..Niki learns about how babies erhmmm... and all that jazz

Michael’s wife is a mid-wife. With an imminent niece or nephew coming onto the scene, it’s natural the topic of pregnancy and birth should come up. And what a fascinating conversation it was.

I’d always wondered how women gave birth in more remote areas. Katia accounts to me that conventional medicine in Ecuador is learning from the way that indigenous women give birth, standing up and squatting pulling down on a sheet rather than lying down. This way there is so much more force that can be naturally drawn upon to help deliver the baby. I’m fascinated by her account that many indigenous women will go off to the river by themselves to give birth, their active lifestyle allowing them to give birth much more quickly and easily, them returning to the village with babe in arms.

My knowledge of childbirth, an impression gained mostly through overly dramatic scenes on TV are those of hospital beds, long drawn out labours, vital medical persons on hand, ante-natal classes teaching you the how to and things to remember. We need to learn how to give birth in the right way. Right?

Oh I was so wrong. But am greatly reassured. It’s all about instinct. We need the least medical intervention possible. With medicine and our health generally we have increasingly become not to trust our ability to know our own bodies. The doctor knows best and health information is given to us in a background of fear inducing headlines. But we know that we know our bodies best and rather than overthinking things we need to trust our instinct. In a world where we are trained out of this, often we need activities to help us let go and tune back in to listening to our bodies – free dancing, salsa, swimming. It’s good to be reminded of this. It makes so much sense.

There’s so much paraphernalia you can buy when you’re having a baby. It’s useful living in Tena and seeing how little you need. The babies are carried I sheets tied around the women’s shoulders like a sling and it occurs to me how little babies cry here. And Katia agrees. Of course it makes sense. If you hardly put a baby down, always carrying it against the warmth of your body, prepared to feed it whenever it needs, it really has al it needs.

Whereas babies used to be whisked away to be cleaned and the cord cut, Katia says they now try to maintain the umbilical cord in place for as long as possible, the baby gaining most directly from the mother in this way and bonding at the same time.

And this is just how it is. The places I go, the things I do, are nothing without the people I meet and talk to. I tell you …it’s the conversations and the people I meet that are priceless. Day after day learning more and figuring (muddling!) my way through. That’s what it’s all about.