An undisturbed and empowered birth sounds wonderful doesn’t it? 

What do these words evoke for you?

In my years of attending births, and three of my own births, this meaning has changed and evolved from what I once was led to believe in the birth arts practice. 

I’d love to share with you a bit of my own journey with these ideas to give you a sense of what I think people in the birthing community are getting right, and where they may not.

My journey with birth has been unique because my first birth at the tender age of 22 with my oldest son was the most undisturbed of all. I had a midwife, in Hawaii, and because of strange Mercury retrograde circumstances, she didn’t make it to the birth in time, and in fact we didn’t get ahold of anyone for a good two hours after! Yet what was seemingly a mistake was actually the greatest gift, as I was able to experience what a truly primal, undisturbed, instinctual and empowered birth feels like. I moved where my body wanted me, I made sounds like my body wanted to, I even throat sang with more power than I’ve ever heard in my voice! It was incredible. And it was the ultimate lesson in what a woman is capable of when she has few preconceived notions of what birth should be like, and when she has no choice but to simply do it. We fumbled a bit after he emerged, of course, but overall it went beautifully, and we did what our instincts told us to. My husband was also a champ about it, considering that he was definitely more in his mind than I was. 

It was, of course, a precipitous labor, only four hours long. But I believe after watching women birth, that most anyone can experience something similar to what I did. The problem is not in the woman or her physiology, but in the well meaning but intrusive ways in which caregivers involve themselves in the birthing process. It isn’t that all involvement is wrong, but the simple truth is that the more distractions a woman experiences, the harder it is for her to drop into the altered state of birth. 

And that is what birth is: An altered state. The woman’s brainwaves can go back and forth between beta, alpha, and delta rather quickly… but the deepest knowing and connection to the universe, and the brainwaves of the baby, are in delta.  This is where a person is no longer in the monkey thinking mind, but in a deeper place of receiving… the state of Knowing. This is where the primal, instinctive, intuitive part of us can take over… connected to both the instincts of our animal bodies, and the higher knowing perhaps of what some may call the universal mind. 

When a woman is in this unbridled state, her body knows just what it needs to move the baby through. My birth with my son was especially free in this way. At one point I asked my husband to hang me by my elbows, him standing behind me. At other points I moved in different ways, within and outside the birthing pool. I wasn’t thinking at that point; there was no intellectual decision… it was simply coming from a place of knowing, and immediate action, even allowing me to verbalize what I wanted without leaving that state.

However I found it incredibly different 7 years later when I birthed my daughter, this time with a midwife and her assistant present. They did their best, and were the same in their manner as the midwives I had attended births with some years earlier… but nonetheless, I found their need for light, their little whispers in the other room, their need to check on me and chart and “know” my progress, to be disturbing to my ability to get into that same primal place. I was much more in my head during that birth, and I learned yet another valuable lesson. I realized that even in my attending of births, we had likely done all manner of things which intruded on a mama’s ability to drop into herself, simply by our need to insert ourselves into the room with our own beta brainwave state of thinking, charting, speaking, etc.  The trick, I realized, was to be able to join a mama in Delta brain, rather than expect her to constantly meet us in Beta. 

There is another pivotal moment when many women are disturbed, a key time which few caregivers understand physiologically or spiritually. This is the time just after transition, when the mama’s cervix finally made it those last couple centimeters to complete; this stage is called the Quietude. 

The typical medical model, which even many midwives seem to live by, is that when a woman is complete, its time to push. However, in a truly undisturbed birth, a miraculous thing happens. The woman enters a resting phase. Her body slows down or stops contractions for a period of minutes, or even longer for some women. My teacher had one mama once who had a 7 hour pause! And then…out came baby, no problem, happy and healthy! 

Physiologically, the baby is actually doing something as well in this time, a very important phase in which the baby internally rotates to turn the shoulders through the midpelvis, past the ischial spines, to prepare for lifting the head over the perineum in the act we call “crowning”.  Yes, the baby itself is partly responsible for this crowning, by extending his/her neck, essentially lifting the head till it is above the perineum! The modern medical model seems to simply gloss over this important cardinal movement of the baby, and a surprising number of practitioners don’t seem to realize the importance of giving the baby and mama time to complete this movement prior to pushing.  When we encourage a woman to push at this stage, she actually may end up with a much longer pushing phase and even an arrest of labor, because the baby’s shoulders haven’t been able to rotate properly to clear the ischial spines. And, we also rob the woman of a much needed rest, and a moment where many women actually receive a huge download about their baby. Many women, when given this sacred pause, report that during this quietude they received immense layers of understanding about their baby, about themselves, visions of their child or other incredible things. This is a sacred pause for a reason… after the most difficult part of the labor, and before finally meeting their baby. It has a holy purpose. 

So what is an undisturbed birth? 

It is a birth in which a woman (and her birth partner) are able to step out of the mental, and into the heart of knowing, and the Delta brain wave state. It is there that we as birthing mamas, or as caregivers, are able to access the state of the baby as well, and Feel and Know if baby and mama are doing ok, rather than constantly having to rely on our instruments or even mental observations. 

Of course, this doesn’t mean there isn’t a time or place for fetal heart tone monitoring, or cervical checks… however the more I move along in my practice and personal experience the more I realize that 99% of the time that these checks are done, they’re more for the sake of meeting the caregivers needs. These needs may include the need to alleviate fear or anxiety in the caregiver, the need to meet state requirements to monitor the labor, or the need to simply be “useful” by doing something. Few caregivers seem to feel comfortable with doing nothing for long periods of time, out of both anxiety and a need to justify their being paid to be there. 

Imagine if these “needs” were no longer there. What would a caregiver do instead? The reality is that the majority of the time…they would do nothing! They would sit in the corner or perhaps even outside the room, quietly, dropping into a meditative state perhaps to simply observe from the vantage point of Spirit, and monitor things that way! They would allow the woman herself or her partner to “catch” the baby… or perhaps allow the mama to simply let the baby naturally fall from a squat position onto the bed. Perhaps the most the midwife would do is deftly put a chux pad under the mama when baby emerges, to keep the bedding clean!

The mother herself would be allowed the time to choose to pick up her baby. No one telling her “now pick up your baby!”… she would be given that golden moment to emerge from the depths, with the knowing that baby is just fine as he/she is also in Delta brain wave and is not being damaged in any way by that golden pause after delivery. Mama looks down, suddenly remembering that she gave birth…sees her baby…and CHOOSES her baby…reaches down and picks him/her up and brings baby to her belly or her chest, and eventually perhaps allowing baby to naturally crawl to the breast, or placing him/her there herself. She instinctively knows what to do, and when to attempt to breastfeed. No one needs to coach her to do so. She is a woman, born to do this!

The truth is, we pay big money to our doctors, midwives, and/or doulas to be present at our birth. They are there if we truly need them and ASK for their help. We birth attendants are available to help you remember your power when you are questioning it. To gently and quietly remind you that intense transition, right before birth is imminent, is when so many women say “I can’t go on!”  We are available for you to boss us around and say “hang me by my elbows!” or to help you get into any other position you need. We will even catch the baby if you want us to. But none of these are things we should be doing because it’s what we think we “should” be doing… but because the mama asked directly, or its clear that it is what our Knowing says we ought to do in that moment. This is a finesse of Knowing they cannot teach in medical or even midwifery school.  And while many women walk away from their births satisfied because they had a healthy outcome, few may realize that they were subtly robbed of oportunities to CHOOSE their power, to CHOOSE their baby, and to KNOW themselves and receive the download of the quietude. Women may even walk away from their births feeling a need to do it again, because on a subconscious level, they know they have not received the full lesson about their own empowerment as Woman. 

Do women NEED a midwife, a doula, or a doctor then?  The answer is: not always! I have had two blissful free births without an attendant. And, I also recognize this choice is not for everyone. It’s worth it to have someone there who can assist as needed, advocate for you so you don’t have to mentally advocate for yourself in the case of transport or otherwise, and generally be there as a supportive body if you want to choose different positions. And of course, if there were a complication, which can happen even to a healthy woman and child, we are there to help. It’s important for both families and practitioners to recognize the inherent value in this, and not to downplay this value, while also allowing for the beauty of a truly undisturbed and empowered birth to take place in the majority of physiologically normal cases.  And, we are always there to help clean up, get mama to bed, and eventually check on the baby and bring her a nourishing drink and meal when she is ready. We are there to catch what isn’t normal, so that you can enjoy completely what is.