some of my birth favorite quotes

A Quaker friend once posed this question to me: why is breast milk so good? 

Answer: Because it is always warm, it’s always ready, and it’s up high where the cats can’t get it!
(and it is free!)

In pursuing happiness, he suggests, "We should have more trust in our own resilience and less confidence in our predictions about how we'll feel. We should be a bit more humble and a bit more brave." ~ Daniel Todd Gilbert, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University

“This may be the hardest part of being a doula: You have found that inner power and have seen it work a hundred or more times, but you cannot make that journey happen for another woman, no matter how much you love her.” ~ sss

“My job as a doula is to mother the mother, to be the best doula I can be; to make her feel that she succeeded with the tools that she had come with and that she was a success. She should know she did a smashing job at this birth and that I fully trust she will be an equally awesome mother, too.” ~ sss

 “If a doula were a drug, it would be unethical not to use it.”  ~ John H. Kennell 

 “Natural childbirth has evolved to suit the species, and if mankind chooses to ignore her advice and interfere with her workings we must not complain about the consequences. We have only ourselves to blame.” ~ Margaret Jowitt

 “The whole point of woman-centered birth is the knowledge that a woman is the birth power source. She may need, and deserve, help, but in essence, she always had, currently has, and will always have the power.” ~ Heather McCue

“Around us, life bursts with miracles--a glass of water, a ray of sunshine, a leaf, a caterpillar, a flower, laughter, raindrops. If you live in awareness, it is easy to see miracles everywhere. Each human being is a multiplicity of miracles. Eyes that see thousands of colors, shapes, and forms; ears that hear a bee flying or a thunderclap; a brain that ponders a speck of dust as easily as the entire cosmos; a heart that beats in rhythm with the heartbeat of all beings. When we are tired and feel discouraged by life's daily struggles, we may not notice these miracles, but they are always there.” 
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Zen Buddhist monk, teacher, author, poet, and peace activist.

 “It's not just the making of babies, but the making of mothers that midwives [and doulas] see as the miracle of birth.” ~ Barbara Katz Rothman

 “Many Western doctors hold the belief that we can improve everything, even natural childbirth in a healthy woman. This philosophy is the philosophy of people who think it deplorable that they were not consulted at the creation of Eve, because they would have done a better job.” ~ Dr. Kloosterman

 “For far too many women pregnancy and birth is something that happens to them rather than something they set out consciously and joyfully to do themselves.” ~ Sheila Kitzinger

 “However much we know about birth in general, we know nothing about a particular birth. We must let it unfold with its own uniqueness. ~ Elizabeth Nobel

 “Women's strongest feelings [in terms of their birthings], positive and negative, focus on the way they were treated by their caregivers.” ~ Annie Kennedy & Penny Simkin

 “A healthy woman who delivers spontaneously performs a job that cannot be improved upon.” ~ Aidan MacFarlane, author of The Psychology of Childbirth

 “We are made to do this work and it’s not easy…. I would say that pain is part of the glory, or the tremendous mystery of life. And that if anything, it's a kind of privilege to stand so close to such an incredible miracle.” ~ Simone Taylor

 “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ~Maya Angelou

 “The effort to separate the physical experience of childbirth from the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of this event has served to disempower and violate women.”
~ Mary Rucklos Hampton

“There is a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful. It's that women are strong.” ~ Laura Stavoe Harm

 “The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 “Sometimes the only thing that makes a woman’s pregnancy high risk is her choice of a care provider.” ~ Anonymous

 “Just as a woman's heart knows how and when to pump, her lungs to inhale, and her hand to pull back from fire, so she knows when and how to give birth.” ~ Virginia Di Orio

 “Anyone who thinks women are the weaker sex never witnessed childbirth.” ~ Anonymous

 “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” ~ Mark Twain

 “Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 “You are assisting at someone else’s birth. Do good without show or fuss. Facilitate what is happening rather than what you think ought to be happening. If you must take the lead, lead so that the mother is helped, yet still free and in charge. When the baby is born, the mother will rightly say: 'We did it ourselves!'” ~ From Lao Tzu, father of Chinese Taoism, from his classic text called, Tao Te Ching: The Way of All Life, 6th Century B.C.

 “Putting women in the position of coping with conflict when they should be concentrating on having their babies counts as an intervention in itself!” ~ Unknown

 “We are the mothers, after all, the ones who speak the cultural narrative and teach it through, well, old wives' tales, which is to say, the ancient, subversive, and immediate mother tongue, the language of metaphor and myth.” ~ Ellen McLaughlin

 “The source of love is deep in us and we can help others realize a lot of happiness. One word, one action, one thought can reduce another person’s suffering and bring that person joy.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

 “Speak tenderly to them. Let there be kindness in your face, in your eyes, in your smile, in the warmth of our greeting. Always have a cheerful smile. Don’t only give your care, but give your heart as well.” ~ Mother Teresa

 “A wizard is never late, Frodo Baggins. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when he means to.” Gandalf in JRR Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings.

 “There is no way out of the experience except through it, because it is not really your experience at all but the baby's. Your body is the child's instrument of birth.” 
~ Penelope Leach

“Women today not only possess genetic memory of birth from a thousand generations of women, but they are also assailed from every direction by information and misinformation about birth.” ~ Valerie El Halta

 “Three hundred thousand women will be giving birth with you today. Relax and breathe and do nothing else. Labor is hard work; it hurts and you can do it.”~ Unknown

 “The truth for women living in a modern world is that they must take increasing responsibility for the skills they bring into birth if they want their birth to be natural. Making choices of where and with whom to birth is not the same as bringing knowledge and skills into your birth regardless of where and with whom you birth.” 
~ Common Knowledge Trust

 “Ask me for strength and I will lend not only my hand, but also my heart.”
~ Unknown

 “Mothers don’t breastfeed, babies breastfeed.  Babies know how if we let them.” 
~ Dr. Nils Bergman

“Giving birth should be your greatest achievement not your greatest fear.”
~ Jane Fraser Weideman

“Attending births is like growing roses. You have to marvel at the ones that just open up and bloom at the first kiss of the sun but you wouldn’t dream of pulling open the petals of the tightly closed buds and forcing them to blossom to your time line.” ~ Gloria Lemay

“We've put birth in the same category with illness and disease and it's never belonged there. Birth is naturally safe, but we've allowed it to be taken over by the medical community.”
~ Carla Hartley,  Ancient Art Midwifery Institute

 “The traditional midwife believes that birth proceeds in a spiral fashion: labor starts, stops and starts, while the baby goes down, up and down, and the cervix opens, closes and opens. Nature has no design for failure; she holds her own meaning for success.” 
~ Sher Willis

 “Birthing is the most profound initiation to spirituality a woman can have.” ~ Robin Lim

There is a quote, by Laura Stavoe Harm that reads, “There is a secret in our culture and it is not that birth is painful, but that women are strong.”

More quotes coming soon

To leave comments at this blog, please email me at: ssskimchee@gmail.com