"Orgasmic birth doesn't need to be the way I did it it comes in all shapes and forms, which is exciting because women of all walks of life can tap into it," says Angela. Rather, orgasmic birth simply indicates a range of pleasure that is indeed possible if women explore their options.Īngela's story helps expecting mothers of varying values, cultures, and religious beliefs do just that: find pleasure in the comfort of their own decisions. She instead calls for harnessing those physiological resemblances-the same hormones, muscle contractions and rhythms, vocalizations-and using more doulas, water, dance, and other efforts like Angela's to induce births naturally and bring the Caesarian rate and intervention down.Īnd while Angela didn't achieve an actual "orgasm," Pascali-Bonaro says she'd never want that as a performance standard, regardless. "When you want to birth a baby, you want your vagina wet and open, but we know what our vaginas would do in a typical hospital with people yelling the four-letter word: push, push push!" "I see a system out of balance," Pascali-Bonaro says. Fewer than 2% give birth comfortably at home or in centers in the U.S., while almost 4 million birth in hospitals, where Pascali-Bonaro argues we too often overuse valuable technology-which attributes to our 32% Caesarian rate, more than double what the World Health Organization recommends-and underuse our body's innate capabilities.
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"If oxytocin flows freely," Davis explains, "orgasmic birth is a natural result."īut the fear of childbirth still plagues as many as one in 10 women. Oxytocin, released during foreplay, orgasm, and the anticipation of sexual activity, peaks at levels 10 times higher during labor than at any other time in a woman's life. "You want your vagina wet and open, but we know what our vaginas do with people yelling the four-letter word: push, push push!" We just can't put sex back into childbirth, which is counterproductive and counterintuitive to what women feel in this space." "We use it to cure headaches, when we have periods-it just makes sense-but it's taboo. "I honestly think if the paramedics hadn't shown up I would've had the baby in the shower and had an orgasm," Angela maintains, noting that masturbation worked to treat her pain. Her baby was born within 15 minutes upon arrival and remained attached to the placenta for two hours. She realizes paramedics are trained to treat birth as an emergency, but she was determined to birth her way. I literally held the baby in the whole time." "I went from touching myself in the shower in an amazing zone and frame of mind, to then getting in the ambulance, forcing myself not to give birth. "The paramedics ended up being the rudest, most intrusive, unkind people-super patronizing so, right away, the energy was shocking," Angela says. "We use it to cure headaches, when we have periods-it just makes sense-but it's taboo." It allowed her to feel, something she wasn't afforded in her first pregnancy, which she describes as a "highly medicalized" procedure-draped in a hospital gown with an IV pricked in her arm, given an epidural, and, after 45 hours, a birth vacuum. Masturbating in a warm shower was her primal response to substantially mitigating the pain, moving her from a place of panic to a safe space in which she felt wholly connected to her mind, body, and spirit. "My birth pool exploded I didn't have water anymore…I was thinking, shit, shit, shit." "I was in transition and I felt like I was in a fog," Angela remembers. Hypnobirthing tracks lulled in the background while Angela sat to labor in a birth pool blown up in her living room.īut at around nine or 10 centimeters, her contractions intensified. She was dancing around her kitchen on the Mornington Peninsula of Victoria, Australia, eating strawberries, twirling her firstborn daughter's hair, and petting her dog.
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It was early, about 6 a.m., when Angela Gallo went into labor. He asked her if she wanted to have sex-he'd read that it'd alleviate her contractions. The other was between her legs, her fingers circling her clitoris. One hand held her husband's over the shower door.