Long before I became pregnant with my first son, I knew that I wanted to have a natural birth. But to be honest, at that time, I didn’t even really know why exactly. I assumed there were probably chemicals that wouldn’t be good for my baby or myself in the epidural, but that was about all I knew at that point. Once I became pregnant, I began talking with more moms about their birth experiences, and it quickly became clear just how important both the setting and the way you give birth truly are.

From all the birth stories I heard, it seemed like almost no one could have a natural birth. It’s amazing that our species has survived as long as it has. Many women I knew “had to” be induced weeks before their due date, or “had to” have an emergency c-section because their baby was just “ too big,” or they just did not progress “quickly enough”. If they didn’t progress quickly enough, they were then given Pitocin, which ended up causing complications and leading to an emergency C-section.

When I joined the holistic mom group in my area, I met many mothers who had all their babies at home. Some didn’t even have a midwife with them and “free birthed” their babies. So why is it that these moms didn’t have all the emergencies that the moms who were birthing in the hospital had? I needed to understand why. I ended up reading all of Ina May Gaskin's books. Ina May is a famous midwife who is known for her farm, which is essentially a birth center in Tennessee. She has had thousands of mothers give birth at her farm, numbers comparable to hospitals. Yet less than 1% ever needed to be transferred to a hospital. From her books, I learned about something called the cascade of interventions—how one intervention leads to more.

When a cat goes into labor, the first thing they do is find a dark, quiet place to labor and give birth. Anyone who has been around a mama cat giving birth knows not to disturb her and to just let her do her thing. Now, you don’t even have to have given birth at a hospital to imagine how drastically different that might be from the cat's experience. Picture this: You go into labor, you go into the hospital, and the lights are bright in your face. There’s a lot of noise. A lot of monitors. People are hooking you up to machines, asking you questions, and wanting to do invasive procedures like checking your cervix.

How is it that people have more respect for the birth process of a cat than they do for a human?

Birth progresses when we feel safe. Animals do not give birth in places they don’t feel safe in. Our bodies will hold our babies in until we find a safe place to birth them because we want them to survive. This is instinctual. This is why many women go into the hospital at 8cm dilated, and then all of a sudden, after they get there, everything suddenly slows down. When everything slows down and the doctors think you’re taking too long, they want to give you Pitocin to speed things back up. And when they give you Pitocin to speed things up, you definitely want an epidural now because the pain of non-stop contractions must be unbearable. On top of all of this, you also have a doctor or nurse telling you that you’re not going to get a trophy at the end for doing it all natural, so why not just take the epidural? So you get the epidural, and now you can’t feel anything. You don’t have the urge to push. The baby doesn’t come out easily at all. You’re pushing and pushing and pushing, and nothing is happening. So your pelvis must just be too small, your body made too big of a baby for your body, and now they have to cut you open right now because it’s an “emergency”.

But what if that experience started in a quiet, dark, undisturbed setting like the cat?

We’ve all heard the phrase, ‘what matters most is a healthy baby.’ Of course, that’s true—but should we settle for the bare minimum? The well-being of the mother matters too, including the very real birth trauma she may have just endured.

Most importantly, in this mother’s humble opinion, how we birth also sets the foundation for how we parent our new baby. Like the cascade of interventions, there is a cascade of choices made after the baby is born. If from the moment of conception you live in fear—relying solely on the person in the white coat to make every decision—and you don’t trust your own intuition or your body’s innate ability to grow and birth your baby, that pattern can easily carry into parenting. You may find yourself bringing your perfect newborn to the pediatrician and silencing the voice in your gut that says they don’t need what’s being prescribed or injected—deferring instead to the ‘expert.’ In doing so, you forget the deeper truth: you are the expert of your own body and of your baby.

Now that you may be considering an unmedicated birth or home birth, let’s go over how to best prepare yourself for that endeavor. I birthed both of my babies at home; both labors were 10 hours long, they each came at 39 weeks and 6 days of gestation, and weighed the same: 7lbs, 7oz. On paper, they sound like they should’ve been the same. But they were two completely different experiences. My first son, I had excruciating back labor, I pushed for 3 hours, and the pain was unbearable nearly the entire time. It was honestly the worst experience of my life. I was terrified to ever give birth again. The next time I was pregnant, I made the decision to research as much as I possibly could into how I could have a pain-free birth. Well, my second may not have been exactly pain-free, but it was 1000% easier than the first time! And I’m here to share with you all today what made that world of a difference.

Here is my advice for giving birth naturally, without any medication or interventions, whether you choose to be at home, in a birth center or hospital.

• Have both a midwife AND a doula.
• A midwife is there to make sure she can help in the event that complications do arise. Her job is to sit back and just be a witness unless intervention is necessary. A good midwife will be prepared and know if something doesn’t seem right, and a hospital transfer is necessary. There are also many things she can do to prevent that from happening.
  A doula is there to support the mother. Natural birth is NOT easy, and many women underestimate the intensity before experiencing it themselves. A doula helps you work through it. If the baby isn’t in an ideal position,she may encourage you to try different positions. She will keep you hydrated with coconut water and feed you light snacks to keep your energy up. She may put counter pressure on your lower back to help ease the pain. She will remind you of all the things you’ll definitely forget once you’re in labor land. Most importantly, she will be your best advocate to stick to your birth plan. If you do give birth in a hospital, you need someone who can be present and able to deal with doctors and know the difference between a true need for intervention and not. It will be much harder to achieve an unmedicated birth without having that person to advocate for you because you’ll be in a different world, and you’re probably going to say yes to whatever they tell you.
• Drink a pot of red raspberry leaf tea each day when you are pregnant.
• Red raspberry leaf tea helps strengthen and tone the uterus, which can lead to having more effective contractions and a shorter labor.
  It also contains beneficial nutrients like magnesium, vitamins, and iron, which support overall maternal health.
  Studies show mothers who regularly drink red raspberry leaf tea have lower rates of intervention.
• Walk daily.
  Act like you’re preparing for a marathon because that’s what birth is - it can be long, physically and emotionally draining, so you need a lot of endurance.
  Walk every single day. Aim for 3 miles a day. You need to build stamina to support the physical demands of labor. Walking also improves pelvic mobility, which will help the baby get into a more ideal position. The better the position the baby is in, the easier birth will be.
• Hold a deep squat for 5 minutes straight a day.
  Holding a deep squat helps to open and increase your range of motion in the hips and pelvis and also strengthens the pelvic floor. This will help the baby descend more easily.
• Do pelvic floor work.
  Find a pelvic floor therapist who can help you. You need to learn how to fully relax your pelvic floor, which is much easier said than done, and you have to practice it. One of the most effective ways to have an easier labor is by learning to fully relax and soften. You constantly have to check in and make sure you are doing that while in labor. Releasing your jaw helps because it’s connected to your sphincter muscles - the more you release and relax your jaw, the more your muscles down there will relax too.
• Take “gentle birth tincture”.
  This tincture has herbs in it to make birth easier, but wait until 35 weeks to start taking. Take 3x a day https://a.co/d/3Xx87GB
• Pretend you’re not in labor.
  When the birth team shows up— hang out. Tell stories. Laugh. Watch TV. Don’t think about it. Just forget it’s even happening. The more joy you feel, the more you laugh, the more oxytocin your body creates. Oxytocin is the key hormone that signals your uterus to contract during labor. Oxytocin's role is not just to initiate contractions, but also to help them become more regular and intense, which is critical for progressing through labor. Oxytocin also helps to counteract pain. It’s often referred to as a "natural pain reliever" because it can increase your threshold for pain. Endorphins, which are often released along with oxytocin during positive emotional experiences like laughter, further enhance this pain-relieving effect. So relax.. laugh.. have fun and try to enjoy the birth.
• Wait until your body pushes on its own.
  Don’t ever let someone tell you to push. Wait until you feel the fetal ejection reflex and cannot stop yourself from pushing.
• Switch up positions.
  Do not, I repeat, as tempting as it is, do not stay in the same position! You may get comfortable and find a position that feels like it gives you some relief. You will not want to move. Don’t stay for more than 15 minutes in the same position. The more you move around, the more you encourage the baby to get into the most optimal position and move further down the birth canal.
  Try: Sitting on a birth ball and circling your hips, sitting on a toilet facing the tank to open up the pelvis and encourage your pelvic floor muscles to relax, side laying position on a bed or a couch, sitting on a birth stool, or on all fours and/or leaning over the side of a birth pool.
• Try a TENS unit.
  A TENS unit sends electric pulses wherever you place the pads on your body. It helps to trick your brain into focusing on the strange sensation it gives rather than the pain of the contraction. I found this to be INCREDIBLY helpful during my second birth, when, like my first, I also had back labor, but this helped to distract from the pain! I visualized the electricity sending the contraction forward and out of my back.. And it worked!

Birth is the ultimate initiation into motherhood and the foundation for how you begin your journey with your baby. The way you prepare, the choices you make, and the trust you place in your body all matter. Yes, a healthy baby is essential—but so is a healthy, empowered mother.

By approaching birth with knowledge, intention, and trust in the natural process, you can transform it from something to endure into something profoundly meaningful. Whether you choose to give birth at home, in a birth center, or in a hospital, remember this: you are not just a passive participant—you are the expert of your own body and the guide for your baby’s first moments in this world. Prepare well and trust deeply!