Pleasure in Birth



Why doesn't anyone tell pregnant women that pleasure will make labor easier?  

That orgasm is an opening device of the womb?

Why doesn't anyone acknowledge that labor is sexual? 

That the same organs are involved in sex as in birth, the same hormones.

That just like to make love, intimacy is required. 

The sweat, moans, gasps, blank eyes, hips on the move... 

How has birth / sex become so rigid and controlled? 

Orgasm requires putting your brain at rest and lowering into your body. 

Birth happens in the same way. 

Many women live faking orgasms to fit a patriarchal model. But the thing is, you can't fake labor. 

Oxytocin is the main hormone responsible for uterine contractions, and it is very sensitive; it needs peace of mind, dim light, and confidence. 

No matter how close you are to birthing your baby, if someone breaks into the room without warning, or turns on strong lights, or tells you something very technical, the natural flow is cut off. The process involves stimulation of the neocortex, generating adrenaline, and inhibiting the natural birth process. 

They call it failure to progress in labor. 

I don't think this is a failure -- no one fails to give birth. 

It's more like centuries of sexual repression, linked to poor information, based on fear, that causes all these unnecessary interventions and suffering in birth. 

"In short, birth is a sexual act that would be performed with the ultimate gratification of pleasure for human creatures, if the sexuality of the woman that stops it were not destroyed." -Wilhelm Reich 

"...the work of labor can be a succession of truly good contractions, because they are pleasure generators." -Frédérick Leboyer 

"Even the divine curse 'you will give birth in pain' implies that it wasn't always so." -Casilda Rodrigañez 


-originally published in Spanish, author unknown 
translation by Danelle Day 





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