Assistants Quote by Grantly Dick-Read

Maternity is on the face of it an unsociable experience. The selfishness that a woman has learned to stifle or to dissemble where she…

— Emily James Smith Putnam

. . . the labor with which we give birth is simply a rehearsal for something we mothers must do over and over: turn…

— Susan Piver

All that is needed for the majority of labors to go well is a healthy, pregnant woman who has loving support in labor, self-confidence…

— Sheila Kitzinger

When you are in hard labor, remember that the length of labor is usually proportional to the number of people around. Avoid the presence…

— Michel Odent

So many words commonly used to describe childbirth-support, patient, management, delivered by, coached, helped, guided-suggest that a woman does not have the power to…

— Michel Odent

The woman in labor must have NO STRESS placed upon her. She must be free to move about, walk, rock, go to the bathroom…

— Grantly Dick-Read

“Women today do not believe that their bodies know what to do, much less that their babies also know what to do. Because they…

— Suzanne Arms

Given Freudian assumptions about the nature of children and the biological predestination of mothers, it is unthinkable for mothers voluntarily to leave their babies…

— Sandra Scarr

...one cannot actively help a woman to give birth. The goal is to avoid disturbing her unnecsessarily.

— Michel Odent

It is not only that we want to bring about an easy labor, without risking injury to the mother or the child; we must…

— Grantly Dick-Read

Motherhood is an essential, difficult, and full-time job. Women who do not wish to be mothers should not have babies.

— Edward Abbey

It's very rare to see an undisturbed birth in a modern U.S. teaching hospital, but when you see a woman who isn't frightened, who's…

— Ina May Gaskin