Pioneering midwife touts 'orgasmic birth'

High C-section rate
But the high rate of Caesarean sections in the U.S. may help Gaskin’s message gain some traction. Former talk show host Ricki Lake produced and starred in a recent documentary that features Gaskin and is critical of hospital births and their high rate of C-sections.

The U.S. now has a Caesarean section rate of 31 percent, a figure the College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists agrees is troubling.

At the same time, this group of doctors who perform the C-sections also reiterates its “long-standing opposition to home births.” In a recent statement, the organization said childbirth decisions “should not be dictated by what’s fashionable, trendy, or the latest cause celebre.”

Home births are not safe, their statement warns, because “a seemingly normal labor and delivery can quickly become life-threatening.”

Over the years, studies on the safety of home births have conflicted. The doctors’ group says research comparing the safety of home and hospital births has been limited and is not scientifically rigorous.

Their organization approves of the assistance of hospital midwives certified by the American College of Nurse Midwives. These midwives have nursing degrees or comparable training. The college of obstetricians warns against lay midwives like Gaskin, who have no formal medical training and who aid in home births.

Even so, the College of Nurse Midwives says home births can be safe, and they are fans of Gaskin’s. “She’s quite a remarkable woman and an icon of midwifery,” said Mairi Breen Rothman, a nurse midwife and consultant to the midwives college. Rothman herself was inspired by Gaskin’s book.

‘The Orgasmic Birth’
Gaskin began her practice as one of about 250 hippies who pooled their money in 1971 to buy rural land south of Nashville to form a commune. Soon she and a few other women on The Farm were delivering 25 to 30 babies each month.

Mark Humphrey / ASSOCIATED PRESS Ina May Gaskin teaches a class in midwifery at The Farm in Summertown, Tenn.

While training herself, Gaskin sought out doctors and other midwives and devoured medical texts. But she never sought a medical degree, instead helping to create an alternative certification so lay midwives could prove their competency.

Not all obstetricians think home births are inherently unsafe. New York obstetrician Heidi Rinehart spent a few weeks at The Farm while a medical student. Although her husband also is an obstetrician, when they were having a baby, they asked Gaskin to be their midwife.

But even doctors who’ve never heard of Gaskin have felt her influence because of patients who have read her books, seen her birth videos or heard her speak.

“They request or demand or vote with their feet to have the kind of birth they want,” Rinehart said.

Now, Gaskin has a film in the works that is in keeping with her anti-establishment, freewheeling nature.

“We’re doing a movie called ‘The Orgasmic Birth,’ ” she said.

That’s not a metaphor. Gaskin says that under the right circumstances women experience a sort of birth ecstasy.

“I mean, it’s not a guarantee,” she said, shrugging her shoulders and smiling, “but it’s a possibility.

“It’s the only way I can think to market it to (this) generation.”

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