Editor's Note.
Volume 1, Issue 1. (Sept, 1998).
Jackie Mawson.
Convenor of Birthrites: Healing After Caesarean.
Hi Guys, look what I've gone and done now! I couldn't resist, I felt
we needed a newsletter to pass on all the latest information about
VBAC and c/sections, births and blessingways,etc. What do you think?
Anybody else interested in being involved in it's production - your
help/advice would be gratefully accepted, otherwise I'll plod along.
It just seemed like the right time in my life to take this on... along
with the Home Birth Conference (more on that later) and the usual
chaos that seems to surround me and follow me like a cloud. One day
I'll learn to say "No", but that will be a very sad day in my life.
Our website has received over 1200 visits, since it was set up, and
it keeps on spreading the information to women about future birth
choices after a c/section &endash; which is what Birthrites is all
about. I receive a lot of emails every week, from all over the world,
some women wish they'd found our website "…just a few months
ago before their second elective c/section …" and I wish they'd
found us prior to that, too. Some of the stories break my heart, and
some of them are truly inspirational.
When will the medical profession realise the pain that some women
suffer, emotionally, through their power being taken away from them
during labour and their baby's birth? We can, and do, heal! We are
strong women, and being shown that the next birth does NOT have to
be an elective c/section can, and does, restore our power/mysticism
as women.
We have to hold on to the women's rituals surrounding birth, the
magic and nurturing aspects of birth that seem to be getting lost
within the technology now involved in the birthing of our babies.
A c/section is the most technological birth there is, and we've all
experienced that extreme…
I wish for you all to experience the other extreme &endash; a natural
birth, supported by wonderful midwives, strong women and your families.
I hope every single one of you go on to have the birth experience
you need to release the pain of the last birth experience you had
(or the birth experience that caused you to contact us).
That is why I am involved in Birthrites: Healing After Caesarean,
that is why I do all the things involved in holding this organisation
together. Because for every child born naturally surrounded by rituals
and love I celebrate, for that is one more child born the Right way.
And for every child lifted from his/her mother's belly, without the
ritual and love that birth should be surrounded by, I cry.
Yes, caesareans are necessary sometimes, and Thank You God for the
technology to save the lives of these mothers and babies. We should
all be grateful for these c/sections and look to the future, to our
next birth experience, or to the raising of our beautiful child that
may not be with us without this technology. It's just the unnecessary
ones that I want to stop, the risks that the mother and baby are exposed
to are one reason, one that is often belittled, the other is mentioned
above.
So, to keep in touch with all the members of our group, from every
state in Australia, I've produced this newsletter to pass on information
and support. If you would like to continue receiving it then please
post a $10 Subscription fee, to cover postage and printing costs,
we are a non-profit organisatin. Please make cheques/money orders
out to Jackie Mawson and fill in the subscription form attached to
this newletter.
I hope you will choose to support Birthrites in this way and, by
doing so, continue to support women all over the country/world by
supplying them with information to heal their "scars".
I also need lots of information to put into future newsletters. So,
please, send me Birthnotices, Birthstories, relevant newspaper/magazine
articles, poems, event notices, thoughts, dreams and letters. I look
forward to opening every single one of them. Bye for now,
Birthing Beautifully,
Jackie Mawson.©
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