Ina May Gaskin Quotes

To try to help people have babies in a healthy way and to celebrate the process of delivering a child which will be healthy is, I think, almost the best part of healthcare.

...thousands of women could be saved each year if they had access to skilled care during pregnancy and childbirth, and access to emergency obstetric care. Most of the interventions they need are simple, affordable, and highly effective.

We should work to guarantee that there is a midwife or health worker by every woman's side during childbirth.

I wanted to deliver babies and become a midwife. I think childbirth is one of the most amazing things you could ever experience, and I loved working with people and seeing the joys in family when they welcome a new member to it. It really brought me joy to be around that.

There's a reason women are pregnant for nine months; by the end, you're ready to have this baby.

I know we can't always know what medical surprises may happen during childbirth. But my hope is to go fully natural - no epidural, no interventions. Wish me luck.

How may child bearing women be most encouraged and supported in the time of childbearing?

In some countries, as many as 91 percent of women have no one at their side to assist them during labor and delivery.

From conception to delivery, it has been a great experience. I was determined to give a natural birth.

Birth Matters... It matters because it is the way we all begin our lives outside of our source, our mother's bodies. It's the means from which we enter and feel our first impression of the wider world. For each mother, it is an event that shakes and shapes her to her innermost core. Women's perceptions about their bodies and their babies' capabilities will be deeply influenced by the care they receive around the time of birth.

The expert is a midwife. The expert is not someone who has the authority to pronounce the last word on the subject.

Every woman, whoever she is, wherever she lives, should be able to give birth without the fear she's going to lose her baby or that her baby will lose her mother.

Childbirth, as a strictly physical phenomenon, is comparable to driving a United Parcel truck through an inner tube.

I don't have those great, strong, glowing pregnancies.

Pregnancy is of course confined to women, but it is in other ways significantly different from the typical covered disease or disability.

I quote the following statement which I saw the other day: "We have lost in all the wars waged in this country since the Declaration of Independence, 244,000 men, killed in battle, and in the past twenty-five years we have lost 375,000 mothers in child birth." Prenatal care in the early months is vitally important and we should do all we can to educate young mothers to go to a doctor if they can afford it, if not to a free clinic to be taught how care for themselves. This is necessary not only for mothers but the babies. With proper care before birth, a child will come into world stronger and healthier.

Sharing our experience with pregnancy was incredibly important because we realized how challenging and difficult that was, and there are really dark moments where you think you're alone.

I never understood when people go, 'Oh my gosh, it's so easy being pregnant.' No, it's hard. It's the most beautiful thing, yes, but it's hard.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I was 35 years old, and I was working in a pet shop.

I, as a man, don't even pretend to know what a woman goes through during pregnancy.

You realize when you're pregnant how lucky you are to have access to medical care.

I thought, 'When I get pregnant, someone will be looking for a pregnant woman. I'll do a movie about a pregnant woman.' But that didn't happen.

I think pregnancy is a huge responsibility.

In the world of maternal health, cell phone technology is being used to provide prenatal care, linking pregnant women to health care providers when they can't otherwise reach healthcare facilities.

My entire pregnancy with Major, I was nervous about enduring another long labor.