The birthing space is as old as human kind is. It is a sacred space where life is brought into this world after spending 9 long months inside a warm womb. With and entrance into the world in such a powerful way, it is important we protect the energy of this space and preserve its oldest traditions and practices for as long as we can. There is space for medicine in birth there is no space for medicalizing the entire birthing space.
If you take one long, good look at history you will find only recently did women stop giving birth at home and more and more began birthing at hospitals, especially in America. According to the California Health Care Foundation 99% of births in the state take place in a hospital. In 1900 nearly every birth occurred at home, in 100 years that is almost a 100% increase. Why is that? Is it because media has begun to show the TV version of what birth looks like? Is it because hospitals needed to open more units to make more cash flow in early days? Is it because formula companies needed a place to sell their product to make it more reputable? Or perhaps because this is America and everything is a business, even you bodily autonomy. I do not have the answer to those questions, nor do I even know for sure if that is why women began being encouraged to birth in a hospital over a birth center and most definitely over a home birth. With something that is such a natural and innate thing to do you would wonder why we do not preform it in place that feel natural and comfortable for us. It is rather clear the adverse affects birthing outside sacred spaces does to the birthing individual.
I would like to end this by saying I am not against modern medicine and I think it is a wonderful and powerful tool that has saved many lives. I am not against hospital births, I had one myself and it was medicated. It is my belief personally and professionally there is a proper time and space for things to be medicalized and a low-risk birth is certainly not one of them at least not 99% of the time. If we begin to normalize birthing spaces outside of the hospital and educating birthing individuals about their options we can break the barriers set in place stopping birthing people from achieving the birth they deserve.
Here are some links to birthing centers in San Diego County.
xx ilana , your local doula