Birth Agni
This Podcast explores how indigenously Birth has always unfolded, among women - our tribe, where children could see how breastfeeding was done and how birth happened. This an attempt to fetch the stories of the past as well as bring out the new India’s Birth culture to expose the defining features in both. This shall join the dots to where the increasing problems of postpartum anxiety, rising rate of surgical births and poor breastfeeding outcomes are coming from.
Birth Agni - Agni meaning Fire, the Fire that brings us alive, transforms us and has the ability to burn. Birth is designed to affect a woman’s integrity. It is the fire of awakening that makes her life experience wholesome. Deep down her body knows what Birth is supposed to feel - a euphoria of bringing a new life on Earth. The cocktail of hormones are designed to give her a high.
However, birth today has quickly swayed away from a phase of joy to the one marked by Fear, the constant questioning of a woman’s capacity to Birth naturally and the ugly calculation of the odds of a healthy baby at the expense of the mother’s health. We forget that their health is interlinked and flourish as a dyad. In India, the urban rate of Cesarean Sections on an average until 2020 is a whopping 40% which is concerning.
Birth is linked to Patriarchy, Healthcare Politics and Women’s Rights. Respect in Birth is long due to women and it affects the core of who they are.
Join me Divya Kapoor, a Certified Birth and Lactation Counselor and aspiring Traditional Birth Attendant in the quest to shine light on what we can do as parents and a community to change the narrative.
Birth Agni
#97 - Anjali's home birth story
This is Anjali's story. She attempted to birth all her three children at home and lives right behind my house. First two were in the village and the youngest is in the city. The second birth was a transfer after laboring at home for quite a while, the baby was 1kg.
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The first time I met her was when my house help Rani didi who actively works as an informer for me on people birthing at home and dais in the vicinity, took me to her house. Divi, my daughter came along.
"Mama! I can also climb this tree", Divi asks me really seeking permission if its safe to follow Anjali's daughter, younger to her and adept at plucking baby oranges from the taller branches.
When we talk about Birth as safe or unsafe essentially , we also need to learn how birth unfolds essentially (from these people who live a more natural life than any instagram reel can talk us into) and then invite interventions where really needed. Just like divi saw how a girl younger to her could organically learn to climb , she could watch and follow by example, with more motivation and less fear.
What is really happening in the birth world today is , we start with inducing healthy low risk mothers because we fear they will not go into labor, like Whattttt! And that is what really has gone wrong in birth , not new age women, mind you!
Now what does data tell me - 'I do not know'! Most of us never look at the conditions in which a research or study was done. To my work as a birth counsellor and doula/birthkeeper , this is my data. Real people and I have no funding or inherent interests to mould it in any other way than it is.
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