Читать книгу Stand and Deliver!: And other Brilliant Ways to Give Birth - Emma Mahony - Страница 9

From the moment I realized as a little girl that my biological destiny was to have a baby, childbirth hung over my head like the sword of Damocles. Unless you are a child of a flower-power mother, and strew daisies on the floor while Mummy laboured in a yurt, birth seems a frightening and mysterious act. You know it’s going to be awful because you have watched ER on TV, and seen the actresses pinned to beds by machinery, flailing around like salmon on the end of a line. You believe it is just as likely to happen in the back of your car, because these are the horror stories that you read about in the papers. And, most of all, you are convinced that it will hurt more than having all your teeth removed with string and a doorknob, because every stand-up comedian has cracked that joke (and no one ever heckles). Our cultural conditioning around birth is so firmly implanted on our mind map that it is amazing women fall pregnant in the first place (well, perhaps not, post-Sex and the City). We all live under the illusion that a ‘cure’ will be found during those nine months of gestation.

Well, I’m here to convince you today that birth can be fun. Say it extremely quietly, but there are plenty of women who have actually enjoyed giving birth. So much so, that they want to go and do it all over again AS SOON AS IT IS OVER (now you understand the hushed whispers). Don’t believe all the doomsayers. Birth does not have to be like sitting O levels unprepared. If it goes right, it can be a wonderful, transforming, empowering experience that can change your image of yourself and your life for the better. I’m not saying it won’t hurt. The ‘ring of fire’ has never been more aptly named. I’m just saying that pain and pleasure go hand in hand, especially if you add to the cocktail some powerful hormones to help it all along.

The birth of a baby is a defining moment in every woman’s life, and the better it goes, the easier her transition into motherhood. So, how do we rid ourselves of all the cultural conditioning that makes us think that birth is a bad thing, a terrifying and horrible experience to be endured rather than enjoyed? Through cultural unconditioning.