Childbirth Shouldn't Be Scary, It's Romantic

There are some things so deeply etched into human biology that they cannot help but echo through the psyche until they are written down. 

Thoughts, beliefs, and observations that bubble to the surface in the form of stories and myths that must then be interpreted like dreams. Ancient, shared visions that span centuries, continents, and cultures, yet the same thread of truth weaves them all together. Birth is an event that occurs on the threshold between life and death. It’s a liminal space, a thin place. Birth is transformative. Birth is dangerous. And birth is romantic. 

The Biology of Birth

Maybe you've heard the phrase before: what got the baby in gets the baby out, and maybe you haven’t, but either way, it’s true. Just as the baby will leave via the same path it took to get in, the same hormones, even the same actions, in some cases, will help birth the baby. 

Once the body is physiologically primed for labor (uterus has increased its oxytocin receptors, the cervix has ripened, and baby has descended into the pelvis), certain actions and even the environment itself can help influence when labor will occur. 

Mood Lighting

There’s a reason most labors begin at night. Melatonin increases the uterus's sensitivity to oxytocin and therefore helps to strengthen and coordinate contractions. 

This is why many women find their contractions stop or slow under the bright lights of a hospital room. Dim lighting at home or in the hospital, such as candles or twinkle lights, can help sustain melatonin levels and therefore contractions. 

His Touch

Your husband's touch is particularly powerful during labor. His hands, scent, voice, and presence all serve to help stimulate oxytocin release, support the production of endorphins (the body’s natural pain-relieving neuropeptides), and modulate the stress response by lowering circulating stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.

His presence signals to your nervous system that you are safe, held, and loved. It's the exact messaging your body needs to initiate the hormonal cascade that aids in creating smooth, shorter labors with lower levels of perceived pain. 

The same principle extends even to the beginning of labor. Sex near term can support the body’s existing readiness for labor. Prostaglandins (compounds commonly used in medical induction and found naturally in semen) aid in further softening the cervix. And oxytocin released during arousal, nipple stimulation, and orgasm can cause mild contractions that transform into active labor. 

Love Bomb Yourself

Listening to music during labor has been shown to reduce perceived pain, reduce anxiety and stress, and improve overall birth experience satisfaction. 

Love songs, specifically, help generate a calm, peaceful atmosphere and serve as a sweet reminder that you are about to meet the love you and your husband share, given physical form. 

Home is Where the Heart Is

A familiar, low stimulation environment supports the parasympathetic state necessary for labor. When a woman feels observed, unsafe, or unstable, her body will release stress hormones which can stall labor. An extremely useful reaction to have on the occasion that running from a threat becomes necessary, but not usually needed in our developed world. However, the body doesn’t know this. It can’t tell the difference between a nurse you’ve never seen before and a possible threat. 

Noise, bright lights, and unfamiliar people can all be controlled for while at home and interestingly enough, low-risk women who give birth at home have lower rates of intervention than hospital births. There’s something highly romantic and protective about intimacy, and your body won’t let that fact be forgotten.

The Anthropology of Birth

But what actually happens during birth? Our world in the West places a heavy emphasis upon the physiology of it all, demanding that its other aspects, despite age-old wisdom, be declared unimportant or altogether false. And much to our detriment, westernized medicine has gotten its way. 

Yes, birth is no longer the deadly advent it once was. That’s something to be thankful for. But what if the lack of biological death has blinded us to reality? What if in killing death, we have lost sight of the very nature of woman?

We will turn to the old stories to answer these questions, and we’ll begin in ancient Mesopotamia. 

Inanna was a goddess, the queen of heaven and earth. Champion of love, fertility, and kings. One day, she gathered her maidservant close and instructed her in how to make funeral arrangements, for she desired to journey into the underworld, and so she would go. But she did not know if she would return. 

Her maidservant begged and pleaded with her to stay above, to not risk her life, but Inanna could not be dissuaded. She dressed herself in her royal regalia. She layered herself in jewels. She arranged her hair. She made up her eyes. And she girded herself in armor. Seven things she took and prepared herself with. Her divinity and power shone forth. 

On her way to the underworld, she instructed her maidservant. When she arrived at its gates, she sent her servant away.

Inanna knocked on the door and demanded entrance. She demanded to see her sister, the queen of the underworld.

She was permitted to enter, the door was opened. But the seven gates of the underworld were lowered, and only a sliver of opening could be seen between the ground and the bottom of each gate. 

Inanna had to bow low to pass through each of the seven gates, and at each gate, she lost an item she had so carefully prepared herself with. Each time she questioned this, and each time, she was reminded that the ways of the underworld were perfect, to be quiet, to not question them. 

Finally, after all seven gates, Inanna stood before her sister in her throne room. She was bare and naked. 

As Inanna stood, judgment was passed. The sacred words were said. And the queen of the underworld stepped down from her throne and slew Inanna. 

Up above, three days and three nights passed, and Inanna's maidservant began the funeral arrangements. She cried out in the ruins. She beat the drums. She tore her skin. She dressed in rags. And she begged the assistance of the father Gods. 

Only one answered. 

The God of wisdom fashioned two creatures from the dirt under his nails, gave them the food of life and the water of life, and instructed them on how to bring Inanna back to the land of the living.  

What if in killing death, we have lost sight of the very nature of woman?

The dutiful creatures entered the underworld like flies, just as instructed, and found the hell queen incapacitated with labor pains, just as they were told. Her breast was bare and her hair was in disarray. She cried out, “Ohh! Ohh! My inside!” 

The creatures cried, “Ohh! Ohh! Your inside!”

She moaned, “Ohh! Ohh! My belly!”

They moaned, “Ohh! Ohh! Your belly!” 

She groaned, “Ohh! Ohh! My back!”

They groaned, “Ohh! Ohh! Your back!”

The queen of the underworld stopped and examined the creatures, “Who are you, here commiserating with me? I will give you a gift. What is it you wish?”

“We wish only for the corpse that hangs from the wall.” They replied.

“The corpse belongs to Inanna, you may have it.” The queen waved in dismissal. 

Together, the creatures sprinkled the food and water of life onto Inanna and she arose. 

Inanna was about to ascend from the underworld when the judges of the dead stopped her. “Halt Inanna! No one rises from the underworld unmarked. If you wish to return, you must provide someone in your place.” 

Inanna ascended accompanied by a procession of demons. At each city, they encountered a servant or a son of Inanna’s. All were dressed in soiled garments. All were mourning. All threw themselves at Inanna's feet when they saw her. All were spared from taking her place.

Then the horde came upon the husband of Inanna. He was dressed in splendor. He was sat upon his throne. He was playing his shepherd's pipe. And at the sight of Inanna, he did not move. 

The demons seized him. Inanna demanded they take him away. The demons destroyed his temple and beat him.

Inanna's husband cried out to the God of justice. The God heard him and turned Inanna's husband into a snake and he escaped.  

Wherever you turn in mythology, culture, and time, you cannot escape women journeying (or being taken) into the underworld. You also can’t escape the themes of birth and wombs that usually accompany such tales. But what makes this romantic? How does one go from meeting the reaper itself, to “oh my gosh that’s literally the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.” Without being accused of being completely delusional? I’ll give you a hint, it’s because a man is involved.

The concept of man as a guide and savior from the underworld is not as foreign as some modern critics like to suggest. Woman may journey into the underworld, the bowels of the earth may be her domain, but man has always been positioned to retrieve her if she is so willing, and if he is worthy of her.

There are two main categories these male figures fall into: failed guides, and successful ones. Orpheus (from Greek mythology), King Admetus (from the Greek play, Alcestis) and Inanna's husband are prime examples of failed guides. This is what we can learn from them.

Orpheus went to retrieve his wife, Eurydice, from the underworld after she was bitten by a snake on their wedding day. He manages to get Hades and Persephone to agree to hand her over after he impresses them with a moving musical performance on one condition, while guiding her out, he cannot look back. 

Just as Orpheus is nearing the end of his journey out of the underworld however, he allows himself to become overwhelmed by doubt and anxiety and looks back. Due to this indiscretion caused by his lack of self-mastery, his wife is forever lost to him. Orpheus, gifted as he was, did not deserve Eurydice.

Next we have Admetus, also a failed guide. King Admetus was fated to die unless someone volunteered to take his place. His wife, Alcestis, volunteered, and he allowed the trade. She spends her last day praying, purifying herself, and setting her affairs in order. Admetus spends her last day pitying himself. 

On the day of Alcestis’s funeral, Hercules arrives at the castle and asks for lodging. However, he notices Admetus has shorn his hair and is wearing mourning robes. Hercules states that he does not want to impose and will stay somewhere else. Admetus, determined to save face, suggests the person who has died is of little consequence to the household and that it would not be an imposition if Hercules stays. Hercules takes his friend at his word and stays, only to find out later that it was the Queen herself who had passed. Embarrassed, and without prompting, Hercules goes to retrieve Alcestis from the underworld and succeeds. 

What’s more romantic than being accompanied to the threshold between life and death?

Admetus displays an angering type of impotence throughout the entire play in which he does absolutely nothing to change the fate of his wife and thinks only of himself. He does not support her. He does not own his fate. He falls into useless despair and fails to see how it’s his own fault. As the maid states in the opening of the play, Admetus does not deserve his wife either. 

However, we also see successful masculine guides who are worthy of their feminine counterparts. Hercules himself is one (though he is not partnered with Alcestis, he is still a successful guide). And we find more in folk tales such as “Skeleton Woman,” where an Inuit fisherman unwittingly catches a skeleton with his hook. He is terrified at first and tries to discard and outrun her. But she is tangled in his line and he only succeeds in dragging her along all the way into his igloo. Once he calms, he looks over and feels a sort of sympathy for the skeleton, so he begins to untangle her and set her bones right. 

Once she is all laid out, the man falls asleep and a single tear falls from his eye as he dreams. The skeleton woman crawls over and drinks it. Then she takes the man’s heart and beats it like a drum. She beats herself muscle, sinew, hair, and skin. She places the man’s heart back in his chest and crawls beside him once more, but this time as a fleshed woman. He wakes and they become one together. From that night on, neither is alone ever again.

From these tales we learn that in order to successfully guide woman back to the land of the living, man must face his deepest, most existential fear. He must stare death in the face, unblinking, and bear witness as his beloved embraces it. As she cries more passionately in its throes than she ever did for him. He must become as brave as she is in these moments. He must hand her over, knowing full well that she may not come back. Knowing she may leave him on that threshold he is not permitted to cross. Leave him completely and utterly alone. Yet he must face it. Must become intimately aware of his lack of power in the face of something so terrible and primordial, and continue to serve her, to keep the pathway between the two worlds open with selfless love and devotion.

He must face the fact that even if she does come back to him, his lover will never be the same. No one comes back the same after touching death's cloak. How could you? It would be wrong, a fallacy of nature, to remain unchanged. So he must face that too, and be prepared to embrace whatever new creature comes back to him. 

He must not fall into impotence. He cannot allow himself to succumb to doubt, fear, or despair. Nor can he allow himself the bluster of false bravado or hubris. He must simply accept, and support, and accompany his wife to the gates. To life’s great door, and bear witness. Only then, can he prove himself worthy.

So, what’s more romantic than being accompanied to the threshold between life and death? Being loved unflinchingly as your soul is bared and forged anew? What is more romantic than facing death alongside a soul just as brave and steadfast as your own? Nothing. 

The Return

Even those who admit postpartum depletion and emphasize the need for nutritional restoration, even those who crow that birth is just as metaphysical as it is physical, have forgotten that postpartum recovery is spiritual and energetic as well. They have remembered the death of the woman during birth, but have neglected to resurrect her. And in so doing, the West has abandoned the mother. 

Is it any small wonder we have epidemic rates of postpartum depression and anxiety? We’ve left the mother in liminality, a place between life and death, a state she was never meant to traverse on her own. 

In large part, this is due to the breakdown of tribal society and close-knit community. No one in particular is to blame, but the question must be asked, in this new world, who can solve this old problem? Who can become the old-new guide of the mother? What would this look like?

China has Zuo Yuezi or “sitting the month,” a postpartum tradition with its roots in Chinese medicine, where a woman is said to be depleted of blood and qi. Post-birth, the balance of Yin and Yang in her body is thought to be skewed too heavily towards Yin, the feminine, cold, dark, wet, death aspect of Yin/Yang, and as such, balance must be restored through the opposite of this condition, or the Yang aspect: rest, warmth, and dense nutrition. If not, some practitioners believe a woman can be cursed to remain cold for the rest of her life. The mother-in-law or mother were the typical caregivers during this process of restoration, but today, many women go to postpartum centers to receive care, if they go at all. 

Birth is arguably the most intimate experience of a woman’s life.

In parts of Latin America, some traditional communities still practice what is often called “Closing the Bones,” a postpartum ritual typically performed in the weeks following birth. During it, the mother’s body is wrapped in long strips of cloth called rebozo (the same type of cloths these women use during childbirth), applying firm, sustained pressure to different areas in sequence beginning with the head. In some traditions, this is preceded by a warm oil massage and accompanied by heat in the form of warmed blankets or stones in a well heated room. This ceremony is done to re-seal the mothers energy, to close her off and stabilize her once more. It takes her from the thin place of transition and places her solidly back within the physical realm. 

While mothers and other women in the community would typically oversee these postpartum traditions, most women today no longer have that option. The fact that many work traditional corporate jobs only complicates the issue further. However, this opens the door for men. And perhaps the door has always been open; an ancient solution for a modern problem, the room was just too crowded to see it.

Birth is arguably the most intimate experience of a woman’s life, by inviting the husband, the good masculine, in, it can be transformed from shallow Hollywood Horror into something spiritually profound and binding between two souls.

And perhaps when we removed the masculine guide and traditional protector of the sacred feminine, the collapse and profaning of birth and the postpartum period after was inevitable. But it’s this meeting and joining in the deep loamy place that has the potential to restore and dignify the culture surrounding birth once more and therefore elevate the children that come from it.

Perhaps it’s time to romanticize birth.