The Power of Birth

Cinnabar was inspired by a lecture by childbirth educator Debra Pascali-Bonaro, who has written about orgasmic birth. That is, a childbirth experience that's about as far away from the medicalized, antiseptic experience most U.S. women have.

Link: Modest Goddess.

We’re too willing to hand over control of our births, and it hasn’t helped us. A third of women in the United States have C-sections, until a few years ago performed in only the most extreme of medical situations, and yet our infant mortality rate is among the highest of industrialized nations, as a recent report shows.

According to Bonnaro (via Cinnabar), the increased blood flow to the vaginal region and the release of oxytocin before and during birth are similar to that of sex -- times a couple hundred percent, I'm sure.

It seems women's bodies are in a natural state of flow, without those clear demarcations between different types of experience that culture has foisted on us. I have this vision -- which probably is idealistic -- of our bodies in a constant pre-orgasmic, oceanic state.

I wish!