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•According to a 2003 report from the World Health Organization, the Innocenti Declaration recommends that babies continue to be breastfed for up to two years of age or beyond.
•According to the 1999 UNICEF report from the United Nations Children’s Fund, “the deep-rooted kinship systems that exist in Africa, extended-family networks of aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents, are an age-old social safety net for such (orphaned) children that has long proved itself resilient even to major social changes.”
Welcoming Eloi
Tiffany Teske
CanadaGALLERYCONVERSATION
In the year 1900, less than five percent of American births were in a hospital. Most women gave birth at home, under the care of midwives, who had always been the traditional childbirth attendants.

By 1939, fifty percent of all women and seventy-five percent of urban women chose to have their births in a hospital and by 1970 almost one hundred percent of births took place in the hospital*.

Pregnancy, a non-medical “condition”, has become the only reason to check into the hospital as a healthy person.

Recently in North America, more and more women are choosing to have their children at home, once again attended by midwives. Or, if they live in a place where this is not an option (it is actually against the law in many places in North America), they may choose to have a midwife attended birth in a birthing centre or at a hospital. Dr. Martine Dionne, a chiropractor, and her partner, Stephane, a physical education teacher, chose to have both of their sons at home, in Quebec. I was given the honor of photographing the birth of Eloi. The resulting photo essay, “Welcoming Eloi”, focuses on the couple’s decision to have a natural birth in the comfort of their own environment while surrounded by family. These images focus on the emotions of the participants during this six hour event.

I was moved by this experience. Many things surprised me. Axel, Eloi’s older brother, was there the whole time, and reacted as if his mother gave birth every day. Birth is beautiful. It can be done without drugs. It can be done without a “doctor”. Midwives require extensive schooling. There are choices. As a result of working on this project my husband, Andre and I, who lived in Quebec at the time, chose to have our daughter, Quinlyn, at a birthing centre, attended by a midwife. We now live in Canmore, Alberta, and plan to have our future children at home.

*Statistic from the Book “The American Way of Birth” by Jessica Mitford
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Pregnancy
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katie l hebert
United States
Latest Comment
i'm pregnant with twins girls and i'm due december 25 07
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