According to the Bible, normal birthing in the early days of human civilization was most often handled by trained midwives. Hebrew Midwives were most often trained older women who had apprenticed with a midwife and a woman who had children herself and knew that children were a blessing from the Lord. Midwifery was seen as an office and a ministry and was accounted a great responsibility. These Midwives adhered to a strict level of cleanliness and employed natural means to assist women in childbearing. They also participated in a Titus 2 type ministry by helping to educate young women about their bodies, having children, and healthy pregnancies.
The Bible gives us a wonderful story about 2 Hebrew midwives in Egypt, Shiphrah & Puah, who were charged by Pharoah to kill all the male Hebrew babies (Ex.1). The Bible says these women feared God more than Pharoah and refused, but that is not the most startling part of the narrative. When called to account for their lack of compliance, these women told Pharoah that the Hebrew women didn't labor like the Egyptian women and delivered quickly and effortlessly with the babies arriving before they could get there. Pharoah accepted this information as fact and issued a new decree in light of these new facts. The Bible also goes on to say that God blessed these women and made them famous with large families of their own for their obedience to Him.
So, why did Pharoah accept this information? Because it was true!! The Hebrew women were hardy and ate healthy diets. They were physically active and fit. They didn't fear birth and counted children as a blessing and barrenness as a curse. They relied on older and wiser women to assist them in labor, delivery and early care of their children.
The Egyptian women counted pregnancy and children as an inconvenience and actively practiced abortion, infanticide and extreme measure to prevent pregnancy. The Egyptian women relied on slaves to do everything and were lazy, physically unfit and ate a less healthy diet. Egyptian women feared birth and avoided it at all costs. No wonder the Egyptian women had more problems than the Hebrew women.
Even in non-Hebrew cultures, midwives were the norm and not the exception. Most male doctors considered childbirth beneath their dignity and refused to participate in all but the most extreme cases of difficulty. Until the late 1400's doctors didn't even consider trying to regulate midwifery, much less take over the business of delivering babies.
During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, midwifery almost died out when barber-surgeons began trying to monopolize childbirth services. Women were forbidden to practice medicine or midwifery and many midwives were accused of being witches and killed. Only men were allowed in the medical schools and soon the Barber-Surgeon were delivering most of the babies.
Hospitals and asylums opened during the Renaissance to give medical students a place to learn their trade. The unfortunate side effect to this was an dramatic increase in childbed fever which killed vast numbers of new mothers because the students would come straight from the dissection tables to the labor wards and examine the women without washing their hands. This transmitted the diseases not only from the dead bodies to the initial patient, but from patient to patient as the doctor went from one laboring woman to another examining her internally. More women died from childbed fever than survived, and the largest percentage died within 48 hours of birth.
Many women still continued to give birth at home and slowly midwifery began to make a comeback. Midwife-assisted births had better outcomes and almost no evidence of the childbed fever rampant in hospitals. Some hospitals even employed midwives at one end of the hospital to care for the poor and less wealthy patients and doctors at the other end to deliver the babies of wealthy clients. Even here, the midwives' outcomes were better and incidence of childbed fever was much lower. Wealthier women who could afford the doctors often pleaded to be delivered by the midwives to avoid the death in the medical wards.
In 1847, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweiss instituted rules in his ward that physicians must wash between patients. He was convinced that the infections were being spread by the doctors and that the reasons midwives had better outcomes was directly related to their practices of cleanliness. This practice dramatically decreased the incidence of childbed fever, but most of his contemporaries ridiculed his research and continued to practice as they always had.
By the end of the 1800's many doctors were finally beginning to accept the research of Dr. Semmelweiss and others. Washing standards and protocols were instituted across Europe and American, but many women continued to favor delivering at home to a hospital delivery.
Things were beginning to change because of the introduction of chloroform in labor. Despite the fact that these chloroformed women were unable to care for their babies for several days while they recovered from the effects of the gas, a growing number of women saw the use of anesthetic to be a boon. Nurseries were started because mom was unable to care for her baby for several days, so the babies had to cared for by nursing staff.
In 1940, Twilight Sleep was introduced. This heavy dose of narcotics and amnesiacs completely incapacitated laboring women and caused women to loose control. Many were literally strapped to their beds to keep them from injuring themselves. Recovery was a long process because of the drugs and breastfeeding was more impossible than before. Dads were useless with this kind of labor and delivery, so they were relegated to the waiting room. Twilight sleep was also difficult on the babies were born sleepy and unable to respond or suck. Breathing was difficult and babies had to be watched carefully to insure that they didn't stop breathing. Many were force-fed in those first days after birth because they would not or could not suck effectively due to the drugs in their systems.
In 1944, Dr. Grantley Dick-Reed wrote Childbirth Without Fear. He studied midwives with laboring women and learned how these women assisted laboring women to give birth without medication using relaxation techniques. He also studied the fear-pain cycle and discovered that women who were not afraid of childbirth had less pain and fewer problems.
In 1953, Dr. Fernand Lamaze published his findings about labor and delivery in Russia. His philosophy substituted scientism for faith and introduced self-hypnotism as a method of coping and a way to remove God from the birth arena. His "prepared childbirth classes" were accepted by many hospitals because the instructors taught couples to accommodate hospital practices instead of listening to their own bodies. His work did, however, open the door to childbirth education classes and helped bring the father's back into the picture.
Not many years later, Dr. Robert Bradley introduced his philosophy of husband-coached childbirth in a book by the same name. Dr. Bradley believed that God gaver women the ability and instinct to give birth naturally. He encouraged fathers to take an active roll in pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. He advocated prepared, natural, non-medicated childbirth, breastfeeding, and shared parenting. He encouraged couples to rely on their faith in God and the skills they learning in childbirth classes to prepare them for labor and delivery.
In the late 1980's, a growing trend began taking childbirth back to basics. Advocates of non-medicated, non-interventive childbirth spawned new hope that women were inherently capable to giving birth safely and with manageable discomfort. Hospitals responded by the introduction of the LDR and birthing centers as free-standing birth centers births and homebirth statistics began to rise.
For the couple who desires a natural birth, there are lots more options today. Midwives once again assist couples to birth at home, free-standing birth centers or hospital. Community midwifery is practiced in every state in the union, although not legally in some. Unassisted deliveries occur every day by couples who either can't afford the services of a professional or choose to birth alone.
Childbirth classes of every flavor abound in most communities. Hospitals often offer classes to couples delivering in their facility, although often these classes may be more geared to teaching the couple to adapt to the hospital protocols than how to birth naturally. Private instructors, certified and not, teach classes in homes. More time is focused on options and informed birth than ever before.
Pagan birth practices have also gained in popularity. New age and occult rituals abound with both midwives and childbirth instructors. More often your choice is between Christian or pagan philosophy than secular or religious-based options. The truth is that often New Age and occultic-based practitioners are quicker to acknowledge and emphasize the spiritual basis of birth than are Christians.
In many ways, we have come full circle. Couples are determining for themselves what works best for their families. More and more birth practitioners are women, bringing back the concept of women helping women. The rise of the doula or professional labor assistant has returned the idea of continuous trained support with each couple and in helping women to cope using more traditional measures instead of drugs, whether in a hospital or birth center birth. Labor assistance has also returned the mentoring component back to childbirth. Mortality and morbidity rates are lower due to an emphasis on hygiene, good nutrition, exercise and prenatal care for all women.
The one facet which must still strive to become commonplace is the return of the Titus 2 mentoring roles back into the church and accepted as a part of the Church's responsibility in the arena of birthing and parenting. Christian birth professionals have been ridiculed for espousing a spiritual focus in the birth process, or worse, ignored or shunned by the local church. The concept of "Christian" childbirth and parenting classes is often passed over as unnecessary, lacking in scientific information, out of the scope of what the church felt it's role should be, or simply not practical.
Slowly, however, a new breed of birth professional is taking a stand to return Biblical faith and modeling to the childbirth scene. Christian childbirth education classes are being taught where faith, science, parental responsibility, spiritual headship and authority, and true and accurate teaching on all birth options come together to meet the needs of families. Christian labor assistants offer their skilled hands and hearts to help moms and dads work effectively through the labor process with a minimum of fear, a respect for the female body and it's ability to give birth normally, and a respect for the place of fathers as spiritual heads of their families. Christian music, often praise and worship music, is being heard in labor suites, birthing centers and homes along with prayers and scripture reading as a part of the coping techniques parents can use to make birth a special spiritual time to celebrate the life God has blessed and placed in their home. Christian midwives are becoming more numerous to give birthing couples an option in caregivers and in birth places if they want to birth with few interventions and/or want to give birth in the privacy of their own home.
Christian childbirth instruction may include information on Biblical nutrition, emphasis on the normalcy of childbearing and it's basic safety, a focus on what Scripture says about children and childbearing and what it does NOT say, how God sees and patterned the family model, Biblical models of childrearing, a contrast drawn between faith-filled birthing and fear-filled birthing, and a focus on one-on-one ministry and mentoring. Most of these women (for most are women, although in the Bradley model, classes may be taught by a married couple) are married with children and many are beyond the years of very young children. Many see their work as ministry and an extension of their faith, not just a pay check.
It's time for the Church to wake up and reclaim birth as the spiritual blessing God intended. It's also time to reintegrate faith, Biblical truths and Titus 2 modeling back into birthing. When we do, we will begin not only to see healthier birth outcomes, but a reclaimation of the family by providing them with a happier and healthier foundation.
9/30/98 by Rev. Kathy Rateliff, Certified Christian Doula, Christian Childbirth Educator and Cord Blood Educator Special thanks and appreciation to Apple Tree Family Ministries and it's founder, Helen Wessel, who compiled much of this information in Under the Apple Tree and The Joy of Natural Childbirth.
For more information or coments, contact Kathy at Titus2ed@aol.com