Do You “Trust Birth?”

In making this short natural birth video for Indie Birth last week, I became clear on some crucial birth “concepts.” Plus, I get around on Facebook and such and there has been a lot of inter-midwife debates about the phrase “trust birth.”

So, what do I think? Do I Trust Birth?

Yeah, I do have trust in birth-most of the time, the process goes off without a hitch. But, I repeat, that is most of the time. Despite my core of spirituality in birth, I am a realist as well. I have seen freaky things happen. I have had friends whose babies have died in utero. I have been glad for the hospital and doctors I have transported to. I am by no way naive in thinking that birth is perfect, or that birth always works. It is a natural process, like the weather–sometimes things go awry, and a storm or a flood causes destruction.

And as I made this video and became clearer on exactly what I am trying to communicate to all women about birth, I actually got a little bit mad. Because the “Trust Birth” phrase started to sound really rigid, bossy, and I thought “who are these people telling women what to trust in?” Birth is to be respected, not blindly trusted. Or blindly feared. But how is it any better for women to be told what they need to trust over what they need to fear? We need to stop telling women what to do when it comes to birth. Honestly, I mean it, even with homebirth. Who am I to tell any woman that she should just trust birth and have her baby at home? Yes, that is my choice and an appropriate choice for many women. But I am no less rigid in my beliefs, then, than any natural birth fearing OB if I make a one-size fits all statement like “trust birth.”

It is not our place to tell women what to do.

There is no “right” choice, no “right” birth. Yes, I’d love every woman to bring her baby into the world gently, but that’s not reality.

What is reality and what we should be advocating trust in is this. The inner voice that we all have. Not “birth”, not even blind trust in our bodies or our babies. Yes, these things all work well most of the time but there is no perfect birth system. If we educate and empower women, if we support them to make decisions in love and not fear, then they will be able to accept whatever the future holds. They will have the “right” birth for them; not the one they “should” or “shouldn’t” have. Trusting birth means trusting that the process will go the way it needs to go. Not the way I need it to go, or the way it “should” go–but truly believing that it will unfold and happen as it needs to.

Plus, I have to say that too much mainstream attention to the “trust birth” mantra makes us (midwives) look a little too carefree, in my opinion. I want to help portray the picture of a midwife being educated, intelligent, intuitive; but also a true guardian of mother and baby, with safety and not our egos, being the most important. I fear that midwives are sometimes so unwilling to get into the medical game that it becomes US against THEM, and the ones to suffer that divide are our clients.

Lastly, as midwives, we need to find our own “truth” too. Getting really in touch with our comfort levels about things, how we want to care for women, what our boundaries are. We have to respect any midwife who makes the best choices she can and does the best she can because she knows who she is.

There is “trust: in birth; but it is trusting in the truth that we all possess.