Feminine Africa Voices – Caitlyn

Feminine Africa Voices: Caitlyn Collins | Mother and Midwife

How we are born ourselves and how our mothers are born into motherhood is very important and has a huge impact on society at large. I think it is something that through deeper exploration around midwifery and the history of midwifery its something that has or was a very sort of women-centered profession. In fact, I think it’s pretty much one of the oldest professions in the world and was always very much left to the wisdom of the women to take care of and at some point in time that was almost, consciously or unconsciously, sort of taken over by a more masculine energy and slowly but surely brought into this idea of having to give birth in institutions, being told when, how and what to do, rather than following our bodies and our internal wisdom in bringing our babies forth. And I think what has happened there has been a violence that has entered into the birth process which has an impact on us. So the work that I do, is working with women and their partners and families and their first unborn babies and then babies in a process that unfolds which is where the woman is at the center of the process and every one else around her is there to serve her in this big work that she is doing, bring a new human onto earth. In taking inspiration from just to kind of bring a metaphor to the idea of the woman being the center of the process, being inspired by elephants and how elephants give birth. When an elephant gives birth to it’s young all the other female elephants come around and they form a protective ring around her but they don’t watch her while she’s giving birth, they actually face outwards…