M. Odent: "The point is to rediscover the basic needs of women in labour"

...Why not offer a ceasarian section to all women? People have some intuitive knowledge that there is something wrong in this conclusion. They feel that the way we are born have longterm consequences, that we have to think in terms of civilization... we have to introduce new criteria to evaluate how we are born. These people often think that they don't need scientific data to transmit their intuitive knowledge, they think that they can just speak the language of the heart and that's enough... but nobody will listen... 

...They have to learn to combine what they can transmit with the language of the heart also with what we are learning today from a scientific perspective which are usually outside the field of medicine... There are several of them, but all participate in what I call the "scientification of love". Until recently, love was the topic of poets, philosophers, novelists. Today, love is studied by several scientific perspectives... Ethnologists were the first ones to tell us in particular that among all mammals, immediately after the birth of the baby, there is a short period of time, which will never happen again and which is critical in the mother-baby attachment... Since then so many other data from so many other perspectives have appeared. Probably the most spectacular ones at the present time, are the data provided by those who study the behavioral of hormones involving childbirth... like oxytocin. 

...What we are learning today is that oxytocin is not necessary just to contract the uterus for the birth of the baby and the delivery of the placenta... Oxytocin may be considered as the typical love hormone... So, in order to give birth mammals in general and women in particular, are supposed to release a complex cocktail of love hormones... When we know that it is the capacity to love which is involved in the way we are born, we have to learn to think in terms of civilization. We are really at a turning point in the history of childbirth, perhaps also in the history of mankind. 

...We can wonder why in our society and almost everywhere in the world, most women today cannot release the hormone they are supposed to release when giving birth. The reason is we have completely forgotten what the basic needs of a laboring woman are... That is because the birth process has been controlled by the cultural millieus for thousands of years. Also scientists have dramatically disturbed the birth process... The key when a woman is giving birth is to maintain her level of adrenalin as low as possible. When she releases a lot of adrenalin, she cannot release the hormone necessary for childbirth which is oxytocin...

...What we have to do today is to rediscover what is simple. An overview of what I learnt during the past 50 years or even more, is that the typical good environment for a good birth is when there is nobody around but an experienced, motherly, low-profile, silent midwife. That's what the main preocuppation of a midwife should be - to maintain the mother's level of  adrenalin as low as possible. We have to rediscover who was the midwife originally... She was a mother figure. And with our mother, in an ideal world, we feel secure - a basic need when giving birth - without feeling observed or judged - privacy, another basic need during childbirth.

...The important thing to realize is how societies have dramatically disturbed the birth process for thousands of years mostly with beliefs and rituals. I'll give you an example. If you transmit the belief that the colostrum is bad (this is what the baby can find in the breast immediately after birth). To modern science it is a precious substance, but most societies have claimed it is dangerous, which means that when the baby is born, she must not be in the arms of the mother but in the arms of somebody else. And for that you need a ritual, which is the widespread ritual of cutting the cord. This is a certain way to disturb what we call the third stage of labour, a time which is vital for the survival of the mother... a phase which is critical for the capacity to love. There are thousands of similar examples. The conclusion is that today, if we want to rediscover the basic needs of women in labour we cannot rely on any cultural model. That's why we need the perspective of physiology (the study of humanly functions) which is universal. 

...The point is not to reduce the rates of Ceasarian sections... that could lead to difficult vaginal births... with epidural, forceps etc. The point is to rediscover the basic needs of women in labor. And the rest will follow...