Letting Go

"Where they went wrong was that their techniques were diversionary rather than confrontational. While encouraging us to distance ourselves from the birth experience through controlled breathing, hypnosis, or Pavlovian responses to stimuli, they overlooked our intrinsic need to confront and assimilate our birth experiences. No doubt acting from their own male conditioning, they convinced us that we needed to stay in control during labor. Phrases such as 'childbirth without fear', 'childbirth without pain', and 'prepared childbirth' fooled us into thinking that we could master the uncontrollable forces that work with us during labor.

"'To stay in control,' says Lynn (Browne) Richards, 'is only our human fallacious attempt of gaining power over the all encompassing force of nature - of staying in control of our own mortality.' She suggests that instead of seeking to stay in control, we must choose to 'let go - to let go of our fears, our egos, and our very desire to control.' Rather than screaming in terror at the approaching waves, rather than trying to stoically withstand their force, we can choose to welcome them and rise them in to shore. Like body surfing, labor can be and should be a way or 'going with the flow.'"

Silent Knife by Nancy Wainer Cohen & Lois J. Estner, 1983