I'll Use My Own Skirt, Thanks

I don't know if you've noticed, but ever since I blogged about Midwifery and Epidurals the other day, birthing-device ads have been in heavy rotation up in the Google ad area. So I just went to one of the businesses that showed up up there that was advertising a birthing skirt. For $42.00 you can get a polyester/spandex, one-size-fits-most...well, skirt (check out the pictures on the site). Hiding as it will one's buttocks as one writhes in pain during childbirth, one is apt to have a more comfortable birth--the claim is--because your modesty/awkwardness issues will be taken care of. (As I bet most who've been in the position can attest, modesty flies out the window when one is trying to express a cantaloupe-sized head through an inadequately-sized aperture.)

What's more, insofar as the skirt comes with 8 colored beads that stand for love, beauty, confidence, courage, life, and intution (the numbers don't work out, beads to attributes, but I'm sure they know what they're doing), one can feel blessed by the skirt as well. The makers of the skirt write that "Having the blessing beads on your Binsi is very symbolic and powerful because they are near your baby and birth energy." Cool! And, "The beads can be added at your Blessingway Ceremony. Another addition to this already very symbolic ceremony." Hmmm. Blessingway Ceremony. I missed that one. The idea is that one should "focus on the beads during labor and feel the prayers and blessings strengthen and support you!" Yes, I'm sure that will help enormously.

Finally, I cannot deny that this birthing skirt would be, as its web site attests, a one-of-a-kind shower gift (actually, if you've invited the folks from your Blessingway Ceremony you may wind up with more than one of these things...), but seriously: should they really be marketing the skirt as a "Powerful Heirloom"? Is there anyone on this planet who would not be disgusted at the prospect of wrapping her mother's laundered birthing skirt around her own loins during childbirth? Forty-two bucks or no, I'd pop for a new one.

[technorati: birthing skirts, childbirth, natural childbirth]

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Comments

[Sandy Naidu]

1.

Enjoyed reading your post - lol !!!1