The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS, a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA

Naturally Occurring Midwives

What that phrase Naturally Occurring Midwife means to me is: a woman who rises to midwifery, naturally, in response to the need of another woman or other women. I believe that the ability to assist each other in childbirth is just as inherent to women as the ability to mother our children or breast-feed them. There are a rare few mothers who should probably not be allowed to mother or to breast-feed their own children, but, basically naturally occurring motherhood is safe and should be the standard. That, however has been so eroded that we have allowed ourselves to be stripped of our breast-feeding ability, and nearly stripped of our mothering rights. All the while these things were happening, we heard about "safety" and "something better" (remembering 'milk that is too rich', 'not rich enough', 'too caked', and also remembering mothers being told that day-care babies adjust "better" than home grown, etc. you get the picture, huh?) . I see a great parallel between these three things. I think that if things keep going in the direction they are going (nursery, artificial feeding, daycare, early schooling, etc.) that in 50 years or so we women will be fighting to keep our right to mother and raise our own children, too, just like we are fighting to retain midwifery today. Maybe someday in the future we will need to get a license and prove our ability (and our conformity) in order to MOTHER our children. If we just let ourselves be told faulty half-truths about safety and be fooled by studies that have the intention of proving the superiority of the artificially societally structured method, then we cannot go in any other direction. After all, who wants to be thought of as an unsafe mother, or a zealot breastfeeder, or a "fringy wacko" midwife for that matter.

I appreciate Certified Nurse Midwives and I am glad that they exist. But, I do not think they are the Naturally Occurring variety of midwife. There is no offense here intended, I just think that this is a fitting description a woman who does not possess a certificate, has not been trained with medically oriented convention, and who is not subject to regulation which covers every detail of her practice "protocols" thereby restraining her from following her inherent intuitive midwifery.

I feel as if I am going to Burst with JOY. This is so good. Maybe some of the other Naturally Occurring Midwives who are looking so earnestly for a way to get us all to be subjects of regulation will be able to see that the writing is not necessarily on the wall about licensing and regulation. I think, if we keep staying and getting more strong as Naturally Occurring Midwives who evolve in our communities and who continue to demonstrate that women are as inherently capable of assisting each other through childbirth as we are of mothering our children, we will be able to rise up out of this pit of incorrect birthing in which we now exist. The evidence will drown the opposition to this nature of women that really DOES EXIST!