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I have never observed even the slightest laceration in a woman who used clitoral stimulation as a relaxation method during birth. Clitoral stimulation seems to increase vaginal engorgement as the baby emerges.

Ina May Gaskin

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Ina May Gaskin
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: March 8
Midwife
Obstetrician
Used
Relaxation
Even
Observed
Never
Method
Increase
Birth
Baby
Stimulation
Woman
Emerges
Seems
Slightest

More quotes by Ina May Gaskin

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When we as a society begin to value mothers as the givers and supporters of life, then we will see social change in ways that matter.
Ina May Gaskin
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The energy that gets the baby in is the energy that gets the baby out.
Ina May Gaskin
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Gardeners know that you must nourish the soil if you want healthy plants. You must water the plants adequately, especially when seeds are germinating and sprouting, and they should be planted in a nutrient-rich soil. Why should nutrition matter less in the creation of young humans than it does in young plants? I'm sure that it doesn't.
Ina May Gaskin
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It's good to laugh at times that feel inappropriate.
Ina May Gaskin
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When you destroy midwives, you also destroy a body of knowledge that is shared by women, that can’t be put together by a bunch of surgeons or a bunch of male obstetricians, because physiologically, birth doesn’t happen the same way around surgeons, medically trained doctors, as it does around sympathetic women.
Ina May Gaskin
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If a woman doesn't look like a Goddess during labor, then someone isn't treating her right.
Ina May Gaskin
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A society that places a low value on its mothers and the process of birth will suffer an array of negative repercussions for doing so. Good beginnings make a positive difference in the world, so it is worth our while to provide the best possible care for mothers and babies throughout this extraordinarily influential part of life.
Ina May Gaskin
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Breast stimulation is especially effective in starting labor at term when it is combined with sexual intercourse. Unless your partner is an abysmally poor lover, this combination is by far the most enjoyable method of induction.
Ina May Gaskin
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It would be a mistake, though, to consider care by family doctors or midwives inferior to that offered by obstetricians simply on the grounds that obstetricians need not refer care to a family physician or midwife if no complications develop during a course of labor.
Ina May Gaskin
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I think midwifery was developed by people with common sense, people who were close to nature, and people who observed other species of mammals and saw that there were lessons there to be learned.
Ina May Gaskin
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Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.
Ina May Gaskin
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Whenever and however you give birth, your experience will impact your emotions, your mind, your body, and your spirit for the rest of your life.
Ina May Gaskin
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It will take your breastfed baby an average of five to six months to double her birth weight.
Ina May Gaskin
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Pregnant and birthing mothers are elemental forces, in the same sense that gravity, thunderstorms, earthquakes, and hurricanes are elemental forces. In order to understand the laws of their energy flow, you have to love and respect them for their magnificence at the same time that you study them with the accuracy of a true scientist.
Ina May Gaskin
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If birth matters, midwives matter. In Europe, there are hospitals where the cesarean rate is less than 10%, and you'll find midwives in these hospitals, you'll see a lot less re-admissions with infections and complications, and you'll see a lot less injury to mothers.
Ina May Gaskin
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We are the only species of mammal that doubts our ability to give birth. It's profitable to scare women about birth. But let's stop it. I tell women: Your body is not a lemon.
Ina May Gaskin
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Why should nutrition matter less in the creation of young humans than it does in young plants? I'm sure that it doesn't.
Ina May Gaskin
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The way a culture treats women in birth is a good indicator of how well women and their contributions to society are valued and honored.
Ina May Gaskin
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Squat 300 times a day, you’re going to give birth quickly.
Ina May Gaskin
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The best a health care system can do is to equip itself to meet the needs of each individual woman and birth. Those needs run the gamut from undisturbed home birth to planned cesarean section.
Ina May Gaskin