Instead, I'd like to trust. I do trust birth. The more births I attend, the more I trust. Most of the births I attend are natural, unmedicated births so yes, I do trust! When do I sometimes fear? When interventions and management completely take over the process and the environment changes from one of trust to fear. I want to take that out of the atmosphere for women. I want to prevent that air of fear in their birthing space. My recipe is this: Prenatal education, nutritional counseling, labor and birth preparation, support for mothers throughout the entire process (ah-hem...doulas!), and caring/trusting care providers in a setting where mom is most comfortable. Wah-lah. Trust needs to start appearing more in hospitals...it cannot just be the gift that homebirth and some birth center's provide. This needs to be available for all women.
I have another thought that I often ponder. What if hospital staff attend some non hospital births sometime? I think it should be a part of their training - no matter who they are. How much difference that would make if all nurses, doctors, and midwives saw the normalcy of it all enough times to cause them to reflect on their own practices in the hospitals? It seems to be getting worse rather than better. How else can we create trust again?