Midwifery Education: Trauma or Transformation?
From Paths to Becoming a Midwife, Midwifery Today, 2010.
In the early 1990’s, two events prompted me to revise my goals as a midwifery educator. First, a prominent California midwife and dear friend who, after considerable legal harassment, felt forced to become a nurse-midwife, shared her bitter experience of retraining. She was so disheartened by the condescending tone and hazing practices of her primary instructors that she finally complained to the program director, who casually responded, “Why is it that midwives always eat their young?”
Intuition and Birth
An excerpt from Orgasmic Birth: Your Guide to a Safe, Satisfying, and Pleasurable Birth Experience, by Elizabeth Davis and Debra Pascali-Bonaro, Rodale Press: New York, 2010.
“I love and respect birth. The body is a temple, it creates its own rites, its own prayers…all we must do is listen. With the labor and birth of my daughter I went so deep down, so far into the underworld that I had to crawl my way out. I did this only by surrendering. I did this by trusting the goddess in my bones. She moved through me and has left her power in me.”
Blood Mysteries
An excerpt from The Women’s Wheel of Life, by Elizabeth Davis and Carol Leonard, Bad Beaver Publishing, 2012.
Mystery is defined as that which is beyond understanding, that which baffles or perplexes, that which is profound and known only by revelation. When we speak of women’s Blood Mysteries, we are referring to the biological events of Menarche, Childbirth, and Menopause that are accompanied by changed perspective and the influx of knowledge beyond reason. We don’t know why we change and grow and acquire knowledge so dramatically at these times, but we do–this is the Mystery. And as we share this knowledge, the revelations linked to changes in our bodies, we reclaim the power and wisdom inherent in being women.
The Sexuality of Pregnancy & Birth
An excerpt from The Rhythms of Women’s Desire: How Female Sexuality Unfolds at Every Stage of Life, by Elizabeth Davis, Hunter House Publishers, 2013.
When conception occurs, a complex series of hormonal, physical, and psychological changes begin to take place. These changes profoundly affect a woman’s emotional stability and sense of self. Especially at first, pregnancy can make a woman feel like her life has been turned on end. But this is normal; it is part of the process.
Pregnancy is comprised of three trimesters, each lasting approximately thirteen weeks. Each of these trimesters has its own challenges and joys, which begin to make sense when the process is viewed as a whole.