Pregnancy & Birth

We bring so much to childbirth: our histories, our relationships, our rituals. Our needs and values related to intimacy, our sexuality, family life, and community. Our deepest beliefs about life, death, and birth.

Pregnancy and childbirth are as ordinary and extraordinary as breathing, thinking, or loving. Whether we are having our first babies or are already parents, each pregnancy calls on all our capacities for creativity, flexibility, determination, intuition, endurance, and humor. Similarly, each pregnancy should be accompanied by high-quality prenatal care, accurate information about pregnancy and birth, access to the full range of safe and healthy care options, and enough time for maternity leave. We deserve encouragement, love, and support from those close to us; a safe work and home environment; nourishing food; and plenty of time for rest and exercise.

Ideally, we will experience our pregnancies and births within what childbirth advocates call “a climate of confidence” that reinforces our strength and innate abilities and minimizes fear. We have personal control over some aspects of pregnancy and birth. But we need to work collectively to fix major problems in our maternity care system in order to create birth justice and a full climate of confidence for all.

When we are pregnant, we face many choices that will affect our pregnancy, birth experience, and life with a new baby. Understanding as much as we can about the developing pregnancy and about birthing practices will help us decide what we want our experiences to be. As we make plans, we have many sorts of questions: What kind of care do I want to receive during pregnancy? Where do I want to give birth? Who would I like to have with me when I am in labor? How can I best advocate for myself and my baby, especially if I know that it’s likely I’ll need to?

Learning about our options for coping with labor and working with a knowledgeable support team can help us feel less anxious as we anticipate labor and birth. We can arrive at informed decisions about the approaches we prefer, recognizing that we may need to make changes based on how our labor unfolds.

When we are visibly pregnant, most of us get advice from well-meaning friends and relatives, — and even strangers, whether we ask for it or not. Everyone seems to have an opinion on what we should or shouldn’t do. Even when we seek out support and guidance, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by conflicting recommendations.

Giving birth can be one of the most beautiful and meaningful experiences of our lives, leaving us feeling stronger and more competent as we face new motherhood or parenthood. Giving birth, for far too many people, can also be a death sentence. While maternal mortality has dropped in recent decades around the world, it has risen dramatically in the United States. And there are many additional cases in which the mother survives but suffers serious injury. Birth outcomes are worsening for people of all races, but Black and Indigenous women face the worst birth outcomes in the United States – the result of both historic and present-day racism.

Under today’s circumstances, how can we prepare for a safe and healthy birth and understand and navigate the U.S. maternity care system? And how can we work to transform the maternity care system so it best supports our pregnancies and labors?

The content in this section gathers the information we need to make wise decisions and to approach birth with confidence. It provides guidance for choosing caregivers who listen to us and respect us as active participants in pregnancy and birth. It gives us the resources to help us create a birthing environment in which we can feel as comfortable and safe as possible.