A woman who gives birth in the US today is more likely to die in childbirth than her mother was. With one in three babies born via cesarean, the US ranks behind thirty other nations in neonatal mortality rates, and forty other nations in maternal mortality rates. Confidence in womens bodies and womens choices has been lost.
In Birth Matters, Ina May Gaskin, author of Spiritual Midwifery and Ina Mays Guide to Childbirth, reminds us that the ways in which women experience birth have implications for us all. Renewing confidence in a womans natural ability to birth provides transformative possibilities for individual families, and for society at large.
