ABSTRACT
This chapter presents further thinking and writing since completing the formal phenomenological inquiry and includes on-going development and thinking pertaining to an ecology of birth. In whatever way we approach birth, as woman/mother, educator, practitioner, researcher, chaplain, religious leader, writer, manager, health policy maker or politician, remember that birth is an ecology comprised of many aspects that all need acknowledging and safeguarding. The power of any gift is in its relational impact across time and space. To give and receive a gift is to forge a relationship, leaving a trace within each other of this mutual transaction. The emergence of new life at each birth is its own ecology and it is all our responsibility to safeguard and shelter that which is most precious. The inquiry calls us to think anew about birth and appreciate that all births are significant in all situations, place of birth, technology employed or type of care providers attending.
