A short spoken segment (YouTube video) by Jeffrey Jaime reflecting on childbirth as a transformational, ceremonial process. The speaker argues childbirth involves the symbolic death of an old identity and the birth of a new self; without ritualized acknowledgment and integration, women may experience lasting trauma.
When a woman gives birth and actually her partner. When you guys are going through this process, you are transforming. There's an old you that is dying. There's a new version of you that's being born. Just like with this baby that's coming Earthside. When women come to me and say, I felt like I was going to die, you did die. There was this old identity that is gone. There is a transformation that's going to happen here. If we don't honor that as a true ceremony and we don't have a closing piece to that where we integrate the stress of this incredibly challenging experience, a lot of women are left with what they actually report as trauma.
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