Ecstatic Belly Birth!
By Debra woods
In keeping with the Ecstatic Birth approach, Caesarean birth has the potential to be positive, empowering and ecstatic! How is this possible, you may ask? Having an Ecstatic Birth isn’t based on a particular set of circumstances, a specific outcome, or about birthing in a certain way. Ecstatic Birth is an invitation to turn our relationship to birth upside down and inside out to provide a pathway to feeling empowered, joyful and connected. It’s about celebrating every step in the direction of pleasure and empowerment. Ecstatic Birth is about an attitude, a mindset – one of going with the flow, acceptance of the unexpected and finding a way to embrace changes. You locate your truth in each moment. Surrender expectations – be in the moment. Taking responsibility for your journey. You make choices that are right for you rather than the ‘right choices’. They arise from your inner body wisdom. This approach emphasizes being open to what is, moving with the moment to moment unfolding of your unique birthing journey, and understanding that birth can’t be planned.
Like life, birth doesn’t always adhere to the ideal, go always to plan. How might you still have a positive, satisfying birth? One way is by reframing. It’s about transforming unexpected scenarios and outcomes in birth into your point of power. This is the practice of receiving whatever emerges and consciously moving through it towards the expansion that is waiting on the other side. To recognize that no matter what unexpected twists and turns may unfold in your journey, it is YOUR journey. You can come through one of the most intense experiences of your life full of self-love and new knowing.
How can you come to birth and the unexpected and be at peace, flow with it, find flexibility/different response that invites all is ok, or honours exactly what is present and proceed in the face of that – disappointment, grief, loss, upset, sense of failure, defeated – and carry on? You have choice as to how you respond. This is the foundation of Ecstatic Birth. You don’t have control over how your birth unfolds, but you do have choice as to how you feel about what is happening. This is the key to having an Ecstatic Birth, no matter what that looks like. A caesarean birth can be an ecstatic birth and the birthing person is the one who determines that.
To learn more about Ecstatic Birth, please join our class. https://www.childbearing.org/ecstatic-birth-class
To read more about having a positive caesarean experience:
https://sarahbuckley.com/how-to-have-the-best-cesarean/
https://scbp.ca/assets/documents/6_1_Best_cesarean_ever.pdf
https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?extid=79ghdmwi1FHD1nMN&v=1984583021601187&ref=watch_permalink
Debra Woods is one of the Childbearing Society’s instructors, who specializes in teaching about Home Birth and Ecstatic Birth. She has been a birth and postpartum doula since the late 1980’s and also a certified childbirth educator since the 1990’s. Over the decades she has seen many changes in our culture regarding childbirth - primarily a more highly medicalized model being practiced, with the over use of technology being implemented, leading to high rates of interventions and increased caesarean births. As an educator she has continued to have a strong desire to share her knowledge about the current state of birth with expectant couples, in order to dispel some of the common myths and beliefs that impact their choices and decisions.
