I believe there's something profound happening in labor beyond the physical. God has designed this process not only to bring forth new life but also to prepare us for the sacrificial nature of parenting itself. In labor, we lay down our own comfort and ease to bring forth our child. This is agape love—Christ-like, sacrificial love. And this laying down of self is very much a part of mothering and parenting in general. It is a sanctifying process through which we learn so much

A common misconception involves what drives labor progress. Many people believe that if a laboring mother becomes exhausted, her labor will stall or fail to progress. This misunderstanding can create unnecessary anxiety and even lead to premature interventions. The truth is that labor does not progress by maternal energy or willpower. It is driven by an internal force of the uterus working in combination with fetal positioning. Labor is not a voluntary process that you can so

In the age of instant information, it's easy for expectant parents to become overwhelmed by stories, statistics, and well-meaning advice about birth. One area where I see significant misunderstanding is around cesarean section and when it becomes necessary. Today, I want to address some common misconceptions and offer a perspective grounded in both medical reality and faith. What Cesarean Section Really Is There's a fundamental misunderstanding many people have about C-sectio

There's so much to birth that we need to be in awe of. In our modern world, birth has become something treated lightly—just another physical phenomenon, a medical event to be managed and controlled. But what if we're missing something profound? What if birth is actually one of the most magnificent privileges we could ever experience? More Than a Physical Process When a woman carries a child, she's participating in something that transcends the merely physical. God is knitting

Introduction Natural birth, or unmedicated childbirth, represents a profound and intricate biological process. For this reason, it will also be referred to as physiologic birth in this article.  The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) formally defines physiologic birth as "spontaneous labor and birth at term without the use of pharmacologic and/or mechanical interventions for labor stimulation or pain management throughout labor and birth". 1  This defi

By Marie Farver Updated October 2025 Introduction Preeclampsia remains a significant threat to maternal and fetal health worldwide, affecting 1-8% of pregnancies and causing approximately 76,000 maternal and 500,000 infant deaths annually (U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, 2021). In California, preeclampsia and eclampsia together constitute the second leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths. Since delivery remains the only curative treatment for preeclampsia, identifying

Birth is a competently designed physiologic function of a competently designed woman's body. It is not inherently dangerous. It is not...

Executive Summary Pharmacological interventions for pain relief and labor augmentation, such as epidural analgesia and opioid analgesics,...

A Case for Patient - Centered Care Grounded in Current Research For decades, the immediate response to spontaneous rupture of...

Michel Odent, a French obstetrician, is a pivotal figure in the natural birth movement. His work at the Pithiviers hospital in France...

Birth is a competent physiologic function built into a woman's body.

The ARRIVE study, funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Maternal-Fetal Medicine...

Comprehensive Report Examines the Science on the Hormonal Physiology of Childbearing and Its Implications for Women, Babies and Maternity...

The Push to Understand the Placenta By DENISE GRADY JULY 14, 2014 SAN FRANCISCO — Minutes after a baby girl was born on a recent morning...

By Carina Storrs, Special to CNN Updated 11:09 AM ET, Fri June 5, 2015 The practice of eating the placenta has been growing in popularity...

The ABCs of Birth! Following the design is as simple as A B C. How to work with the design: Learn about what you can do in labor – – take...

1. Human birth is difficult. More difficult than animal births. Animals rely more on brawn than brain, being led by instinct more than thinking. Being so, their brains, and therefore their heads, are proportionately smaller in comparison to their body size. Their heads fit loosely through the birth canal. Animal babies are generally born with less difficulty, less time, less travail. Humans, however, rely more on brain than brawn, more by using our head and thinking than bein