Birth of the First Mother

Birth of the First Mother

by Sister MorningStar

Anna held her jewel of a son in her arms. A halo seemed to surround them as she beamed her love into his face, cradling him like a Mother Mary. It was her third birth but first homebirth. We were village midwives back then, some 40+ years ago now.

We lived with the mother the last few weeks or days before her birth. We learned the workings of her family very well. We would be staying many more days after the birth to help with all the integration a new baby requires for a family. We would be protecting both the nesting and resting in sacred spaces. We never saw the anxieties I hear about these days. We met concerns together and resolved them straight away.

Anna’s glory spread to the smiles all around the quiet room. Hours passed. Food and shared blessings. First breast feedings and pees and poos. Washing and tidying up the birth sanctuary. Starting the laundry. Freshening the candles and helping older children return to their play.

Ann’s euphoria began to fade and a sorrow came over her. “I’m scared,” she said with choked words and a tiny tear. “I’m scared to birth the placenta.”

We listened and sat on our haunches nearby. And kept quiet.

“Will you hold me?” she asked.

We both knelt facing each another. I wrapped my arms around her and she dropped her head onto my shoulders and cried and cried.

“When I birth my placenta, it will all be over. All the wonderful prenatal visits. The powerful birth. It will all be up to me to be the mother.” Her words released so much.

Anna cried her emotion to freedom. It was all true. Nothing to do but hold her through it. Support her through this next powerful birth. The birth of her placenta. No fake promises to make.

We breathed together. “Feel her coming!” I whispered. “You are doing it…”

Down and out came the placenta onto the clean towel between Anna’s legs. Softer, smaller but just as warm and just as beautiful and just as real work as the birth of her baby.

Anna’s elation returned. Her sense of power returned. We made a placenta smoothie and smiled together. “Thank you for not rushing me,” she said.

I love placentas. I think to understand and respect, to honor, protect and be in wise relation with third stage, we have to feel a great sacredness about what some old time birth sages call, “the first mother.”

Third stage is a birth. It is the birth of the placenta. The birth of the first mother. It is real work with real emotion and real potential for long lasting health and happiness in the journey of motherhood.

Carol had a repeating third stage accreta. The first and second birth had ended with emergency transports in third stage. The doctor had cursed her with a decree that she would die if she tried to birth vaginally again. We used homeopathic hydrastis canadensis (goldenseal) in her third pregnancy. Carol birthed in her own bathtub. She held her baby close to her heart and birthed her placenta whole with a victory cry that out-echoed any birth cry I have ever heard. “Hand me the phone!” she demanded. She called the doctor and condemned him for speaking a curse over her and forbid him to ever do that to other mothers. 

I had the great privilege of passing along this potential aid to a mother in Russia, who had a herstory of three accretas and wanted her instinctual, uninterrupted homebirth. The next year when I returned to Russia, she came running to me with a baby and a beautiful bag in her hand. And a glory story! We looked over her perfect placenta together and smiled those big smiles that come from women who find their power, especially once it has been lost.

When I ask a mother to share her ideal birth, she seldom mentions the birth of her placenta. Birth plans often include long, practical, emotional, and cultural details or preferences about how to get baby born—but only a line about waiting for the cord to “stop pulsing” or some comment about not pulling on the cord. Even with prompting, most mothers barely talk about third stage. They often say they will trust their midwife or birth guardian to handle such details, “if something goes wrong.”

When I watch midwives tending to slow labors or mild variations of descent with such patience, it seems abrupt to me that impatience generally sets in for “getting the placenta out.” I wonder if the reverence we instinctually feel or are taught to feel toward baby is missing when we think about birth of “the first mother.” Fear, mostly imagined, or residue from some previous experience or story, is often the directing force to take action in third stage, distrusting nature to birth a second time. But the same intelligence is at work. Calm hands and mind and wise eyes help with the birth of the placenta as much as with baby.

Although it is a fetal organ and often called a “sibling” to the birthing baby, placenta is the first umbilical connection and source of nourishment. Along with the womb, she helps cradle and provide sense stimulus to baby. Who knows what emotional and spiritual support she gives? Her oceanic waves and sounds. Her perfect warmth and soft belly. Her constant presence and continuous pulse of life. Who, other than a poet, can describe the comfort and cosmic care of this first mother to the body, mind, and soul of baby? She is the necessary and supreme protection baby must have to survive and thrive. With the appearance of the Tree of Life, I can hardly sing her praises long or loud enough.

The rituals and educational potential for every placenta is a world of discussion of its own. If a mother was moving or had no land or no interest in her “afterbirth,” I would ask to bring the placenta home with me. In all my own sacred ways, I honored her in classes and ultimately returned her to Mother Earth with ceremony.

Talking too much about excessive bleeding, partial separation, mild or severe abruptions, incomplete or septic placentas, permeable membranes, malformations, accreta, and on and on is not unlike or unrelated to over-addressing complications that may lead to dead babies when we talk about birth. Both are extremes and scare mothers. It takes the joy out of birth and third stage is a birth.

Such focus can lead to fear and intrusive, unnecessary action. It shifts us from observing with 1000 eyes and robs us of knowing the many variations of normal. It inhibits learning and teaching the skills we need to be wise and respectful guardians in the journey of birth.

If baby took some time to be born, placenta may too. If baby is slow to start, the first mother may wait and aid baby breath before readying to release. As a fetal organ, baby’s needs come first. If the birthing mother is other-focused on older siblings, dad, midwife questions, or some such, the distraction can hinder birth of placenta, just like these distractions hinder birth of baby. Adding fear makes matters worse. Instinctual fear sees clearly and moves into action (as with a stuck blue baby or a persistent bleed). Fear of “what ifs” lead to strict protocols, scary storytelling, and power shifts from mother and nature to professional.

When we embrace third stage as a sacred birth, we add back in to the birth room elements of patience, positive word medicine and cultural traditions. We talk about third stage prenatally with interest, excitement, and reverence.

Once the first mother is born, major shifts are precipitated in all the primary relationships formed throughout the pregnancy. Mother’s body begins its journey back to pre-pregnancy. Baby begins her journey as independent being. All family members assume new roles. Ending sessions with the birth team begin to be scheduled. I heard once that when a baby is born, the entire universe moves over to make room. Same. Same. With the birth of the first mother, she completes her purpose and begins to withdraw, allowing the birthing mother to nurture baby to adulthood. Nature’s promise and hope for another generation has been fulfilled. 

Kristina birthed her baby wearing a nuchal cord like a cape about his regal shoulders. She held him close to her heart and birthed her placenta with a gush of bright red voluptuous blood. Nuchal cords can bring a premature birth of a placenta with some extra blood. It can be normal. It was normal for Kristina. There she sat in her candlelit red bath holding baby in one hand and placenta dripping in the other. Like a Queen on her throne with power in both hands she called for a placenta bowl and a warm blanket. One elder son got the bowl and father wrapped the blanket around mother’s shoulders as the Holy Family rose and made their parade to her royal chamber where more candles and breakfast in bed awaited her. As it should be.

For mothers who want to guide out their own placentas, I recommend watching a chimp birth. It is so rich in instinctual birth wisdom, including how a mother guides out her own placenta and helps with newborn first breaths. Actually, it is rich with positions and the role of a midwife. It is my favorite birth video to share. Mothers who guide out their own placentas can feel when it is ready and has released. We roleplay how to swirl a placenta and rope-trailing membranes. We roleplay using wrist action rather than elbow action to bring a placenta down and out. We build confidence to take back birth. It is so powerful to be a witness to a mother’s hands receive her baby and receive her own placenta. Why not? Chimps do it. 

Third stage is a stage of power, reverence. and unveiling mystery. It is the ultimate birth and revelation of the first mother.

Sister MorningStar has dedicated a lifetime to the preservation of instinctual birth. She birthed her own daughters at home and has helped thousands of other women find empowerment through instinctual birth. She is the founder of a spiritual retreat center and author of books related to instinctual and spiritual living. She lives as a Cherokee hermitess and Catholic mystic in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri. Visit her on the web at: www.sistermorningstar.com.

The Power of Women: Instinctual Birth Stories: When women embarked on their journey into womanhood and motherhood, stories from their grandmothers, great-grandmothers and ancestors came forth through songs, stories and what appeared as mythological tales. Upon hearing these stories, women became empowered to do what all women from which they came were able to do: give birth instinctually.