Читать книгу Stand and Deliver!: And other Brilliant Ways to Give Birth - Emma Mahony - Страница 28

Elizabeth Gilmore set up an $800,000 birth centre in New Mexico, had the midwives employ the doctors, and brought the C-section rate down from 35 per cent to 4 per cent in the town of Taos. It has the highest out-of-hospital birth rate in the United States. I visited Elizabeth out there, interested to hear some of her Wild West views on birthing better. Here’s what she said:

Have you ever seen an auction of expensive Arabian mares? I happened to catch one on the news the other day. They are raised in beautiful stalls, lovely fields full of grass, woken up every morning with hot mash. They get massaged and washed and played with, and swim in these special tanks. Because these mares are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a foal up to a million dollars, they get pampered and spoiled, with ribbons woven into their hair. What if we thought that each pregnant woman was worth a million dollars, and we treated her like a princess, like an Arabian mare, and that her baby was worth millions of dollars because that baby was going to be a contributor to society?

Just imagine. Because no one else is going to do it for you. Pregnancy is your time to pamper and spoil yourself.

If you are a working mother looking after a small child at home, or a working mother commuting to and from an office, then there is even more cause for some Arabian-mare treatment. If it helps to think that you are doing this for the good of your baby, rather than yourself, then so be it. Whatever it takes to keep you looking after yourself. Any of the therapies you choose to have will help you during the birth, but in ways that you probably can’t see from where you are sitting now. It may be that they give you time to focus on your body, or teach you how to relax, or remind you how well you can cope with a little pain and discomfort – like my recent reflexology session taught me when I went in with blocked sinuses.