In recent decades, a pathogenetic understanding of birth has become established. In the current medical context, the unique process of creation, which mother and child actively allow to happen in themselves and through themselves, is intervened in as if it were a risky - but plannable - "manufacturing process". It is said that it must be controlled closely and from the beginning according to standardized standards.

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Under the cloak of self-determination, the future mother is continuously asked to decide for or against possible measures and thus to delegate her particular "assets" to medicine.
A horizon of risks turns the time of good hope into an obstacle course of fears that distances her from her inner voice. So it is not surprising that many pregnant women find it difficult to grow into their natural and yet always individual rhythm.

In this reality, the needs of the child coming into the world are necessarily lost from view. Even more: the normative screening of prenatal diagnostics tends to dispose of the expected child.

The development of midwife assisted care towards a medical led care is not only problematic with regard to the birth itself. It also lastingly impedes the development of the parents' trust and self-confidence, their attitude towards the child and thus the establishment of a loving and confident ability to bond.

This counterproductive development must be resisted and counteracted. The only way to do this is to turn to the elementary needs of the little child. It is time to make sure that the so often invoked inner voice of the future mother is heard again.

(1) Lecture at the Round Table Symposium "Normal Birth", AKF 2014