The natural process of the growth of a new baby, from conception to birth, and the care of the motherbaby does not need to be considered a medical event, but rather, a holy, sacred time in the lives of a new family. It is my deep longing that the women of the world and their families come to understand that the seasons of pregnancy, journey of birth, and motherbaby moon time, are indeed profoundly spiritual events. Experiencing this natural process to the fullest, with spiritual awareness, brings an added depth and understanding to a new mother, and influences her mothering, for the rest of her life.

Attitudes and beliefs will affect how a woman births and how she cares for her baby. Giving this experience over to the medical care industry effects how a woman feels about herself both as a woman, and as a mother. The way a mother birthed and cared for baby will be deeply embedded in that child's way of being. Women are born with the inborn ability to grow, birth, and care for their babies. My dream is that women do trust, or learn to trust and believe in, the great design of what nature has intended.

Women, by being born women, intuitively know how to do this work. Natural mothers, and the midwives that attend them, know and trust the entire process. Judy Luce, a midwife from Vermont, writes on this idea in an article, The Knowing Body and Remembering Heart,

A midwife assures a woman that she does "know" how to give birth; it is genetically encoded in each of her cells. It is a "memory" that came through her mother and her mother's mother and before; the umbilical cord of knowledge and inspiration coils back in time and into the future in the birth of our daughters. (Luce, Midwifery Today, Winter 2004, p.19).

It is possible that future generations of women could forget how to be natural mothers if their mothers before them had given themselves over to the medical world. The life we live becomes encoded in the deepest parts of our being. In the words of medical intuitive and author Caroline Myss, "Our biography becomes our biology" (www.myss.com, 2004).
We must carefully consider what is lost when mothers give themselves and their babies to the Western medical way of thinking. In much of the United States the cesarean rate is 27% of all births. The epidural rates are skyrocketing. We are in danger of forgetting how to birth our own babies, simply because we are being convinced that we aren't able to do it, or that we shouldn't want to fully experience these sacred seasons of our lives as mothers.

Our culture has a campaign to "Say No to Drugs." And yet, a majority of the babies are born with drugs flowing through their bodies. Is there any wonder that there are many health issues with our children when they were bottle fed, vaccinated, and fed a less than optimally nutritious diet? Is there any wonder that many children lack emotional health when they were not held closely to their mothers as infants and were not listened to?
When a mother chooses to become a natural mother she chooses to connect, or reconnect, with biological order. The wisdom of nature and natural process are her guides. This ancient knowledge comes to a natural mother through her intuition.

A midwife supports and trusts the mother's intuitive knowledge. Aside from being a watchful eye and guardian through the seasons of pregnancy and motherbaby moon time, a woman's midwife is her teacher and friend. Together, the mother, her family, and their midwife walk the journey together. After all, it has only been since the 1920s that babies were born in hospitals. Women have done quite well in growing, birthing, and caring for their babies throughout human history.