Birth Is An Act Of Love Between Two Beings: Nobody Should Disturb Him!

There is no more intense pain than childbirth. No love that is as profound as that of the mother, who for the first time sees her child that she has carried within her. How dare we disturb this magical, meaningful moment? We know it’s sacrilege because childbirth is an act of love, but we still disturb it.

We’re not just talking about the need to give birth in an intimate setting. We also talk about many other factors that weaken the intensity of the first encounter, which is essential for many experts. We also refer to those relatives who sometimes hug the newborn baby in front of the mother.

There are many, many things that can disrupt this act of love. Most of them, however, are associated with medical procedures, in those aseptic environments, and with those standardized rituals in which the umbilical cord is quickly severed in order to wash the newborn as quickly as possible.

There are interesting approaches that encourage us to see this process in a different way. There is no doubt that we should have medical help available at all times. But we need a new sensitivity, from a different perspective, in which the family members of the woman giving birth should also participate.

Here we explain one of these approaches to you.

Birth is an act of love, not an instrumental protocol

We want to talk to you about someone very special. Maybe you already know him. Michel Odent, a French obstetrician.

• Thanks to him, we have really interesting literature on the idea of ​​reforming childbirth to make it more sensitive and tender. Odent defends the point of view that childbirth is an act of love between two beings that should not be disturbed.
• According to him, we have long exceeded the limits of what should be allowed. Nowadays childbirth is supposedly “humanized”. In reality we neglect the humane and automate the birth.

• Synthetic oxytocin is used and, above all, caesarean sections are abused.

All of this is primarily intended to ensure the safety of mother and child. That’s positive, without a doubt. But we do without other things: We get women to give birth with stress, fear and discomfort. For his part, the baby is frightened by all the hands that touch him, turn over and wash, while not knowing where his mother is.

Nobody should disturb this moment.

Birth – The Paradigm of Protection

Dr. Odent, who is 83 years old, continues to defend the need to put “the paradigm of protection” into practice. It would be based on these points:

• Attention must be paid to the physical and mental well-being of the mother and the newborn.
• The mother should feel protected, respected and comfortable. This means that she has the right to choose how to give birth. Giving birth lying down is not always the preferred position for women. There are some who feel better about giving birth standing up.
• Shaving, inducing labor with oxytocin, or using epidural anesthesia is something the woman should choose when receiving advice from her doctor.
• The baby doesn’t need to be washed right away. Indeed, this white layer covering it is a kind of natural protection for its skin that is not harmful or annoying during its first skin contact with its mother.
• The umbilical cord should not be cut until it stops pumping. According to Michel Odent, she will give the baby a vaccine against diseases such as “neonatal tetanus”.

• Dr. Odent is also the author of the first written document on the need to start breastfeeding in the first hour after giving birth.

Communication with the mother during childbirth

This aspect is very interesting. Within the paradigm that Dr. Defending Odent, he writes that the mother should not be yelled at. You shouldn’t repeat sentences like “press” over and over in a loud voice and not address them with demands.

• During childbirth, the woman’s neocortex (our rational brain) slows down to focus on the instinctive and purely emotional realms. Therefore verbal orders and even words around them will only increase their stress.

• It is worth taking this into account. It is necessary to remember what we said at the beginning: childbirth should be performed as a delicate act of love.

Dear family, leave the new parents alone

Once the birth is over, all the mother needs is rest, silence, her baby and her partner. There will still be plenty of time to get to know the newborn. We have a whole life for it, but both the birth and the hours after are theirs only.

The new family.