Birth Models and How They Affect Your Birth, with Robbie Davis-Floyd

Medical Anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd explains why we’ve gotten so obsessed with machines and numbers, how things are changing back to models that work in various parts of the world, and what you can take from those models to improve your experience.

What we talked about:

• Holistic OBs creating cultural change in Brazil
• The technocratic model: your body as a machine
• The humanistic model: your body as an organism
• The holistic model: your body and mind are one
• Pink wall paint and other ways in which birth gets co-opted into seeming humanized
• The energetic relationship between your throat and your cervix
• Do you know what you want?
• Do you know what you fear?
• Claiming your power as a birth giver
• Ways to have a more humanized and holistic birth within the generally technocratic hospital environment (including what to read, watch, and do beforehand)
• Why we need more midwives
• The midwifery model of care as a combination of holistic and humanistic
• Training OBs beside midwives

More on birth models, and resources mentioned by Robbie*:

• The Technocratic, Humanistic, and Holistic Paradigms of Childbirth, by Robbie Davis-Floyd
• Culture and Birth: The Technocratic Imperative, by Robbie Davis-Floyd
• Childbirth Connection website
• The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth (Revised), by Sheila Kitzinger
• The Business of Being Born website
• Orgasmic Birth website and organic birth film info
• Ways of Knowing about Birth: Mothers, Midwives, Medicine, and Birth Activism, book by Robbie Davis-Floyd
• Birth Models That Work, book by Robbie Davis-Floyd
• The Power of Ritual, book by Robbie Davis-Floyd
• Rede pela Humanização do Parto e do Nascimento – Brazilian organization mentioned by Robbie

Related Birthful episodes:

• Place of Birth as Your #1 Cesarean Risk, with Dr. Neel Shah
• The Holistic Stages of Birth, with Whapio (Part 1) – Birthful.com
• The Holistic Stages of Birth, with Whapio (Part 2) – Birthful.com

About Robbie Davis-Floyd

Courtesy of Robbie Davis-Floyd

Robbie Davis-Floyd, PhD, Senior Research Fellow, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Texas Austin and Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology, is a medical anthropologist specializing in the anthropology of reproduction. An international speaker and researcher, she is author of over 80 articles and of Birth as an American Rite of Passage (2004) and lead editor of 10 collections, the latest of which is Birth Models That Work, which highlights optimal models of birth care around the world.

Her current research project studies the paradigm shifts of holistic obstetricians in Brazil. Robbie serves as Editor for the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative (IMBCI): 10 Steps to Optimal Maternity Care (www.imbci.org), Board Member of the International MotherBaby Childbirth Organization (IMBCO), and Senior Advisor to the Council on Anthropology and Reproduction.

Learn more on her website www.davis-floyd.com or follow the conversation on Facebook at /robbie.davisfloyd
 

 
Title music: “Vibe Ace” by Kevin MacLeod, from the Free Music Archive / CC BY (edited for length).

Sponsorship music: “Air Hockey Saloon” by Chris Zabriskie, from the Free Music Archive / CC BY (edited for length).