"The wisdom and compassion a woman can intuitively experience in childbirth can make her a source of healing and understanding for other women."
-Stephen Gaskin
 

"We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong."
-Laura Stavoe Harm

 
"There is power that comes to women when they give birth. They don't ask for it, it simply invades them. Accumulates like clouds on the horizon and passes through, carrying the child with it."
-Sheryl Feldman

"Making the decision to have a child - it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body."
-Elizabeth Stone


"Research has shone bright lights on what women have always known: Dynamic systems are sensitive to start-up conditions. Thus, a gentle birth is life enhancing for the human organism."
-Robin Lim

 
"Imagine that your pelvis is a candle with a flame in the middle
As my contractions come, the flame burns brighter.
My body is the wax of the candle, warming and yielding to the flame.
The more I breathe, the brighter the candle burns.
The wax melts and drips with each contraction.
My body becomes looser and opens to the flame.
I see my pelvis becoming soft and warm and pliable.
I breathe. With each contraction, the candle becomes softer.
I melt with the candle.
My breath helps the candle burn brighter, melting quicker.
I remain soft, warm, and yielding."
-Barbara Harper "Gentle Birth Choices"
 
"Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers ~ strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength."
-Barbara Katz Rothman

 
"...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, MD
 
 
"Focus on what you can do, then do it with all your heart."
-Lois Wilson


"$13 to $20 billion a year could be saved in health care costs by demedicalizing childbirth, developing midwifery, and encouraging breastfeeding."
-Frank Oski, MD,
Professor and Director, Department of Pediatrics,
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD