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You hold the future in your hands

Birth Wisdom from Jan Tritten, Mother of Midwifery Today

To help us make changes, we need to enlist the help of midwives from everywhere who are doing what they can in their communities.

“Enlisting Change Around the World” Midwifery Today, Issue 65, Spring 2003

As childbirth attendants, we must vigorously protect the birthing woman and her baby against wrong information, overly interventive technology, a convoluted system of law and medical ignorance that fuel interventive technology, and individuals who do not have her best interests at heart. Often we have to protect her against her own fears.

“Love that Protects” Midwifery Today, Issue 24, Winter 1992

Birth Wisdom from Jan Tritten, Mother of Midwifery Today

In its simple and timeless way, homebirth allows the personality of each birth to unfold as it was designed to, in the midst of each family’s unique gathering of people and things they treasure most. Hospitals are designed to help you when you have a health problem, and they are perfect for that purpose. But why homogenize the uniqueness of the human birth and soul by taking the sacrament of birth there? Birth is such a common miracle, such an everyday thing, and yet so rare. Why would anyone want to give up this rite of passage, this act of creation, to being numbed and drugged and cut? Within the sacred setting of home and family, why not experience the transformation of birth where you can be in your full power?

“The Personality of Birth” Midwifery Today, Issue 50, Summer 1999

Our birth ways and discoveries are not common around the world. The world is full of 50s-style medicalized birth, exported on the waves of imperialism. It is worse in some places, with 50–90% cesarean rates; we also appear to be headed in that direction.We are warriors fighting these trends, and the aspiring and student midwives are our hope for the future. We need to multiply their numbers while we do the activist work of paving the way to increase the demand for midwives. I imagine a time when more and more pregnant women will demand midwives for their care. We can work to achieve this and prepare our young maiden midwives at the same time

“Aspiring and Student Midwives Are Our Hope for the Future” Midwifery Today, Issue 78, Summer 2006

We are not alone in our efforts to solve problems,

whether they involve individual births or the huge political, social and health issues that have occurred with the medicalization of childbirth. I believe it is through learning from midwives from around the world that we will find our own solutions. This is the case whether we are concerned with an individual birth, a practice or birth change in our own country.

“Enlisting Change Around the World” Midwifery Today, Issue 65, Spring 2003

Sometimes you’ll feel like the Lorax, the little Dr. Seuss character who tries desperately to save the trees from being chopped down. He cried, “I am the Lorax; I speak for the trees!” As midwives, we fight to stop women from being cut down in childbirth, and we scream, “I am the midwife; I speak for the women!” We are the last voice crying furiously into the wilderness. We must protect this voice and make absolutely sure it is not suppressed or co-opted.

“Love that Protects” Midwifery Today, Issue 24, Winter 1992

From medicalization and the taking over of birth came a movement so strong that the witch hunt mounted against us shall not stand.

“Take Birth Back” Midwifery Today Issue 66, Summer 2003

Midwifery Today • PO Box 2672, Eugene OR 97402 USA • (800) 743-0974 • (541) 344-7438 • Fax (541) 344-1422 • orders@midwiferytoday.com • www.midwiferytoday.com

Birth is wonderfully unpredictable and at the same time very much the same. Babies come out. They were designed that way. Like a flower knows how to open, a mother knows how to birth.

“The Personality of Birth” Midwifery Today, Issue 50, Summer 1999

I have said many times before that we who know about gentle birth are few—probably about 1% of the world’s population. If that is true, we each need to teach and convince 100 people that pregnancy and birth can be different from the mainstream destruction we are seeing now. Robbie Davis-Floyd says we will reach critical mass when we hit 20%. That means that if each of us can convince 20 people, we will have arrived, because we will ask each of those 20 people to reach more. With a plan, I think we can do it. Our job is to figure out how we can best reach those people. OK, birth-change agents—how are we going to turn this tide? What are you doing? What more are you willing and able to do? How can we best work together on this plan?

“Happy Birthday, Birth Change”Midwifery Today, Issue 73, Spring 2005

The process of weighing our lives usually means we have to say no to some very worthy activities, even some other cherished roles. Friends are able to understand our needs; surprisingly, others can be helped to see the strength of our choices, too. Clients generally hold a good deal of respect for the midwife; they will understand if you cannot be at every baby shower. The world will have to understand if you cannot take on every birth. Consider that you are helping moms realize how important they are by acting as though you realize how important you are. For if we are living examples of “putting family first,” we are teaching new moms the significance of mothering.

“Toward Equilibrium’ Midwifery Today, Issue 15, 1990

Just as we each have a responsibility to birthing women to ensure the future of midwifery, as “mother midwives” we also have a responsibility to educate the next generation of midwives. Midwifery is fairly fragile in the US and we must acknowledge our responsibility to protect it. Educating aspiring and student midwives in how to carry on the motherbaby-centered birth culture that we are creating is critical to protecting motherbaby.

“Aspiring and Student Midwives Are Our Hope for the Future”Midwifery Today, Issue 78, Summer 2006 The question we must ask ourselves

is this: Can a midwife survive a medicalized education and still come out an authentic midwife? One who knows the difference between lifesaving, necessary procedures and rituals, many of which are dangerous to the motherbaby? In a time of increasing cesarean sections and intervention rates as high as 99 percent in some hospitals, this is a question we must ask ourselves for the sake of society

“A Knowledge Base Fit for All Midwives” Midwifery Today, Issue 69, Spring 2004

Cross-fertilization does not just have to happen within midwifery but can mean forming alliances with other movements. The peace movement comes to mind because without natural birth in midwives’ hands, there may be no hope for peace. “Peace Through Midwifery” is the title of a conference midwives from Israel and I came up with at our international conference in New York City in September 2000. It was supposed to be for a conference that Midwifery Today was planning to have in Israel, until war broke out again there. Perhaps we should use the title for our whole movement. We are seeing the results of brutal birth globally. There are many other organizations and movements we can partner with for a better world.

“Take Birth Back” Midwifery Today, Issue 66, Summer 2003

We need to quit being Florence Nightingale, serving doctors and medicine. We need to realize that we are serving women, their babies and families, our society and God. If it looks no different than the myth-based, damaging knowledge and practice of obstetrics, then it is not midwifery. We need to begin pointing out that the emperor is naked.

From “A Knowledge Base Fit for All Midwives,” Midwifery Today, Issue 69, Spring 2004

Midwifery Today • PO Box 2672, Eugene OR 97402 USA • (800) 743-0974 • (541) 344-7438 • Fax (541) 344-1422 • orders@midwiferytoday.com • www.midwiferytoday.com

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