Ina May Gaskin Quotes About Birth

Quotes about: Birth

• We are the only species of mammal that doubts our ability to give birth. It's profitable to scare women about birth. But let's stop it. I tell women: Your body is not a lemon.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Inspirational, Women, Giving

  FaceBook post by Ina May Gaskin from Mar 22, 2015

• Whenever and however you give birth, your experience will impact your emotions, your mind, your body, and your spirit for the rest of your life.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Impact, Giving, Mind

• If a woman doesn't look like a Goddess during labor, then someone isn't treating her right.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Looks, Birth, Goddess

• Why in the world do the insurance companies get to be the boss of birth? That's what I want to know.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Boss, World, Want

• There is no other organ quite like the uterus. If men had such an organ they would brag about it. So should we

  Ina May Gaskin

  Men, Uterus, Birth

• When you destroy midwives, you also destroy a body of knowledge that is shared by women, that can’t be put together by a bunch of surgeons or a bunch of male obstetricians, because physiologically, birth doesn’t happen the same way around surgeons, medically trained doctors, as it does around sympathetic women.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Doctors, Together, Males

• Birth Matters... It matters because it is the way we all begin our lives outside of our source, our mother's bodies. It's the means from which we enter and feel our first impression of the wider world. For each mother, it is an event that shakes and shapes her to her innermost core. Women's perceptions about their bodies and their babies' capabilities will be deeply influenced by the care they receive around the time of birth.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Mother, Baby, Mean

  Ina May Gaskin (2011). “Birth Matters: How What We Don't Know About Nature, Bodies, and Surgery Can Hurt Us”, p.1, Seven Stories Press

• The way a culture treats women in birth is a good indicator of how well women and their contributions to society are valued and honored.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Culture, Way, Birth

  Ina May Gaskin (2011). “Birth Matters: How What We Don't Know About Nature, Bodies, and Surgery Can Hurt Us”, p.6, Seven Stories Press

• 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

• I think that women can be just completely surprised by the change in them from giving birth-you have something powerful in you-that fierce thing comes up-and I think babies need moms to have that fierceness-you feel like you can do anything and that’s the feeling we want moms to have.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Mom, Baby, Powerful

• I have never observed even the slightest laceration in a woman who used clitoral stimulation as a relaxation method during birth. Clitoral stimulation seems to increase vaginal engorgement as the baby emerges.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Baby, Relaxation, Birth

• A society that places a low value on its mothers and the process of birth will suffer an array of negative repercussions for doing so. Good beginnings make a positive difference in the world, so it is worth our while to provide the best possible care for mothers and babies throughout this extraordinarily influential part of life.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Mother, Baby, Differences

  Ina May Gaskin (2011). “Birth Matters: How What We Don't Know About Nature, Bodies, and Surgery Can Hurt Us”, p.1, Seven Stories Press

• Nothing in medical literature today communicates the idea that women's bodies are well-designed for birth. Ignorance of the capacities of women's bodies can flourish and quickly spread into the popular culture when the medical profession is unable to distinguish between ancient wisdom and superstitious belief.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Ignorance, Ideas, Culture

• The human species is no more unsuited to give birth than any other of the 5,000 or so species of mammals on the planet. We are merely the most confused.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Confused, Giving, Mammals

• Let your monkey do it.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Monkeys, Birth

  Ina May Gaskin (2011). “Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta”, p.38, Pinter & Martin Publishers

• 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, Moose

• Squat 300 times a day, you’re going to give birth quickly.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Giving, Birth, Squat

  "Ina May Gaskin and the Safe Motherhood Quilt Project Focus on High U.S. Maternal Mortality Rates". "Democracy Now!" with Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org. March 19, 2012.

• The Creator is not a careless mechanic.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Pregnancy, Moose, Birth

  Ina May Gaskin (2010). “Ina May's Guide to Childbirth”, p.141, Random House

• Simply put, when there is no home birth in a society, or when home birth is driven completely underground, essential knowledge of women’s capacities in birth is lost to the people of that society—to professional caregivers, as well as to the women of childbearing age themselves.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Home, People, Age

• The best a health care system can do is to equip itself to meet the needs of each individual woman and birth. Those needs run the gamut from undisturbed home birth to planned cesarean section.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Running, Home, Needs

  "Global Motherhood: Birth Freedom or Birth Totalitarianism?" by Ina May Gaskin, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 23, 2012.

• If birth matters, midwives matter. In Europe, there are hospitals where the cesarean rate is less than 10%, and you'll find midwives in these hospitals, you'll see a lot less re-admissions with infections and complications, and you'll see a lot less injury to mothers.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Mother, Europe, Cesarean

• It will take your breastfed baby an average of five to six months to double her birth weight.

  Ina May Gaskin

  Baby, Average, Six Months

  Ina May Gaskin (2009). “Ina May's Guide to Breastfeeding: From the Nation's Leading Midwife”, p.109, Bantam

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