Childbirth and Orgasm, Unlikely Partners?

So here’s a topic I never thought I’d be writing about for Vibrator.com: childbirth. There’s a definite and obvious connection between sex and birth, of course. But for the most part, the former precedes the latter by approximately nine months.

A new documentary titled “Orgasmic Birth,” has been making the rounds of worldwide film festivals, even winning the Audience Choice Award at the 2008 Motherbaby International Film Festival in Bermuda, and it’s got many people looking at childbirth in a whole new light.

The film was produced by Debra Pascali-Bonaro, a childbirth expert, 26-year speaker in childbirth education, and a Lamaze-certified veteran in maternity care, as well as the mother of three sons. She asserts that childbirth does not have to be the painful, horror-filled experience that Hollywood often makes it out to be but instead can be a beautiful, sensual experience… the ultimate expression of love between a man and woman in the midst of creating a family.

The concept of an “orgasmic birth”—and yes, it means exactly what it sounds like it means—recently garnered mainstream attention on a 20/20 segment that aired on ABC. In the segment, one midwife reported that, in an informal, non-scientific survey, 21 percent of the women had orgasms during labor. The segment, shown here, chronicles a water birth in Hawaii, where the birthing mother experiences massage and complete relaxation during the birth. She admits that she never expected to achieve orgasm, but it happened nonetheless.

The hormones released during childbirth, including oxytocin, are the same ones released during sex, and can encourage these feelings of ecstasy under the right circumstances. Those circumstances include a 100-percent natural, drug-free birth in which the mother is relaxed, comfortable and free to allow her body to do what it is designed to do. An orgasmic birth, the ultimate extension of a natural childbirth, would be a “best-case scenario.”

The documentary is not pornographic, but it is intimate and explicit. It chronicles 11 birth stories, including water births, home births, and even mid-wife assisted births in birthing centers and features commentary from renowned childbirth experts including Ina May Gaskin, who is hailed as the mother of modern midwifery.

It’s understandable that someone’s first reaction to this concept might be disbelief or even disgust. As my husband said when I broached the subject, “That seems like two things that just shouldn’t go together.”

However, the event seems to be more sensual than sexual, the result of ultimate relaxation combined with stimulation of the same parts that are involved in the sex act. Both sex and childbirth involve incredible feelings of release after a tremendous build-up of pressure. Both—under ideal circumstances—involve immense love, albeit of a different nature, and the release of feel-good hormones. Both, when done right, involve simultaneous feelings of exhaustion, accomplishment and euphoria at their conclusion, bringing both participants (partners or mother and coach) emotionally closer.

Filmmaker Pascali-Bonaro calls childbirth an integral part of a woman’s sexuality and sensuality. What do you think? Can childbirth, under the right circumstances, be turned into an intimate, ecstasy-inducing act between a woman and her partner?

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