Morgan Preparing for Natural Childbirth

A Guide to Understanding the Birth Process and Supporting a Positive Experience
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-80765-386-6
Verlag: PublishDrive
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 126 Seiten

Preparing for Natural Childbirth is a reflective and practical guide that explores the emotional, psychological, and physical dimensions of pregnancy and birth. The book examines how personal history, family relationships, cultural messages, and previous birth experiences can shape a woman's expectations of labor and delivery. Through structured exercises, guided visualizations, journaling prompts, and birth inventories, it encourages readers to understand their own birth story, address unresolved fears, and prepare for a more conscious and supported childbirth experience. Intended for expectant mothers and couples seeking a deeper understanding of natural childbirth, this guide combines narrative case examples with workbook-style activities designed to foster emotional awareness and self-reflection. It emphasizes body-centered preparation, partner communication, bonding after birth, and the development of confidence in both labor and early motherhood. The overall approach is experiential and introspective, integrating research insights with practical tools to support women in preparing for childbirth in a way that acknowledges both medical realities and emotional well-being.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Morgan, Rachel

Leseproben

INTRODUCTION

WHEN I BECAME PREGNANT with my daughter in the spring of 1973, I was twenty-two years old. I had graduated recently from Indiana University with a degree in psychology, but had not given much thought to motherhood. The pregnancy was unplanned; if anyone had asked me before that whether I wanted to have children someday, I would have replied with a definite no. The responsibilities of parenthood brought up fear; they were not part of my life plan. Once I learned that I was six weeks pregnant, however, I was surprised by unexpected feelings of attachment to the unborn child. My husband’s excitement about having a baby helped me decide to continue the pregnancy. I did not yet know the richness that this decision would bring to my future. Nor could I have imagined that I would look back on this period of pregnancy, childbirth, and new motherhood as a pivotal event of my life—the cornerstone of my professional, as well as personal, development.

Early in my pregnancy I decided to give birth at home. I had discovered that in most American hospitals, fathers and friends were banned from the delivery room, and babies were whisked away to the nursery as soon as they emerged. Women whose physicians were acquainted with the work of natural-childbirth advocates such as Dick-Read, Lamaze, and Bradley were sometimes able to arrange for more humane conditions. Women who did not prepare for a natural childbirth or who had complications in labor risked having an emotionally ungratifying delivery.

The medical community’s unsatisfactory response to women’s emotional needs during childbirth and women’s growing desire to take charge of their health care had generated a grassroots home-birth movement. Many women turned to lay midwives, who provided the emotional sensitivity that was lacking in traditional hospital settings. The research that would ultimately promote changes in and arrangements for maternity wards, including alternative birthing rooms where families could stay together during and after the birth, had not yet been conducted. Ultimately, I would become one of the researchers who would support consumer demands for changes in hospital

policy. But I chose to deliver my baby at home simply because I felt that separation from my husband and close women friends would have a negative effect on my labor. I wanted to be with my baby during the first hours of life. Even in my inexperience, I sensed that emotional variables could have an impact on my baby’s birth.

I was fortunate to have received my prenatal care from lay midwives who prepared me for labor both physically and psychologically. Their gentle questions guided me to contemplation of this period of growth and change. My exploration of significant childhood memories and feelings helped me identify the kind of mother I wanted to be.

The midwives also encouraged their patients to learn from each other. We waited for our prenatal appointments in the living room of an old Victorian house, the home of my midwife, Kate. Mothers who had recently given birth shared their experiences with those of us who were pregnant, imparting realistic information about childbirth. Their birth stories helped me develop resources that I brought to my own labor. Although I had attended Lamaze preparation classes where I’d seen movies of women giving birth, none of these films had the impact of one uncensored audiotape that I was lucky enough to hear while I waited for my last prenatal appointment.

I will never forget Ann’s playing the audiotape of herself in labor, while she waited for her postpartum visit. The sounds of her wailing during a contraction resounded throughout the waiting area, as she nursed her two-week-old baby. I listened to this woman’s labor and at the same time watched her smile at her newborn. At once, both the reality of labor pain and the beauty of birth were communicated to me. The sounds of Ann’s labor provided me with a type of body education that my childbirth classes had lacked and readied me to meet my own labor without fear.

My daughter’s birth was a very moving experience for me. It was a natural childbirth, and I delivered her at home after eight hours of active labor, during which I felt the power of the life force traveling through me. That feeling came again with the birth of my son three years later. Both times I felt lucky to be a woman. I was able to meet, and enjoy, this experience only because I integrated the emotional work of this period of my life into my preparation for childbirth.

Wanting to share the richness of my own experience, I immersed myself in research on the safety of home delivery to see if my choice could be a viable one for other women. Lewis Mehl, M.D., Donald Creevy, M.D., Nancy Shaw, Ph.D., and I studied the outcomes of home births attended by Santa Cruz midwives in the early 1970s. Our initial research encouraged us to study prenatal care. This work led me to explore the way that emotional and psychological factors affect normal and healthy labors in any setting—home or hospital. Emotional factors proved second only to physical health and nutrition in importance for a normal labor and delivery.

During the past two decades, medical researchers have documented how a woman’s emotional state influences her reproductive physiology. In 1979 Gershon Levinson and Sol Shnider at the University of California in San Francisco published findings that linked maternal fear to dysfunctional labor patterns. One year later, Roberto Sosa, M.D., and his associates published research in The New England Journal of Medicine suggesting that the presence of a person who offered emotional support to the mother decreased the length of labor and enhanced mother/infant bonding immediately after birth. This kind of research helped to humanize standard hospital procedures. Hospital birthing rooms that provided for labor and delivery in one place became increasingly available in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Women were permitted to have family members present during labor and to keep their babies with them after delivery. Family-centered birth became an option for women with low-risk pregnancies.

An unfriendly setting and insufficient emotional support can cause anxiety during labor, as can unrealistic childbirth preparation and negative feelings about impending motherhood. If a woman is at ease with her ability to mother, her family relationships, and the anticipated change in her lifestyle, she will be able to turn her attention to preparation

for labor as childbirth approaches. Whether she readies herself for a natural birth or plans to use medication, she will need to develop skills for coping with pain. The more her expectation reflects the reality of birth, the less chance she will be shocked by an experience that is much harder and more intense than she had imagined.

Medical research has shown that fear can affect labor by decreasing blood levels of oxytocin, the hormone that causes contractions. I have found that a realistic, body-centered preparation helps a woman to integrate the intensity of labor even before it occurs. Body-centered preparation allows a woman to anticipate her own physical and emotional response to labor, to master her fear, and thus to give herself greater potential for a smooth and uncomplicated childbirth.

How a woman experiences childbirth may affect her confidence in the first days and weeks of mothering. Medical researchers John Kennell, Marshall Klaus, and M.A. Trause have shown that the hours and days immediately after birth are a sensitive period for mother/infant bonding. How the mother feels about her birth experience, no matter what course labor takes, may affect her relationship with her child. In my own clinical practice, I have observed that even years afterward women can reap psychological benefit from understanding their childbirth experience.

This book represents a continuation of my efforts to make childbirth an empowering and positive experience for women everywhere. Giving birth is the beginning of a mother’s relationship with her child. It is also an opportunity for her personal growth.

What You Will Learn

Over the last seventeen years I have developed a method of childbirth preparation. It is a synthesis of my practical experience working with birthing mothers and their families and clinical research on how emotions affect labor. Giving birth is an experience carried not only into the first days of motherhood but also throughout life, having far-reaching effects on the mother’s self-esteem and confidence.

This workbook, based on the method I use in my own practice, augments physical and psychological preparations for labor; helps you explore your personal history, feelings, and anxieties about childbirth; and equips you with skills that maximize your potential for normal delivery. It should be used in the order it is written, skipping those exercises that do not pertain to your situation. In this workbook you will learn how to confront your fears, heal your past, and prepare for the best labor possible. You will learn how to do the following:

• Resolve emotional concerns about giving birth and becoming a mother. You will be able to identify childhood feelings about your parents that will help you to understand your own experience of giving birth and becoming a mother. The birth inventory in chapter 1 and the exercises in chapter 2 will help you confront fears, identify feelings, and achieve the self-knowledge so important to a calm and confident approach to labor.

• Overcome fear caused by your own birth or your previous childbirths. Through the visualization exercises and journal writing described in chapters...