ļ»æEpisode 166 - An Ode to Odent
[0:00] Welcome to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Melanie Jackson. I'm a clinical and research midwife with my PhD, and each episode, I cast a critical eye over current maternity care practice by grappling with research and historical knowledge to help you get the best out of your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum journey.
[0:25] Welcome to today's episode of the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. If you are listening as a woman, partner, midwife, birth worker, anyone involved in any aspect of maternity care, it's imperative that you understand the work of Michel Odent.
[0:43] Newer career clinicians and practitioners may not have had the privilege of hearing Michel speak live, and maybe you haven't even encountered his work. And if that's the case, your education has a gap in it that I aim to fill today. So Michel Odent created a body of work that should form, I believe, should form the basis of our understanding to how to care for women during pregnancy, birth, and afterwards. He was an obstetrician, pioneer, and rebel whose work should never be forgotten. Without his contributions, our understanding of women's needs in labor would be incomplete. Of course, his work existed before social media made information spread like wildfire, but through his tireless travel, speaking engagements, his incredibly engaging accent, and his book, the name Michel Odent is well known throughout the world. Now, Michel Odent left this world on the 19th of August, 2025,
[1:48] after a long and fruitful career. My understanding is that he never stopped working for the cause of improving birth for women and babies and should always be remembered as a friend and fighter for midwives and for women.
[2:04] Now, in the resource folder for this episode, I've collated and collected every possible research paper, online resource, book title that has been written by Michel Odent. It's a time capsule of sorts to ensure that his work travels with us into the next generation of women and maternity care providers. And in this digital age, my fear is that his collection of work could soon be forgotten amongst the sea of one-minute social media posts and people will cease to read full books and research papers and his hard work just won't translate into the change that we still need to see in maternity care today. Michel O'Dront had a vision for future generations. He asked us to consider the long-term generational impact of interrupting birth and the unique oxytocin soup that exists during and afterwards.
[3:05] So strap in as I provide you with a walkthrough some of the work, some of my favorite works of Michel Odent in my Ode to Odent. This week, I reread every book I own that was written by Michel Odent. I spent the whole week reading and I revisited his research papers and collectively summarized as best I could the work of Michel Odent so that the new generation can get a glimmer of his work and then hopefully take the initiative to read what he's written yourself.
[3:39] So without further ado, in honor of Michel Odent who recently died on the 19th of August 2025 at the age of 95, I give you my ode to Odent,
[3:50] the OG, the original gangster, birth rebel of our generation. Now, the first book I read this week was my absolute top favourite book, The Farmer and the Obstetrician. This is by far my favourite book of Michel's, which was a surprise to him as we sat over breakfast together about 16 years ago. And this is a story I have to tell you. It's my only story of my Michel Odent encounters, any Michel Odent encounter I ever had in my whole career. But I was a newly graduated midwife just consuming everything I possibly could. And I went to this conference because I knew Michel Odent was going to be there. And on the day that he was presenting at the conference, I was getting into the lift on the way down to breakfast. We were in a hotel. And as the lift doors opened, their standing was Michel Odent and I was, it was myself and my husband Dan who were at this conference and he knew I was there to see Michel Odent.
[4:56] As soon as I saw him, I just got completely starstruck. We stepped into the lift and I just went completely stiff, totally unlike me. Fortunately, my husband read the room and understood exactly what was happening, realized I was completely fangirling and just couldn't think of one thing to say to Michel Odent. And he broke the ice, introduced himself. It turned out we ended up having, well, they had breakfast together and I just hung around like this awkward third wheel. Well, they had a lovely time, but during that conversation, during the conversations that we had over breakfast, I told him, I've read all of your books. And he said, which one was your favorite? And I said, the farmer and the obstetrician. And he said, no one ever said that. Why did you like it over the others? And I went on to explain about how I appreciated that he compared the industrialization of farming and its devastating impact on the health of animals, the food in our food chain. And I loved how he compared that to the impact of what he called the industrialization of childbirth.
[6:09] He was one of the first writers that I read who compared the maternity care system to a type of productivity engine, an industrial factory-like complex with broad sweeping methods that didn't really consider the impact on women and their babies downstream. So he was the first to really start talking about industrialized birthing models. And Michel Odent identified that just like with industrial farming, with its increased use of chemicals.
[6:40] Mass crop planting, cramped conditions for animals and the overuse of medications that were needed to keep them healthy in these manufactured environments. As with the industrialization of farming having an unintended consequence, the industrialization of childbirth was occurring in a similar pattern and he proposed that as a result, as what they were seeing in the farming world, we would see the unintended consequences of this mass level intervention on the health of women and babies. He believed that the industrialization of childbirth was this mass standardization of childbirth that we cannot fully grasp the impact of in the long term. Now, as a result of his ideas throughout his career, Michel Odent advocated for home-like birthing environments, It's the presence of an unobtrusive midwife and the use of water for labor and sometimes births.
[7:42] All of which were the opposite of the industrialized birthing practices that were being used en masse to the women of the world. And in his book, The Farmer and the Obstetrician, Michel explains how physicians and doctors actively petitioned a move away from midwifery in an attempt to monopolize the care of women in childbirth. And he explained the well-known history of how midwifery models of care were subjugated by medical practitioners. It was an intentional campaign with the ultimate result being the concentration of birth within large hospitals and away from homely environments that Michel advocated for being considered the best environments to facilitate the needs of the birthing women. And that was the body of his work. He tried to teach us the basic needs of women
[8:33] in labor and he gave some tips and pointers on how to meet those. And that's something that I'm going to talk about today. Now in this book, The Pharma and the Obstetrician, Michel explains that industrialization of birth followed the medicalization of birth. And when birth became industrialized as a way of caring for women en masse instead of as individuals.
[8:53] Not only was birth collectively occurring in large hospitals, but this created a striking tendency towards standardization, which is what we see today still. A one-size-fits-all model of care, and I call it birth by numbers. He called it industrialised birthing or standardised birthing practices. And in large facilities with systematic care, then comes standardisation where everyone must say and act the same. And this allowed for the use of routines and protocol-governed birth care. We look to guidelines and policies to ensure uniformity instead of looking towards the needs of the woman.
[9:37] Now, under the industrial revolution of birth, Michel says that women become less and less involved in her birth as the needs of the system are prioritized. And she becomes a patient and as a result has nothing to do. She is done to in this industrialized model. She's not served. So as an obstetrician who was trained in the 1950s.
[10:02] Michel witnessed firsthand the medicalization of childbirth and recalls the introduction of the cesarean section into mainstream maternity care, as well as the use of things like epidural and CTG. He was there to witness their introduction to the birth world. He existed at a time where these were not commonplace, and he saw the birth landscape changing. And as he did, he wrote these warnings to us, to the generations of the future. He wrote to the future women and babies within the pages of his book. He foresaw the possible destruction that was coming into the world through the manipulation of birth. And the farmer and the obstetrician, Michel asks us to consider the long-term consequences of our extreme human action towards the process of childbirth. So just like the industrialization of farming threw up noticeable issues such as rampant disease amongst crops and livestock and increased use of poisons on the food to prevent crop loss and bugs and diseases, which later revealed health impacts for the people who ate them. So Michel argues that when we industrialize birth, we will create seismic changes in humanity.
[11:21] And just as the move towards organic food and local agriculture is a response to the downfalls of industrialized food production, is the return to home birth and low intervention birth locations as a response to the pitfalls of industrialized birthing in hospitals. So throughout the book, Michel continues to draw parallels between the two, making his point. He highlights that just as some farmers are petitioning against industrialized farming methods, so too there are maternity care providers who petition against the industrialization of childbirth and that the revival of midwifery is the prerequisite for entering the post-industrial era of childbirth. So Michel advocated for a move away from industrialized practices and midwives are seen as the antidote to the situation that we've found ourselves in. Michel lamented what had happened to birth and offered a solution. If we increase the activities of midwives in birth, then we may be able to return back to a pre-industrialized era of childbirth. In his book, The Farmer and the Obstetrician, Michel asks, what disaster are we waiting for? Believing that the only way people will wake up to the situation of industrialized childbirth is once everything ends up in catastrophe.
[12:49] And he explains that there is a human propensity to ignore the signs of impending disaster and only act when it's possibly too late. And I believe we're in those times.
[13:01] There are people calling out the negative consequences of how birth is managed in modern societies. Wise and clever whistleblowers are trying to alert us to our march towards disaster. And Michel spoke about waiting for this eureka moment to occur that he hoped would create a pivotal point away from industrialised birthing practices.
[13:24] And in the book, Michel goes on to predict the consequences of industrialized birthing. He hints in the book that industrialized births are more violent and harmful to the baby than those where the woman's body is allowed to function to its full capacity. And he links industrialized birth to growing violence in the world and a reduced capacity to love for babies who are born under violent circumstances. Now, he warns in this book that to believe such a thing and to say it, to say that violent births could lead to reduced capacity to love, he acknowledged that to research it and to write about it would be considered politically incorrect. He acknowledged that his message was hard to accept. Nonetheless, he writes about his thoughts in this book, The Scientification of Love, which is my second favorite book of Michel's. But in The Obstetrician and the Pharma, Michel Odent asked the question.
[14:32] Will industrialized birthing practices eventually result in catastrophic changes
[14:37] to the human capacity to love as a result of the interruption of the hormonal cascade of birth? I feel that that was the crux of his work, discovering the answer to this. What impact does interrupting the hormonal cascade of birth have on our long-term humanity?
[14:55] And Michel says, and I quote, The current lack of interest in the long-term consequences of mass utilization of new techniques leads to inescapable questions about childbirth. The high rates of intervention such as caesarean, induction of labour, augmentation of labour, epidural and drug-induced delivery of the placenta are not the mere effects of a deep-rooted misunderstanding of birth physiology. They are also a perfect illustration of the short-sightedness of technological man. I think even now, only a male obstetrician could write that and get away with it. He's suggesting that the way we approach birth in this industrialised era is short-sighted and.
[15:43] If we go by his warnings, a path to human destruction. And as a basic solution to this huge problem that Michel foretells, his solutions offered are simple and attainable. So he said simply, stop interrupting birth when it's not needed. Allow physiology to reign supreme and keep women and babies together after birth, respecting the physiology that occurs when the moments after birth are not interfered with.
[16:15] So Michel advocated for quietness in the birth space, privacy and a home-like setting for birth and is remembered for suggesting that the quietly knitting midwife in the corner of the room is the perfect companion to the laboring woman. Michel sought knowledge about the basic needs of women in labor and also gave his solutions on how to cater for them. And this was the basis of his work. So as Michel saw it, the needs of the laboring women were simply broken down to this. Firstly, she needs to calm the behavior of the part of her brain called the neocortex and where the hypothalamus and pituitary gland can secrete the amount of oxytocin needed by the woman without being hindered. Anything that hinders a woman from transitioning into this new labor space hinders the woman's capacity to birth. And Michel explains that falling into labor requires a similar environment to falling asleep. So if we think about what's needed to enter into that altered state of consciousness, that is sleep, we also start to understand what is needed in order to enter the altered consciousness that is labor. So he encouraged us to think what helps a woman fall asleep? Consider that the answer to that is the same as what helps a woman fall into labor.
[17:43] Michel explains that what is needed to fall asleep is not a random stranger asking questions. We need to be silent in the space, dim the lights, create a sense of peace In order to fall asleep, you need to feel safe and unobserved. Michel sees that it is unnerving to try and get to sleep if you're aware that someone is staring at you and monitoring your behavior. He cites studies that demonstrated, activation rather than relaxation of the neocortex and activation of the neocortex in the brain is.
[18:16] Counterintuitive to what the brain needs in order to effectively fall asleep but also effectively fall into labor and this is why Michel advocated for the midwife to stay out of the way or out of the side of women to try and be as unobtrusive as possible in order to help women fall into the state of labor or fall asleep more easily. Another thing that aids in falling to sleep or falling into labor is a comfortable temperature.
[18:46] So feeling cold wakes us up because it triggers the neocortex just as the neocortex is triggered when women feel cold in labor. Yet labor rooms are so cold and we wonder why women's bodies malfunction in these environments. So a warm space where there's a sense of comfort assist in the falling into and staying in labor and Michel sees the role of the midwife in birth as a tender mother-like figure for women in labor just as the presence of a loving parent helps a child fall asleep peacefully the presence of a nurturing and caring midwife creates a sense of calm and comfort for the woman to aid her in falling into labor. And Michel uses this analogy of helping to fall asleep and helping to fall into labor as an example of how authentic midwifery might proceed. So the skill of the midwife is knowing how to facilitate physiological function of the woman's body by doing less, not more.
[19:51] So Michel states that the analogy with falling asleep is instrumental in formulating a simple and concise way of explaining the conditions that are needed for effective labor to establish itself properly. So being protected from useless words, being sheltered from bright lights and being in an atmosphere of privacy and feeling comfort in terms of temperature and feeling secure. Those are the things that he believed would help labor and birth flow easily. Now I've made myself a note here to read page 94 and 95 from this book, The Farmer and the Obstetrician, which is what I'm talking about. And probably the reason was is that I read those two pages and I just thought, there's nothing in here that I don't want to repeat. So sit back for a minute. I'm about to read from The Farmer and the Obstetrician. Now, this is in regards to the safe delivery of the placenta. He uses the word delivery, but I mean, the first, the safe birth of the placenta.
[21:02] And he says, the first condition for a safe delivery of the placenta is that the birthplace is warm enough. We must keep in mind that adrenaline, a hormone we release when it's not warm enough, is antagonistic of oxytocin. After the birth of the baby, women rarely complain that it's too hot. If they are shivering, it's because they're not warm enough. When pregnant women ask me what to prepare for a home birth, I only mention a transportable heater that can be plugged in at any place and at any time. It can be used to warm up blankets and towels and to cover the bodies of the mother and the baby. The second condition is that the mother is not distracted at all and has nothing else to do than to look at the baby's eyes while feeling the contact with the baby's skin.
[21:48] This is the difficult point because as soon as a baby is born, there is usually an irrational need for activity around. The mother can be distracted by somebody who is talking or watching her or switching on a light or by an untimely phone call or by somebody who wants to cut the cord and so on. One of the reasons why cutting the cord before the birth of the placenta is dangerous is that it is a distraction for the mother and it interferes with the mother-baby interaction. Because these two conditions for the safe delivery of the placenta are ignored, thousands of mothers die every year, particularly in third world countries. For similar reasons, obstetricians are right to routinely inject as soon as the baby is born a drug replacing the natural maternal oxytocin. This is a way to compensate for the effects of an inappropriate environment which in itself the consequence a lack of interest in the birth physiology.
[22:43] In terms of civilization, injecting routinely a substitute for the love hormone at such a critical time is one of the most threatening aspects of industrialized childbirth. So here he's talking about the birth of the placenta. And he's saying because of our interruption in those post-birth moments that we interrupt the mother's optimal oxytocin function, of course, making her more prone to bleed. And as a result, we must give artificial oxytocin. And his concern is what are we doing at this most critical moment where our oxytocin levels are at peak? This is the peak human experience, the peak human experience of oxytocin for both the mother and the baby. What are we doing when we routinely inject a substitute for the love hormone at such a critical time? And he believes this is one of the most threatening aspects of industrialized childbirth.
[23:40] Now, he goes on to give a slew of practical strategies for midwives on how to behave at a birth in order not to interrupt labour and hence prevent the complications from occurring. Now, of course, we can't prevent all complications using these strategies, but Michel suggests that by unobtrusively caring for women, we can prevent a large number of the issues that are generated by an industrialised approach to birth. So continuing with his pharma and obstetrician analogy, Michel encourages a return to biodynamic or organic birthing practices as a way of protecting humanity from the destruction that he believes will come to us as a human race if we continue to allow industrialized birthing practices to be the commonplace way of caring for women in labor. Now, Michel didn't advocate for no medicine and for no medical involvement, he was an obstetrician, a clinical obstetrician himself. Rather, he advocated for obstetric practice to be isolated only to the treatment of pathological and abnormal situations. He's.
[24:48] Basic message was don't interrupt unless it's absolutely necessary. And that's where he saw the role of obstetrics, only in the treatment of pathological and abnormal situations. And in commenting about the relationship between midwifery and obstetrics, Michel says that for change to occur away from industrialized birth, that we must see a radical shift away from the medical management of birth. And Michel repeats that in order to enact this change, we must be radical. And he makes reference to the Association of Radical Midwives in the UK. So if you're listening, Michel Odent has definitely immortalized the work of radical midwives in his books.
[25:33] And Michel says, and I'm paraphrasing here, that any shift towards a biodynamic attitude needs to be, strictly speaking, radical.
[25:42] That is tackling the problem that is the problem at the root. And at the root of the problem is the medical control of childbirth. This medical control is a corruption of the role of medicine. That's how he referred to medical interruption in childbirth as a corruption of the role of medicine. He says that the role of medicine in general and in obstetrics in particular is originally limited to the treatment of pathological situations. It does not include the control of physiological process and as an obstetrician not only does Michel advocate for authentic midwifery but he also calls for obstetricians to practice authentic obstetrics where they would stop focusing on trying to manage and control physiological birth and instead become very good at only managing pathology. Michel believes that obstetricians trying to lay claim over full pregnancy and birth experience of the woman as primary care providers has had the side effect that obstetricians are no longer reliable clinicians in pathological events because their time, too much of their time, is spent in honing the skills of being primary care providers that they've neglected the skill of dealing with complexity because they've busied themselves with primary care of well women.
[27:10] A role Michel believes to be the jurisdiction of midwifery.
[27:15] In this case, Michel advocates for the dramatic reduction in the number of obstetricians as a prerequisite for the replacement of medically induced control of childbirth.
[27:28] In Michel's birth utopia, the highly trained expert obstetricians of the future will not have time to control every birth. They will be at the service of midwives and at the service of women and will appear on demand as the situation requires it. Not my words, the words of Michel Odent.
[27:50] So don't get mad at me. I'm just the messenger here. You know, this is not a tiny, tan Cypriot woman midwife saying this. This is the tall, white, male French obstetrician advocating for expertise of obstetrics to stick to getting really good at managing emergencies. Be experts at that and leave the care of well women to midwives. In Michel's utopia, a reduction in obstetricians would be met with an increase in the number of midwives. And midwives would be very good at nurturing women through physiological birth and obstetricians would be ready to serve women and midwives with their expertise in the event of an emergency or a complication. And the fact is at the moment that the obstetric profession on the whole is de-skilling itself. Seemingly no longer capable en masse of providing women with things like vaginal breech birth, twin breech births, vacuum and forceps over cesarean sections. Michel foretold this in his books, that obstetricians would lose their skill at emergency management because they're too busy, busy-ing themselves with physiological birth.
[29:06] Please, do yourself a favour. Let this book, The Farmer and the Obstetrician, be your ground-level-based knowledge as we reach a level of awareness about the industrialized nature of childbirth in modern day practices and the very real possibility that if we continue on
[29:25] this path of industrialized childbirth that we're facilitating the disruption of humankind. Michel believes that if we continue we are moving towards disaster. He calls for change before we get there and so this is the job of our generation. He didn't see it in his lifetime. He just warned about it. Michel leaves us with that legacy and with that task. Okay, that was the book, The Farmer and the Obstetrician. Now, in his next book, my next favorite book, The Scientification of Love, Michel explains the destruction that he's concerned about. If we persist in this direction of industrialization and medicalization, where birth physiology is in a constant state of interruption.
[30:09] What will happen to the human race over time? That's the question he asks. What will be lost of humanity if we don't let the hormones and the process of labor fully express itself? What happens to women and to their babies and to their family as a whole when the complex cocktail of birth is interrupted? And in the scientification of love, Michel proposes that the way we're born has long term consequences for our capacity to love. And with changing of birth towards the medical ways, Michel wonders, when we reduce physiological birth on a large scale, as we have, are we also collectively reducing our capacity to love? After all, the main hormone that governs labor is the same hormone that governs love and connection and bonding. It's oxytocin. And Michel asks, what happens to a person when this critical stage of life that is usually bathed in oxytocin, the highest amount of oxytocin we'll ever humanly experience, what happens to a person in this critical stage of life if this bathing of oxytocin is interrupted? What critical parts of our humanity do we lose and how are they impacted by how we're born?
[31:26] And he spends the pages of this book of The Scientification of Love explaining his thoughts about this. And in the opening chapters, Michel explains the correlation between pain during birth and the subsequent bonding and love with the newborn. So this is first noted in animals as an example, where animals who previously had habitually accepted, loved and nurtured their offspring were...
[31:54] After they were given pain-relieving medicine, this was an experiment that was done, during birth, they then rejected subsequent offspring. So for animals to not feel the process of labor caused them to reject their newborns. They didn't recognize them. This led to the understanding throughout history that pain appeared to be a necessary part of bonding and a required element if the mother was to adequately nurture her offspring.
[32:23] Now in animals, of course, everything is so instinctual. And for humans with a capacity for language and anticipation, love and bonding and nurturing our babies is not just about the right hormonal cocktail. We're capable of loving and caring for people if we even under suboptimal birth conditions. And if that wasn't the case, everyone who ever had epidural would neglect her child. And we know that that's not the case. But what we have come to discover is that during and soon after birth, there's a sensitive period between the mother and the baby that is physiologically designed to facilitate immense love and attachment. A physiological requirement if we are to be driven and inspired to care for our children with this sacrificial love. And so it's this interruption of the sensitive initial hours between the mother and the baby that Michel warns against in this book. So Michel advocates that the mother and baby not be interrupted or separated during this sensitive period after birth in order to allow for the full expression of love and bonding to occur. And the critical period soon after birth is governed by the hormone oxytocin. And Michel argues that keeping mothers and babies together leverages this hormone to create in each the mother and the baby an adaptive capacity to love. And where this process is interrupted, that this can impair people's long-term capacity to love.
[33:52] Now, I realize this information might feel heavy for some people. In this world of political correctness and the avoidance of information that feels triggering, I invite you to engage or disengage with this as you feel you need to. I'm not in the habit of softening information for the sake of people's individual sensitivities. And it seems that neither was Michel Odent, because his book is even more aggressive than I'm making it to be here. And if I were to be sensitive to every person's individual triggers and needs, we couldn't say anything at all, ever. So please, do take responsibility for how you interact with this information for yourself.
[34:35] Part of Michel's obsession throughout his work was to make correlations from research about this theory that he had that interrupting birth and the way we are born interrupts and impacts on our capacity to love. And after correlating information across multiple research sources, the idea was to collectively explore the idea that when you look into the background of how people were born, particularly those who have demonstrated impaired capacity to love either towards themselves or to others Michel believed there could be a correlating factor around how they were born so Michel makes reference to violent criminality and he cites a study which followed up 4,269 males born in the same hospital and they found that the main risk factor for being a violent criminal at the age of 18 was the association of a birth complication combined with early separation or rejection from their mother. And this starts us on the journey to exploring what Michel describes as the politically incorrect research correlations that he made between what happens to us at birth and future manifestations of acts of self-destruction and violence born out of deficiencies of love for ourselves and others.
[36:00] So Michel admits that this information is difficult to digest, but I'm glad he didn't shy away from it. Michel dedicated his life to understanding the long-term impacts of what happens to us at birth. And he was one of the only ones brave enough to write some of the things that are detailed in this book, The Scientification of Love, and we would be at a loss to at least not read it, just for consideration. Now, Michel argues that when we deviate too far from physiology, that there are pathological side effects, both short and long term. And of course, there are times where our desire to live and for the survival of our babies trump the desire for uninterrupted physiology.
[36:46] Michel Odent never denied that we should not interfere in birth in order to save and preserve life. He simply explains that we should exist in a constant state of awareness of how far from physiologically birthing we've come, how far we've deviated, and maintain an interest in coming back to physiology and not become comfortable with constant deviation away from birth physiology. We should have physiology as our constant point to return to. And Michel explains that when a woman is in labor, the most active part of her body is her primitive brain. And during the birth process, there's a period where the mother behaves as if she were on another planet. We've all seen that. She believes as if she was on another planet, cutting herself off from the everyday world and going on some sort of inner trip. Michel says that birth attendants who understand this essential part of labor, would not make the mistake of trying to bring the woman back to her senses because they would appreciate that the neocortical brain stimulation in general and any stimulation of the woman's intellect can interfere with her progress in labor. She needs to stay on that other planet.
[38:03] Now, are we wondering yet why our induction and cesarean rates are so high in industrialized birth locations, if we're to consider if Michel Odent was on to something? In the scientification of love, Michel Odent makes connections between the role of oxytocin, the hormone of love and of birth and of breastfeeding, orgasm and connection. And along with the release of oxytocin, there's this correlating release of endorphins, which are the hormones that, combined with oxytocin, give a sense of happiness and peace. And we're rewarded for being part of an oxytocin-induced activity, such as giving birth and having sex and breastfeeding our babies. Were internally rewarded for these types of behaviours, which Michel says wires us to do these things to ensure the survival of our children and humanity through acts of love, joy and nurturing. That's the purpose. Now in the later pages of his book, The Scientification of Love, that one there.
[39:10] We reach a section about what happens to us as humans when we can't fight our way out of or escape a situation that is challenging our sense of safety. As I was reading this, it brought me immediately back to visions of women who felt coerced and trapped and manipulated by their birth team, where they felt powerless to escape this circumstance during the conscious altering state of birth. The birth is so hormonally sensitive that the events that occur to women and their babies at this time can alter our physiology and contribute to our health or illness. And Michel explains that when fight or fleeing is impossible, the default behavior of humans is to passively submit.
[39:58] But passive submission changes us as people. And Michel identifies that passive submission creates a state of being that causes our health to deteriorate. And he cites some research papers as he talks about this. And Michel argues that there is an altered hormonal balance during uncontrollable adverse events under which the person loses hope and gives up. And he believes that this triggers an internal self-destructive process, which maybe now we believe and recognize as birth trauma. My heart just went out to women who have felt trapped in their birth experience with abusive or uncaring care providers. And where being unable to escape, they had to escape to passive submission in order to get through their experience. And Michel indicates that when this happens to a person, this creates a cascade of learned helplessness, of learned hopelessness and inhibition of action. It's a type of, he refers to it as the domestication of human beings, which occurs when we become too civilized and too polite in our behavior in order to escape circumstances that challenge our well-being.
[41:15] Not only in birth, but in other circumstances. But this is where he identified it in birth, is that people, women, start to enter into this state of learned helplessness that they take with them. And it becomes a self-destructive process if they get put in unsafe situations that they can't escape from, particularly when they're in the state of birth. In his conversations about this, Michel hints at the necessity of humans to be less willing to submit in situations that challenge our long-term health and that being in and protecting states of ecstasy such as birth and orgasm put us in a less helpless state throughout our lives in general.
[41:59] And Michel ends the scientification of love with a similar conclusion to the farmer and the obstetrician and that is to remind the reader that our priority should be to radically and urgently reconsider how babies are born in order to disturb as little as possible the interaction between the mother and her newborn. The most important obstacle to this, he believed, was a deep-rooted misunderstanding of birth physiology by the industrialized birthing machine, that is, modern-day maternity care. And Michel explains that our reason for anxiety should center around the fact that for the first time in history of humankind, Most women in many countries become mothers without releasing the complex cocktail of hormones of love, and the question must be raised in terms of civilisation. Michel Odent, obstetrician, asks, can humanity survive obstetrics? That's his big question. Can we survive medicalised birth? Can we survive obstetrics? Can we survive industrialised childbirth?
[43:09] He thinks, yes, that humanity has the key to invent new strategies for survival. But the simplest being, and what he suggests in his writings, is the valuing and prioritizing of physiological birth and being interested
[43:25] in disturbing birth as little as possible. He believes that a return of midwives to unobtrusive authentic midwifery and the adoption of authentic obstetrics where obstetricians have expert and honed skills to manage emergencies is the solution to this impending crisis okay change of pace now this is the last book of Michel's that i'll include today but i do encourage you to look at the full catalog of his books in the resource folder because we've put a full list of his books a full list of his resources and research papers that he's been a part of writing. It's a kind of time capsule of Michel Odent's work, hand-delivered to you. We're trying to preserve his information for future generations. I'll just make a note too, for those of us who don't believe or accept the idea of evolution, you might wish to skip some of Michel Odent's writings. He writes from an evolutionary perspective, believing that that's how humanity is developed through evolution.
[44:31] Not all people believe that the origin of man is through the process of evolution, but I don't believe that you don't have to take on his beliefs about evolution in order to understand the overall writings of his message. And even if you completely skip over all of his about evolution, you won't have missed the point of his work.
[44:54] Okay, so this is the book that I've chosen as my third favourite, this one here, Childbirth in the Age of Plastics. And in this book, in this third favourite book, Michel reminds us that birth practices exist within a complex web of knowledge, science, technology, culture, society, and that we are only in the situation that we are in today in birth because of the invention of plastic.
[45:23] Without plastic, our management of birth would look completely different. And this is what Michel Odent speaks about in this book, Childbirth in the Age of Plastics. Because he was old enough, he died when he was 95, he was old enough to recall the time in his career where plastic did not exist. And this put a clear limitation on the ways in which we could interrupt birth. But with the advent of plastic, the birth landscape changed dramatically. And Michel proposes that the use of plastics was the prerequisite for the current standardized medicalization of childbirth. It's so easy to interfere in birth these days because of plastic.
[46:04] Maybe do an audit. How much plastic do you use when you care for a woman? I mean, he says that today it is typical to visualize the laboring woman as a woman whose arm is connected via a plastic catheter to a plastic tubing to a plastic IV bag where the catheter has been introduced into her epidural space, through an epidural, for the administration of pain-relieving medication, and another plastic tube into her bladder as a urinary catheter. All of which was only possible because of the advent of plastic, which became more commonly used in medicine around the 1970s, so about 55 years ago. That's how old modern maternity care of childbirth is in this industrial age. There were obstetric tools before that, but plastic accelerated the medicalization of childbirth into what we see today. Was it necessary? I mean, if you ask Michel, no. So as Michel says in his book, when we are in an unprecedented situation such as this, the rapid medicalisation of childbirth, in his book referring to the advent of plastics.
[47:16] The priority is to ask appropriate new questions. And if Michel Odent did nothing else, he gave us appropriate new questions to think about. And Michel's first question is, is why are so many women being induced now? He wonders why so many modern women need substitutes for the natural labor hormones that are released in order to start and progress labor. And he asks, is it because their oxytocin system is disturbed?
[47:45] Is the capacity to effectively release oxytocin depleted from generation to generation as a result of modern birth practices, particularly the process of the medicalization of birth? He asks that if modern birth practices are fundamentally changing our bodies, He wonders, is that happening? And is this making it less and less possible for women to birth physiologically? Because we're changing the way we're born, does that also impact the way we labour and birth? And these modern generations have been born under medicalised management. That's the question he asks. and he also suggests though that a less sinister possibility for why so many women are being induced is that the application of artificial hormones upon birth is just simply cultural conditioning. That women have come to accept this circumstance, that maternity care providers have come to accept the use of induction and under the current situation when nearly 40% of women are being induced, if our physiology has not been changed, then we may be able to reverse the situation if we haven't in fact changed the fabric of our bodies by a history of careless interruptions in the birth process. So Michel believes that there are critical periods of human development.
[49:12] Pregnancy is obviously one of those, but so too is birth. And Michel is concerned that if we unscrupulously mess with the physiology and the process of birth, that we will also inadvertently mess with a critical period of development that will have long-term consequences on that baby and the mother. Michel asks in The Pharma and the Obstetrician, but also here in this book, The Childbirth in the Age of Plastics, what happens when you mess with moments of critical human development? Michel asked us to start thinking about the impacts on long-term civilization, just as he did in the scientification of love. So Michel reminds us that our capacity to love is a critical human trait, and he worried for society because we interfere with birth so much, a critical time for love and bonding and establishment of our oxytocin system. And that perhaps we're also interfering, when we interfere with birth, we're interfering with our long-term capacity to love out of interrupting our natural oxytocin systems. And Michel comments that there are critical moments in our development for gene and environment interactions. And these have an impact on our gene expression.
[50:27] And this is called epigenetics, where our gene expression can actually be changed as a result of what happens to us. Now, we know this. This is not a theory of his. We know for sure that how we're born has an impact on our epigenetics. So there's research about this. We know that this happens. Our epigenetics are affected for babies who have cesarean sections, for example. There's a change in their epigenetics based on how they're born. That's not even a doubt at this point.
[51:02] Now, Michel also makes a point, he talks a lot about autism. So I know Michel Odent's thoughts on autism might rub people up the wrong way, but his books and body of research have a focus on the oxytocin system. And in his theory, he has a theory that autism could be an alteration in the oxytocin system. And possibly we're seeing an increased number of children exhibiting autistic behaviors as a result of how we care for women and babies during birth. And that perhaps industrialized childbirth is contributing to this circumstance. Now, please don't take this as an uneducated statement or an insensitive discussion. I'm not a stranger to the experiences of autistic people. I have personal experiences with that. And I get it. I've got an intimate understanding of this. But in this book, In the Childbirth in the Age of Plastics, Michel explores the oxytocin system of our great-granddaughters in order to keep reiterating the potential long-term consequences of interfering with birth as it represents a critical stage in human development. And he keeps asking us not to forget that our actions on birth have consequences. Some are short-term and some are so long-term that we don't even care to look.
[52:29] But for those invested in the future of humanity, Michel asks the inevitable question of what happens to us when more women are giving birth by cesarean and induction than how our grandmothers used to give birth. With this rapid change in the amount of intervention due to the invention of things like plastic, what happens to us as a human race? So for the first time in our history, our species, less women rely on their own natural hormone cascade in labor than those who don't. So the scales have tipped. In other words, the human oxytocin system has become useless in a critical periods surrounding birth and he wonders if our capacity to give birth will diminish with each new generation. I mean, that's the question.
[53:17] By interfering in birth now, do we interfere with how those babies give birth? Are we fundamentally changing our capacity to give birth because we're messing with the oxytocin system at birth? Now, I don't think anyone has been so brave as to talk like this since Michel Odent wrote these things. And unfortunately, I think his knowledge is locked in his books and only a few people who will read the whole way through will even know to keep asking these questions. That's part of the motivation of me giving this summary, this summation of Michel Odent's life work. And while a lot of Michel's work gives warnings and points to possible calamity as a result of our careless attention to women's and babies' needs at birth, in this book, The Childbirth in the Age of Plastics, Michel offers some reasons for hope and optimism. It seems he feels that not all is lost and that there is time to put in place solutions and changes that could change the course of human history.
[54:18] And here is what the great Michel Odent believes is the solution to today's problem of the over-medicalization of birth in industrialized birth cultures. So, Michel believes that we are capable of change and that modern scientific disciplines have already demonstrated their capacity to change in many aspects of deep-rooted cultural conditioning. And he uses an example of how we used to culturally employ many practices that kept babies and mothers apart soon after birth, and that gradually over time, we've been able to shift that cultural norm as we gained a better understanding of the mother and baby dyad and the necessity to protect it if we want both mothers and babies to thrive. And he uses that as an example of the human capacity to at least understand the need for change and act upon it. So here's hope that this can occur in other areas, just as it did. We now keep mothers and babies together. We didn't used to. We used to cut cords early. Now there's a move towards optimal cord management.
[55:23] So that's the first point. He believes they're capable of changing. That's hopeful. Next, Michel believes that the solution to many of the problems that arise during childbirth are due to interruptions in the process. And if we just allow women to travel to that physical and mental other planet during labor and birth and quit talking to them constantly and overstimulating their neocortex, then we could rescue birth from the hands of medical dominance and rediscover the capacity to birth. And he reminds us that silence is a basic need of labouring women. If we could just shut up and allow the women's body to do what it needs, perhaps more often we would see it working. Now, Michel encouraged us to limit the use of language in the birth room and avoid coaching the woman. A change he acknowledged will not happen overnight, but rather might be ushered in by a gradual cultural change. But to start with, Michel invites us to take the important step of just avoid asking the woman questions.
[56:25] And as he gives an example of the kind of brain activation that happens when you ask a laboring woman a question, he suggests that it's like approaching a couple while they're engaged in lovemaking and they're in their pre-orgasmic state. And while their focus is on each other and they're coming closer and closer to climax, one of them interrupts or even an external person interrupts and asks what are we going to have for dinner he suggests that the neocortex brain activation that would occur would most definitely interfere with the time interval to orgasm due to the interference in that process and there is a flow that occurs that has to occur in order to reach orgasm and it's the same for birth if you get in the way of it, it takes time to get back into the flow and back on track and to climax or birth.
[57:21] So Michel also reminds us of the shyness of oxytocin. It needs privacy, darkness, peace, and time to express itself fully. And also Michel highlights the importance of the darkness hormone, melatonin. And it has a role in labor, as does oxytocin. And this is something I spoke about in detail. There was a whole episode of the Great Birth Rebellion podcast, episode 85, which is called Light Messes with Labor. He also reminds us that women don't respond well to being too closely observed and that giving priority to the basic need of not being observed would have many practical implications for birth outcomes and reduce the need for intervention. And Michel suggests that anything that has a focus on observing the woman including CTG monitoring and cameras and harsh lights it throws off the focus of oxytocin.
[58:24] Now the next thing that Michel believes we can do to turn the ship and elicit meaningful change for birthing women, is to understand the concept of emotional contagions in the birth space, and he believes it's important to realize that there is a point where the emotional states associated with the release of hormone, so anything that scares the woman or the people in her space, they're contagious.
[58:52] So one scared and heightened person can contribute to the fear and adrenaline response of the woman and the people in the room. And also, if you've been listening to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast for a minute, you'll already know that adrenaline is the antidote to the labor process. So Michel says, this implies that one of the main preoccupations of an authentic midwife should be to maintain her own level of adrenaline as low as possible. This is where Michel famously refers to the knitting midwife, where through engaging in a repetitive and menial activity such as knitting, there is a corresponding physiological response in the woman's body that creates a reduction in adrenaline, and this induces a state of relaxation in the midwife, something which is also contagious to the rest of the birth space. So, relaxing yourself aids in relaxing the woman and facilitating a more ideal birthing environment.
[59:54] So, Michel believes that the management of emotional contagions should be the priority of the midwife. Now, he also suggests that immersion of the woman in body temperature water is an effective way to induce relaxation in her, especially in circumstances where she's feeling overwhelmed by labor. He considers it a kind of circuit breaker of sorts and a technique that might help break a cycle of fear in the labor and birth space, especially in the presence of what the woman's experience is as extreme pain. It's an opportunity to come back to center and work through the challenges of hard labor. He acknowledges that it's a pain relieving activity and a physically relaxing moment that could ease labor. Think of it as a circuit breaker, something that can help the woman resettle and get back on track.
[1:00:51] Now, the next thing that Michel considers is the cultural conditioning of women to believe that they need a coach in order to give birth. Now, Michel warns against the social messaging that suggests to women that in order to birth safely, they need to listen to the expert in the room who will coach and guide them through the birth. Some women might want this. Maybe it's a cultural expectation. And Michel didn't suggest that women don't have care, but he spoke about this assumption that the expert had some kind of superior knowledge about the needs of the woman in labor and that she wouldn't be able to breathe or push and guide her baby out without some kind of expert talking her through it. He wants us to try and help women to shake off that idea and to believe in their own capacity again and to not keep taking on this messaging that women need a coach and a guide in order to get through it.
[1:01:46] Michel sums this all up so beautifully as he does so often because he has a magnificent way with words gosh if you've ever heard him speak he's just hypnotic with his accent and he says one cannot help an involuntary process like labor and birth but certain situations can disturb it this leads to realize that laboring women do not need direct active help they need mostly protection against any factor that might increase the levels of adrenaline or stimulate the neocortex.
[1:02:22] Michel Odent was a brave visionary, not afraid of asking questions about the long-term impacts of interventions during birth. And even now, we only seem to think in terms of a few hours or days or months or even years when we measure the impact of birth interventions on the health of women and babies. But Michel Odent encourages us to consider the generational impact and the impact upon our humanity and on our survival. He asked, can we survive obstetrics? If we keep interrupting the critical moments of birth and the hours after, what happens to us as a human race? Now, if you are interested in looking further into the full body of work of Michel Odent, his books and his research papers. Today's podcast resource folder acts as a time capsule of sorts where we've collated all the works of Michel Odent for you to easily access and I encourage you to click and read as much of his content as you can. Get hold of his books, consume them as a way of broadening your idea around pregnancy, birth and the needs of women and babies. He advocated for care providers to fully understand the basic needs of women in labour and birth and encourages us to cater to these and avoid interrupting the precious oxytocin system that is designed to give women and their babies a peak human experience and existence as a result.
[1:03:50] This has been my ode to a don't here on the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. May he rest in peace knowing that his work was meaningful and impactful. I will see you in the next episode of the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. To get access to the resources for each podcast episode, join the mailing list at melanithemidwife.com. And to support the work of this podcast, Wear the Rebellion in the form of clothing and other merch at thegreatbirthrebellion.com. Follow me, Mel, @MelanietheMidwife on socials and the show @TheGreatBirthRebellion. All the details are in the show notes.
This transcript was produced by ai technology and may contain errors.
Ā©2025 Melanie The Midwife
