A liminal state is one dealing with the limen, or the threshold of a physiological or psychological response. Robbie Davis-Floyd recognizes pregnancy as a whole as a liminal state, encompassing physiology and psychology. Even more so than pregnancy, childbirth is a liminal state, and the moment of birth is a powerful limen for both woman and fetus. The woman goes from pregnant woman to a newly born mother, and the fetus, in the act of being born, becomes an infant or neonate. All the complex physiological changes in the baby that occur to transition s/he from womb life to extrauterine life start then. The mother’s body is likewise about to undergo tremendous physical changes as she goes from a pregnant state to a non pregnant state. We don’t know what kind of psychological changes the baby has, but the woman’s transformation to Mother (or Mother Again) is, if not completed, brought in huge leaps towards completion.
Beyond the intellectual knowing of these facts, the moments just before, during, and just after the birth can be otherworldly for the laboring woman. Many women cite feeling as if they were going to die, combined with a calm acceptance of the fact! Birth and death are intimately connected mysteries and with that in mind it does not seem so strange to imagine that the feeling of giving life also can bring the sense of leaving life. Other women feel as if they are going to literally split in two. While some part of them rationally knows that this will not happen, other parts of them remain convinced that this will happen at any moment. There is a transcendent and nebulous quality to perception in these moments that underlines the liminality of the event.
Physically, as the baby moves down and out of the woman, contraction patterns change. In most births, the woman does not even need to consciously push at all, though of course there is no harm in self-directed pushing if she feels she must. The uterus and the baby, working together, will bring the baby to the brink of being born, and then onwards. This has been termed the fetal ejection reflex and has been written about extensively by Michel Odent among other. Vertical positions tend to assist this reflex – standing, standing supported squat, and a full squat are some of the possible variations. The all-fours position also opens up the pelvis for the baby’s passage. The common positions used in the hospital, woman on her back with legs in stirrups or otherwise up in the air, or even in a semi-sitting position, actually lead to sacral compression and a narrowing of the pelvic outlet.
As the baby crowns, I feel that it truly is in one of the most threshold situations possible, matched only by the threshold at the end of life. In the mother, now feeling air, now back a bit. The baby crowns and the head is born. Partly outside the body – an infant – and partly inside the body – a fetus – the baby may start to breathe outside air, beginning the change in the circulatory system, even as the umbilical cord continues to function and provide oxygen. Not yet born, not still a fetus in the womb: babies could almost define “transitional state.”
The moment of birth, then, is one in which both the mother and the baby experience tremendous changes. Emotional impressions wash over the body even as immense physiological changes are triggered, but the reactions to this fact will vary. The fact remains, however, that this moment of birth is special, isolated from all others. The moment of birth is when one starts the process of becoming two.
