To God's Glory: With every holy child the world begins anew!
Before we entered our mother's womb God knew our name in heaven and our every hair already, and even the soul He might join us with later in life, if we lead a holy life to His liking, hopefully fulfilling the destiny He had in mind for us, when He created our souls long before our physical conception.
Yocheved means 'God's glory', and a midwife should always bear in mind that all she does is due to God and is made possible in the most miraculous ways through the invisible hands of God in the time, where we and especially the unborn child are entirely surrendering to this nucleus of the unknown - and where our faith and trust is most tested and tried and manifest!
Midwifery starts already long before the actual birth and should not stop afterwards either but is a way of life with the child and the mother and also the father in the centre of attention but also part of the wider community as a whole. We might find ourselves soon enough again in a more community aware scenario just like in the olden days, when often the neighbours had to help out at the birth before the midwife or in emergencies, the doctor, was coming, and who would assist the midwife as well.
We have been often largely cut off as a community from the two fundamental experiences in life within a community - birth and death. Sometimes children are being brought home from hospital or neighbours have passed away, entirely unnoticed by their neighbours. How sad is that?
In my childhood, I remember well all the weddings, funerals, baptisms, at which an ever growing number of neighbours, friends, family and strangers, who became friends and new families, gathered to share in each other's core events in their life.
And neighbours would help each other out without any further ado, with an unspoken natural agreement to be there for each other. I would like to see this happening also more, wherever we live and wherever we live is our home and we lend a helping hand, wherever it is needed.
Midwifery has become far too removed from what it once was, with the midwives almost being more nurses instead of companions, who prepare us for the birth, ease our worries and fears and anxieties with God's counsel, and who guide us mothers safely through the birth. And midwives are very often mothers themselves and can pass on their own experiences and share their memories from their own pregnancies.
In hospital I have experienced and seen many different scenarios - from a natural delivery to all sorts of tragic to joyful ones. Every birth lets the world for the parents and the baby start anew and for all, who actively anticipate the arrival of this new life.
It is so precious and so very special that God entrusted us with the gift of bringing a life into this world either as the mother or the midwife and by being there as a friend, who simply assists, nurtures with a kind word or thought, or holds and lends a hand. We could not do it without God's determination to see as many angels as possible being raised on this earth from every kitchen hearth, and it is not that long ago that most births happened in a humble kitchen hearth, and instead of a labour ward a woman would be in her bedroom or living room or even in the kitchen in her familiar environment to give birth to her child. Of course, in emergencies that can be also a complication but problems do also occur in the hospital that might have not happened at home, had the mother been in the care of an experienced midwife to herself.
It is not only the pregnancy and birth that are important but as the time after the birth is the phase, where the mother is most under pressure and realises that she has to get on with it all under a new and never before known maternal instinct that kicks in overwhelmingly as soon as the baby is born that she needs a calming and reassuring word and hands-on advice the most, as sometimes even simple solutions can seem out of reach with a crying and hungry newborn that demands immediate and constant attention.
Breastfeeding can be daunting to some mothers under all this pressure and it is especially important in the beginning that a midwife stays patient and calm and gives her all the support she needs with practical help with positioning, latching on etc.
Bottlefeeding also needs adjustment and requires an individual ritual and routine of feeding and creating calm and also the right positioning.
It is priceless to have an understanding soul at your side in this very beautiful but also very demanding time.
A midwife's cradle of needed experience is always needed and should be never closed for any reason. Midwifery should be free for all, and much more women, who are interested in 'just assisting' the midwife could be trained as volunteers and share the time before the birth during the pregnancy with the midwife and also could take over with a long-term care into toddlerhood, if it so develops, as many women breastfeed well beyond a year or several years and each phase has its own particulars.
It is also a wonderful way of bringing older and younger women closer again, too, as f.ex. in my childhood my mother and me would both help out in the neighbourhood with the looking after, feeding and bathing the babies of neighbours, some of whom suffered of postnatal depression. The expression was not born yet back then, but the neighbours would simply recognise that a mother needed a helping hand and so it was given naturally and withouf a fuss.
It takes a whole community to raise a child, and society would do much better on the whole, if we lived with this settled into our bones. God wanted us to look after each other and treat each other with respect and dignity and in sanctity, and what better way than to lend a kind smile and word to a new mother and father and to ask, whether they need anything we can help with.
In the early Celtic Catholic church and also later in other regions holy souls have always taken care of the poor and the needy and the sick, and healing was done by the true monks and nuns in the succession of Jesus Christ for free, as Christ commanded us to share freely all our spiritual gifts, as we also receive them freely. We also teach and heal for free and share all our work for free and encourage all, who want to follow Jesus Christ to do so, too, as that is His way.
May God bless you all!
Mother Sigrid Eliora
Abbey of the Holy Rose
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