​We are so honored when our families share their birth stories here in this blog space, and we are honored to share another very important Birth Story with you that is being told through film.

​Like most birth workers, we love us some Ina May. For those of you who aren't familiar, she's known as the "mother of modern midwifery," a self-taught, straight-talking, gentle soul who isn't afraid to take on the establishment for the good of maternal health and better outcomes for birth.

Birth is an internal process that is easily disturbed by unnecessary interventions. According to midwife Ina May Gaskin, “sphincters are shy”.

A woman’s dilated cervix can easily close in the presence of disruptive people or actions (cervical reversal). In a normal birth, vaginal exams and other handlings of the perineum during labor are interventions that can interfere with the natural birthing process.

At any other time in our lives, our vagina is considered "private". During birth a woman is told to lay back, open her legs and allow her body to be explored by strangers. A laboring woman loses her dignity, privacy and trust in herself in the hands of the people that she has hired to assist her in this sacred moment.