Parenting Excerpts

Prenatal Yoga & Natural Childbirth by Jeannine Parvati Baker
Reprinted with permission from Freestone Publishing.

Jeannine Parvati Baker died on December 1, 2005. She was a Lay Midwife, Ashtanga Yogini, Astrologer, Founder of Hygieia College, Herbal Medicine-Woman, Mother of Six, Author of Prenatal Yoga & Natural Childbirth, Hygieia: A Woman's Herbal, co-author of Conscious Conception and designated as a National Treasure by Mothering Magazine.

 I had the privilege of meeting her when I was a young mother living in northern California, and I also used her book, Prenatal Yoga & Natural Childbirth when I was pregnant in 1975 and again in 1980. Here are some of the last words she penned about midwifery:

 I coined the term BIRTHKEEPER to marry EARTHKEEPERS and BIRTH. EarthKeeper is a Native American word for Eco-activists as well as holders of the sacred Earth-based wisdoms.

Midwives can be the same, yet the term "Midwife" has been usurped by MEDwives and other medically-based perinatal professionals. At this point in time on Turtle Island, Midwifery is an endangered species. Too many Midwives have identified with the oppressor, learned to speak the conqueror’s language, and otherwise been vanquished to emerge as obstetrically-trained "Medwives". In other words, many Midwives have given up being guardians and keepers of natural birth at home, in order to survive as professionals."

BIRTHKEEPER...Healing Birth is Healing the Earth.

 Here is an excerpt from the book:

This book has a history rooted in women’s mythology and yoga. The story goes like this: A Marin County housewife traveled to India to study yoga with a master. While practicing, she became pregnant and shared the news with her teacher who told her that now she would have to stop. She replied that yoga was her path and that she didn’t want to stop. It seemed to her that during pregnancy yoga was especially important as she needed the strength and suppleness to handle these new and powerful feelings and levels of consciousness brought about by being pregnant….

 I can merely conjecture as to the reasons this wise man advised his student to stop practicing yoga. Perhaps he was too inculcated with the general mystique of pregnancy. Pregnancy is viewed by many incapable of experiencing it (and even by some who do) as something not okay, or at the very least a nine-month suspension from the real business of living a regular life. The same attitude is sometimes tragically employed in the raising of children by parents on a definite spiritual path: that these years of caring for children are somehow distracting them from their spiritual evolution. I know that this is illusion – our daughter has been our greatest teacher, and living with her has provided ample opportunity to see how high we really are. And so it is with pregnancy. Now, you may wonder why pregnancy might conflict with yoga. I believe it is due to the inappropriateness of traditional Hatha Yoga on one very basic level: it doesn’t feel good. A yoga more in tune with the Great Moon Force, of a more cyclical nature and one of changing flow is far more beneficial for woman embodying the most exaggerated form of the female principle. And so (to return to our wandering pregnant housewife) her teacher heard this and responded with tremendous ability and helped instruct his student in modifications of yoga for pregnancy. Eastern man and western woman together began the discipline of prenatal yoga. Where we all catch glimpses and sometimes really know the true path is in the integration of our sun and moon forces, dark and light, strength and fluidity: a balance, a union.

 Discipline is very much needed during pregnancy, not only from the ritual aspect, but to prepare for the great discipline required in caring for a baby. You can choose daily whether to do prenatal yoga or not – but you have to “do” a baby every day. This was of course my preference, yet there were some days when the centering practices I had developed in yoga sustained me through crying spells and teething. The synthesis of these traditional disciplines and my student’s teachings and my experiences in natural childbirth is what I want to share with you in this manual. It is an offering made with love and the knowledge that you, pregnant person, are truly the Grace of God.

 Namaste and happy yoga!

 You can see/buy the book Prenatal Yoga & Natural Childbirth here:

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