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

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

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

As women of faith, let us approach everything we do in faith A wise man once said that there are two lifestyles: worldliness or godliness. That is, living by faith or living by sight. Living in fear of man or living in fear of God. When we live in fear of God, we live in his will by his power with an awareness of him. Making decisions based on self rather than the good of the child is the antithesis of motherhood. We are to love, that is lay down our life, then we experience