When you destroy midwives, you also destroy a body of knowledge that is shared by women, that can’t be put together by a bunch of surgeons or a bunch of male obstetricians, because physiologically, birth doesn’t happen the same way… — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share Image
It would be a mistake, though, to consider care by family doctors or midwives inferior to that offered by obstetricians simply on the grounds that obstetricians need not refer care to a family physician or midwife if no complications develop… — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share Image
The way a culture treats women in birth is a good indicator of how well women and their contributions to society are valued and… — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share Image
“The techno-medical model of maternity care, unlike the midwifery model, is comparatively new on the world scene, having existed for barely two centuries. This male-derived framework for care is a product of the industrial revolution. As anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd has described in detail, underlying the technocratic mode of care of our own time is an assumption that the human body… — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share
The best a health care system can do is to equip itself to meet the needs of each individual woman and birth. Those needs… — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share Image
Why do we, then, continue to treat women as if their emotions and comfort, and the postures they might want to assume while in… — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share Image
I had to learn not to let anyone push me around, to be brave and to say things I knew might make people mad. — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share Image
When we as a society begin to value mothers as the givers and supporters of life, then we will see social change in ways… — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share Image
“I have felt incredible energy and life force through my body, and I have really been reborn a happier, healthier, and more confident person.… — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share Image
“Remember this, for it is as true and true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so… — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share
Simply put, when there is no home birth in a society, or when home birth is driven completely underground, essential knowledge of women’s capacities… — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share Image
A society that places a low value on its mothers and the process of birth will suffer an array of negative repercussions for doing… — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share Image
I know of no country in the world that has passed a law specifically denying a woman's right to choose where she intends to… — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share Image
“Many midwives work as employees in large hospital practices, where the techno-medical model of care is still the rule. In practices like these, midwives… — Ina May Gaskin Copy Share Image
