Sacred Inception: Reclaiming the Spirituality of Birth in the Modern World

by Marianne Delaporte (Editor), Morag Martin (Editor), Robbie Davis-Floyd (Foreword by), Pamela Hunt (Afterword), Kristin Brig (Contribution by)

Overview

This edited volume explores the intersection of spirituality with childbirth from 1800 to the present day from a comparative perspective. It illustrates how over this time period in much of the world, traditional practices, home births, and midwives have been overshadowed and undermined by male dominated obstetrics, hospitalization, and ultimately the medicalization of the birthing process itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498546690
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	06/21/2018
Pages:	274
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.33(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Marianne Delaporte is professor of religious studies at Notre Dame de Namur University.
Morag Martin is associate professor of history at the College of Brockport, SUNY.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Robbie Davis-Floyd
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Marianne Delaporte and Morag Martin

Part I: Midwives as a Bridge between the Spirit and the World

1. Midwifery as Religious Calling: The Struggle for Church Recognition by the Soeurs de la Charité Maternelle of Metz in the Nineteenth Century
Morag Martin
2. Childbirth and Folk Orthodoxy in Russia in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries
Tatiana Novikova
3. Superstition, Folk Religion and Childbirth: Highlighting the World of Informal Midwives in Modern Turkey
Gökçen B. Dinç
4. Stories of Birth: The Spiritual Genesis of Ina May Gaskin’s Spiritual Midwifery
Marianne Delaporte

Part II: Contested Maternities: Colonization and a Return to Ancestors and Culture

5. Birthing the Spirit: Self-determination and Childbirth in Australia
Amba J. Sepie
6. A Blur between the Spiritual and the Physical: Birthing Practices among the Igbo of Nigeria in the Twentieth Century
Ogechukwu Ezekwem Williams
7. The Art of Midwifery among the Arhuaco People of Colombia: Spirituality, Resistance, and Violence in Intercultural Birth Contexts
Angela Santamaria, Dunen Kaneybia Muelas Izquierdo, Angela N. Castañeda, and Camila Rangel

Part III: Home Birth, Natural Birth, Hospital Birth: Choices for Spiritual Maternity

8. Pushing from the Margins: “Natural Childbirth” in Holistic Spiritualities and Natural Parenting in France and Portugal
Anna M. Fedele and Florence Pasche Guignard
9. Delivering Spirituality in Maternity Services: An Example of Two European Countries
Claire de Labrusse, Tracy Humphrey, Anne Sylvie Ramelet, and Sarah MacLennan
10. “Going Back”: Spirituality and Cultural Traditions in South Carolina Women’s Childbirth Experiences
Cara Delay, Beth Sundstrom, Andrea L. DeMaria, and Kristin Brig
11. Birthing the Natural Pious Singaporean Malay Muslim Woman through the Ideal Islamic Birth Framework
Sharifah Huseinah Madihid

Afterword: The Spirituality of Birth
Pamela Hunt

Editorial Reviews

This richly contextual book draws our attention to the energetic qualities of birth and the importance of honoring spirit and emotional wellbeing within myriad contrasting socio-political-cultural and cosmological belief milieus. This collection of diverse chapters takes us on a multi-layered journey through birth that acquaints us with something conjoined with birth yet often left unspoken. A welcome addition to the emergent literature that appreciates the intimate kinship of birth and spirituality.

Susan Crowther

Through a global framework, Sacred Inception presents birth as not merely biological, but as that which emanates from and embodies spirit. It honors diverse, external contexts as shaping an act so internally intimate. Any reader looking to engage discourse on the intersectionality and relatedness of maternal thought with faith-filled praxis would do well to examine what Delaporte, Martin, and these authors offer.

Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder

Marianne Delaporte and Morag Martin have gathered an important collection on the continuum of the spirituality of birthing and parenting. This book adds to the current discussion of reproductive justice and women’s health by taking inclusive, interfaith, and interdisciplinary approaches. They honor women's stories that redefine the sacred and remember the ancient and modern wisdom of midwives, doulas, and mothers. And the essays in this book challenge the reader with the implications for true healing and activism.

Tina Pippin

In many of our contemporary contexts where births are taking place in cold hospital rooms under the control of professionals and with the use of modern technologies, we tend to forget that childbirth is a miraculous experience having always been surrounded by rituals, prayers, and spirituality. This wonderful collection reminds us that diverse rituals and practices of childbirth across the world share one common trait: the magic of the birth itself. Based on thick research with telling details from anthropological, historical, and sociological perspectives, this collection of essays enable the readers to reconsider the spirituality of childbirth, a topic almost fully ignored by academic scholarship. Through the presentation of genuine voices and experiences from a broad range of cultural frames and temporalities, the articles collected in this book vividly demonstrate how awesome, miraculous, and also empowering the experience of childbirth is. One outstanding merit of this book is its dovetailing otherwise discordant concepts such as colonialism and spirituality, or academic areas of inquiry such as religious studies and ethnographies of childbirth. Anyone interested in issues related to the cultures of childbirth, spirituality, midwifery, or obstetrical violence will want to read this meticulously crafted book.

Gülhan Balsoy

In many of our contemporary contexts where births are taking place in cold hospital rooms under the control of professionals and with the use of modern technologies, we tend to forget that childbirth is a miraculous experience having always been surrounded by rituals, prayers, and spirituality. This wonderful collection reminds us that diverse rituals and practices of childbirth across the world share one common trait: the magic of the birth itself. Based on thick research with telling details from anthropological, historical, and sociological perspectives, this collection of essays enable the readers to reconsider the spirituality of childbirth, a topic almost fully ignored by academic scholarship. Through the presentation of genuine voices and experiences from a broad range of cultural frames and temporalities, the articles collected in this book vividly demonstrate how awesome, miraculous, and also empowering the experience of childbirth is. One outstanding merit of this book is its dovetailing otherwise discordant concepts such as colonialism and spirituality, or academic areas of inquiry such as religious studies and ethnographies of childbirth. Anyone interested in issues related to the cultures of childbirth, spirituality, midwifery, or obstetrical violence will want to read this meticulously crafted book.

Gülhan Balsoy