"...pregnant women themselves [have] rediscovered a wisdom more valid than any method we try to superimpose on the natural process. Women's bodies have near-perfect knowledge of childbirth; it's when their brains get involved that things can go wrong.
When we force external rules on laboring women's behaviors, their births may veer off track. The intrinsic intelligence of women's bodies can be sabotaged when they're put into clinical settings, surrounded by strangers, and attached to machines that limit their freedom to move. They then risk falling victim to the powerful forces of fear, lonliness, doubt and distrust, all of which increase pain. Their hopes for a normal birth disappear as quickly as the fluid in an IV bottle.
Given a normal labor and supportive, permissive surroundings, women are capable of finding their own unique ways of dealing with labor. They need only a guide, a calm and experienced woman who can help the struggling mother-to-be along the rocky paths of Laborland."
~Peggy Vincent, Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife
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