birth / death - two sides of the same coin…

To fear birth is to fear death.

We live in a death phobic culture.

Dying is taboo. And it’s not supposed to happen, especially not to children, or new life.

But why isn’t it supposed to happen? 

Who makes the rules of entitlement to life, and for how long, is a good life?

No one is *entitled* to life. Life is a privilege. 

Of course, it’s natural to want our offspring to survive. We should want that.

Is this why we have seen the explosion of medically managed birth? It might be one part of the complex forces that have seen birth become a medicalised rite of passage for most.

Mere survival of the birth process is the expectation and where the bar is set. Survival is a dismally low threshold in birth.

Alive at all costs.

The “thank goodness” births (thank goodness I was at the hospital, they saved me/my baby).

We have traded the exquisiteness of biological birth with its ecstasy and transcendence for “safety” and being alive, at all costs. 

The fear of death looms large and unspoken.

Women and babies do not thrive in medically managed birth. There is an infinitisemal small percentage of instances where intervention may save a life, but mostly those platitudes are heavily overused to justify the horrors of intervention, and are lies.

If one is preparing for birth are we contending with death as well? We should be. Not in the sense that we’re inviting death in, but can we explore the continuum of birth and death with gentle curiousity and willingness. Can we face our fear and hold it? 

This post was inspired by the book ‘Die Wise - A manifesto for sanity and soul’, by Stephen Jenkinson.