Modern midwife Gloria Lemay writes this wonderful, confidence-inspiring article about the adequacy of the female pelvis. People always assume that a small woman can’t give birth to a large baby, but I personally witnessed my skinny-hipped sister-in-law give birth to a 10 lb. 7 oz baby, over an intact perineum! And all three of my babies were between 9 – 10 lbs, with GIANT, off-the-charts head diameters (38 centimeters to be precise). They came out just fine, albeit with cone-shaped heads! My pelvis isn’t huge. It’s average, and so is yours. Big heads squish, baby shoulders squeeze together, and your pelvis gets loose and wiggly to make all the room your baby needs. Birth works!
What if there were no pelvis? What if it were as insignificant to how a child is born as how big the nose is on the mother’s face? After twenty years of watching birth, this is what I have come to. Pelvises open at three stretch points—the symphisis pubis and the two sacroiliac joints. These points are full of relaxin hormones—the pelvis literally begins falling apart at about thirty-four weeks of pregnancy. In addition to this mobile, loose, stretchy pelvis, nature has given human beings the added bonus of having a moldable, pliable, shrinkable baby head. Like a steamer tray for a cooking pot has folding plates that adjust it to any size pot, so do these four overlapping plates that form the infant’s skull adjust to fit the mother’s body.
Every woman who is alive today is the result of millions of years of natural selection. Today’s women are the end result of evolution. We are the ones with the bones that made it all the way here. With the exception of those born in the last thirty years, we almost all go back through our maternal lineage generation after generation having smooth, normal vaginal births. Prior to thirty years ago, major problems in large groups were always attributable to maternal malnutrition (starvation) or sepsis in hospitals.
Read the full article (and it is really worth your time) at www.midwiferytoday.com
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you absolutely need to read some of Eric Franklin’s books. he is a dance writer – all anatomy and kinesiology – and focuses on imagery. you would love what he says and how help visualize. i know i do :)