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Pregnancy, Thinking, Elephants

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• Childbirth, as a strictly physical phenomenon, is comparable to driving a United Parcel truck through an inner tube.

  Dave Barry

  Driving, Truck, Inns

  Dave Barry (2010). “Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys”, p.58, Ballantine Books

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• I think because I did a lot of modelling and appeared in lads mags a lot of women didn't necessarily warm to me. But now I have been through childbirth, post-natal depression and struggled with my weight, women seem to relate to me a lot more.

  Jennifer Ellison

  Thinking, Weight, Mags

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• 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

  Pregnancy, Giving, Perspective

  William Macneile Dixon (1937). “The Human Situation: The Gifford Lectures Delivered in the University of Glasgow, 1935-1937”, London : E. Arnold

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• Women are strong, strong, terribly strong. We don't know how strong until we're pushing out our babies.

  Louise Erdrich

  Inspiring, Baby, Strong

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• Men should spend less time with guns and more time in childbirth.

  Lisa Gardner

  Gun, Men, Should

  Lisa Gardner (2012). “The Other Daughter”, p.167, Hachette UK

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• 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

  Years, Healthy, Normal

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• I once heard two ladies going on and on about the pains of childbirth and how men don't seem to know what real pain is. I asked if either of them ever got themselves caught in a zipper.

  Emo Philips

  Funny, Pain, Real

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• On the one hand, we'll never experience childbirth. On the other hand, we can open all our own jars.

  Bruce Willis

  Men, Hands, Experience

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• A mother never fully delivers.

  Judith Kelman

  Mother

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• One way to measure a particular doctor's openness and attitude toward women in general is simply to ask about the doctor's opinion of midwifery.

  Marsden Wagner

  Attitude, Women, Doctors

  Marsden Wagner (2008). “Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must be Fixed to Put Women and Children First”, p.103, Univ of California Press

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• No other natural bodily function is painful and childbirth should not be an exception

  Grantly Dick-Read

  Pregnancy, Birth, Painful

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• I am not finding pregnancy much of a joy. I am afraid of childbirth, but I am afraid I can't find a way of avoiding it.

  Brigitte Bardot

  Pregnancy, Joy, Way

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• As indicated by the increase in maternal mortality in 2010, right now it's more dangerous to give birth in California than in Kuwait or Bosnia. Amnesty International reports that women in [the United States] have a higher risk of dying due to pregnancy complications than women in forty-nine other countries (black women are almost four times as likely to die as white women). The United States spends more than any other country on maternal health care, yet our risk of dying or coming close to death during pregnancy or in childbirth remains unreasonably high.

  Jessica Valenti

  Country, Pregnancy, White

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• There is no way out of the experience except through it, because it is not really your experience at all but the baby's. Your body is the child's instrument of birth.

  Penelope Leach

  Baby, Children, Pregnancy

  Penelope Leach (1989). “Your Baby & Child: From Birth to Age Five”, Alfred A. Knopf

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• In accordance with my conception of life, I have chosen not to bring children into the world. A coin is examined, and only after careful deliberation, given to a beggar, whereas a child is flung out into the cosmic brutality without hesitation.

  Peter Wessel Zapffe

  Children, Choices, Brutality

  "To Be a Human Being". Documentary, (1989 - 90).

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• Experiences have clearly shown that an approach which 'de-medicalizes' birth, restores dignity and humanity to the process of childbirth, and returns control to the mother is also the safest approach.

  Michel Odent

  Inspiring, Mother, Medicine

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• In all cultures, the midwife's place is on the threshold of life, where intense human emotions, fear, hope, longing, triumph, and incredible physical power-enable a new human being to emerge. Her vocation is unique.

  Sheila Kitzinger

  Life, Hope, Fear

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