ABSTRACT
The paediatrician Darshak Sanghavi, writing on the pain of childbirth, felt it an evolutionary relic, one that people have risen above with modern anaesthetics. He judged women that embraced the pain of labour and natural childbirth as participants in an extreme and competitive sport. Obstetric colleges and their chiefs around the world have at times labelled women who chose home birth 'selfish' for putting their experience ahead of the safety of their baby, even suggesting that medical opinion should override a woman's human rights. The issue of the importance of the transformational and spiritual aspects of women's birth experiences is all too often dismissed on the grounds of safety. Take the often repeated phrase 'a healthy baby is all that matters', which sums up a common view that women should give up the idea that birth should be or in fact can be, so much more than the extraction of a live baby from their bodies.
