or baby is demeaned during birth, or if birth practices are not evidence-based and compromise the health and even lives of women and babies, then we are not promoting a true culture of life. Unfortunately, our modern medical system often places profit and efficiency ahead of human dignity, and this is especially true in pregnancy and birth. Our legal and medical model do not even consider unborn babies real persons. Impersonal healthcare too often forces us to sacrifice intimate care tailored to our unique situation. Many providers treat mothers and babies using “factory-model” protocols and treatment. Some even operate using outdated methods. Too often mothers are not listened to during their pregnancies or given the time, respect, and up-to-date information they need to make decisions in their best interests. Far too many women have experienced what they deem a traumatic birth resulting in serious health problems (or worse) for themselves or their babies.3 Far too many women have walked away from pregnancy and birth feeling that they weren’t listened to or were pressured into choices they didn’t really want to make. Instead of receiving evidence-based, reverent care, they leave birth with wounds and scars on their bodies, yes, but also on their minds, hearts, and souls.
In the United States, many are surprised to learn that maternal morbidity rates of women are actually on the rise.4 Compared with other countries, our infant survival rate ranks behind most of Europe and Asia at an unacceptable 57th.5 The cesarean rate in the United States is more than double what is recommended as safe for mother and baby by the World Health Organization.6 Women of color have a greater number of birth complications, and their infants die at higher rates — more than double the rates of other communities.7
Costs of birth have become inflated and pose a deep hardship for many families. Countless women relay birth stories filled with interventions that were not based on real evidence, frustration with a medical system that did not listen to them, and sometimes blatant abuse or disregard for their consent in treatment from the mother for herself and her baby. There is virtually no system of real care in place for a woman after she has had her baby, and often she needs to go back to work or her “normal” life before she has recovered at even the most minimal level from the birth.
Thankfully, small steps have been taken by many providers and hospitals to change birth practices to better reflect modern evidence and to provide more dignified care for mother and baby. But there is still a long way to go.
If we claim to support the dignity of every human person, then we as Catholics must be concerned with birth. If we are asking couples to be open to life, we have to do better when it comes to supporting them through the resulting pregnancies and births with real information and respectful care. We should be a part of the move toward a better system and an essential part of the discussion of creating a culture of birth that can fit seamlessly into a greater culture that recognizes and celebrates the beauty of family, womanhood, and the irreplaceable gift of every human life. How we approach birth as a culture and even as individuals will say a lot about what we value and what we truly believe. As Saint John Paul II stated, “Concern for the child, even before birth, from the first moment of conception and then throughout the years of infancy and youth, is the primary and fundamental test of the relationship of one human being to another.”8
Both our intentions in our decisions and the way we do things matter greatly. We don’t believe that the ends justify the means.9 We have to be concerned with the “how” and take great care to ensure that every mother and baby is treated with dignity, that birth practices are based on solid science and evidence, and that God’s original design of creation and natural law are respected throughout pregnancy and birth. We can reject the lies that birth is ugly, gross, shameful, or that it doesn’t really matter how women and babies are treated as long as both are alive at the end. We as a Church can choose to claim birth again for God, recognizing that it is his design first, truly believing that he really planned it this way, and he is the great designer behind it all.
The Dignity of Every Baby at Every Moment
From the very moment of conception, Christianity recognizes that human person with a life just as valuable and important as that of any other person on Earth. No matter the circumstances surrounding conception, every baby is a unique and irreplaceable human person willed by God for his or her own sake. As Saint John Paul wrote in his 1994 Letter to Families: “God ‘willed’ man from the very beginning, and God ‘wills’ him in every act of conception and every human birth.”10 That reverence for every life needs to mark every single birth.
In the Christian understanding of the family, parents are not autocrats, and the worth of the individual members is not dictated by hierarchy or seniority. All members of the family are “equal in dignity,” and parents are obliged to “regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons.”11 The Gospel message transforms our understanding of each individual soul, helping us to recognize them as the image of God, regardless of age, ability, size, gender, race, or any other characteristic. “Inspired and sustained by the new commandment of love, the Christian family welcomes, respects and serves every human being, considering each one in his or her dignity as a person and as a child of God.”12
This understanding of the dignity of every single baby must infiltrate how we approach our births as Christian women. The baby — unborn, being born, and newly born — has the same rights and dignity as the mother, father, doctor, midwife, nurse, or anyone else in the birth room and must be treated accordingly. In fact, Catholic teaching would take this one step further: the baby should receive in some sense greater deference as the weakest and “poorest” in the room. The message of Christ (and the teaching of the Church) contains a preferential option for the poor, which refers not just to the economically poor, but to the weak and vulnerable of the world. Inspired by the beatitudes and the command of Christ in Matthew 25, we believe we have a Christian duty to protect, honor, and defer to the weakest among us.13 Whatever we do to the least of these, we do to him, too.
In pregnancy and birth, then, how can we best honor the baby, taking care to treat him or her as someone with complete dignity and worthy of compassion and respect? In their littleness and need, babies become another Christ among us. We as mothers can choose to recognize that reality with the choices we make in birth and in our attitudes surrounding their personhood. We can choose to honor that reality with how we approach our pregnancy, talk about the person within us, and defend his or her rights as equal to our own.
Before, during, and after birth, each child has an experience all his or her own. We understand very little about the unborn and newly born brain, but we do know that babies experience pain, fear, pleasure, happiness, comfort, and much more, possibly amplified since they do not have the context of experience or cognitive reasoning to temper their understanding of what may be happening to them. Their experience of the birth can and should be taken into account. It certainly helps us grow in compassion and love when we try to understand what the birth experience must be like for them. What a testimony it is to the inherent value not only of that unique individual life but of every life when we treat the tiniest among us with tremendous compassion and concern. As mothers, we can take our babies’ experience into account when making birth choices, erring on the side of life, compassion, and honor for their dignity. After all, our babies’ needs, emotions, and experience matter and are just as valid as our own.
Do we see the importance of the baby being treated with respect, love, and dignity as a complete and irreplaceable human being valued by God? Do we respect women and allow them to make informed choices about their bodies and their children? Do we use real science and a complete understanding of biology in our approach and methods? Do we recognize the profound moment in front of us as the mother welcomes the new child into the family and bow to that mystery before us? Do we do everything we can to respect the way God designed it to happen and respect the order of the family as God created it? Do we treat every mother
